Stepping Stones Pre-School (Harrow)

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff know children's individual needs and interests very well. They respond positively to children's interests by providing them with a range of age-appropriate toys and activities. Staff have a warm, friendly and welcoming approach. Children are happy and settled in their care. Staff tailor settling-in sessions to children's individual emotional needs. This process contributes significantly to how new children settle in quickly and build secure attachments to their key person and other children. Children have positive attitudes towards their learning and behave well. With the gentle guidance from their key person, younger children learn new routines and explore the setting with confidence. Older children are kind and caring. They happily share toys and resources with younger children.

Staff promote children's communication, language and literacy skills well. Children eagerly join in with listening to and acting out stories. They sing songs and rhymes several times during the day. Children demonstrate a positive attitude to learning new words, such as when they explore natural objects like dry leaves. They confidently use new words as they use scissors to cut down leaves because the 'stems are too long'. Staff build children's thinking skills and concentration span as they play memory games. Children have fun as they attempt to remember the hidden animal mother and baby pairs. This also helps to build on children's persistence.

What does the early years setting do well and what does it need to do better?

• Children make good progress across all areas of the curriculum. This includes children with special educational needs and/or disabilities and those children in receipt of additional funding. This is because staff have effective systems in place to monitor children's learning and development. Staff make thorough assessments, particularly in regard to children with communication and language development delays. This helps staff to identify and address any gaps in children's learning.
• Staff are experienced and teach enthusiastically. However, during some group activities, they attempt to move children on too quickly from one idea to the next. For instance, during an adult-led activity, some children do not engage or focus on grouping animals into their habitats. Therefore, some activities do not entirely promote children's engagement at the highest level. However, children enjoy following their interests in exploring paint. They become immersed in printing with their hands and the feet of toy animals.
• Children develop good independence skills. For instance, they help themselves to toys and resources that meet their interests. During routine times of the day, children serve themselves healthy snacks and pour out their own drinks independently. They follow consistently good hygiene practices. This further supports younger children to learn how to manage their personal needs, such as washing their hands before eating and after messy play.
• Staff plan weekly outings to help children to learn about their local community. Children also take part in learning about different festivals and faiths throughout the year. They learn to respect other people and their own unique way of life. Staff develop children's early literacy skills very well. For instance, staff model drawing and writing as children make marks with coloured pens and chalk. Children confidently ask staff for help to spell their names.
• Children make good progress in their problem-solving skills. They identify numbers and shapes, match and compare and complete puzzles during their play. In the garden, children explore water and sand play and musical instruments. Staff provide safe areas where children can practise their balancing skills, enjoy riding wheeled toys and climb small apparatus. Children develop many of the skills required for their future learning.
• The manager and staff have strong partnerships with parents, which supports their active involvement in their children's learning. Parents state that they feel fully involved and informed about their children's daily experiences, next steps in learning and achievements.
• The manager is proactive, hard working and has high expectations of her staff. Staff are well supported, and their professional development is actively encouraged. There are basic processes in place for self-evaluation, and some areas for development have been identified. However, leaders have not developed this practice even further to ensure that staff, parents and committee members work together to offer even better experiences for children.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• plan group activities to ensure that all children fully engage and benefit from the learning opportunities
• build on the current self-evaluation process and include parents' and staff's views and ideas to help to shape future developments.