Sunshine Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

As children arrive, they are greeted warmly by staff. Children are encouraged to bring in comforters to help them settle and feel secure in staff's care. This includes children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Children say they like playing with toy bricks, explaining how they build their tower 'higher and higher'.

Children show that they enjoy playing outdoors. They are supported by staff to develop their balance and coordination. For example, when children walk across wooden planks, staff hold their hands for support and to promote their safety. Children follow staff's suggestions in their play to challenge their physical skills. For example, children laugh when they hold a hoop at the end of a slide for other children to slide through. Staff help them to understand how to stand safely and wait patiently until it is their turn on the slide. This support helps to promote positive behaviour and children's safety when they use larger apparatus. Children learn about shapes when they play alongside staff with magnetic toys. They are supported to understand what they build, such as a cube. Children are encouraged to have a positive attitude to trying new things. For example, when staff ask children to crush leaves in their hands, they encourage them to keep trying.

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

• The manager and staff reflect on their practice. They identify improvements that have a positive impact on children's learning. Recent changes include staff offering children activities to follow their interests. Staff recognise that this helps children learn more because they are interested in what they are doing. For example, when children are interested in natural materials outdoors, staff provide logs and sticks for children to use with play dough indoors.
• The manager and staff identified that when children returned to the pre-school after the COVID-19 pandemic, some needed support with their speaking skills. Staff use their interactions with children to help close these gaps. For example, they hold conversations with children that help them to remember and talk about previous events, such as trips to a zoo.
• Staff know the children well and support their development well overall. However, some children who speak English as an additional language (EAL) are not supported as well as others. For example, staff do not use keywords in all children's home languages to help them develop a sense of belonging and to support their language development.
• Staff use their curriculum to help children learn skills ready for their move on to school. For example, staff encourage children to put on their coats and to attempt to fasten buttons and zips. Children pour their own drinks at snack time and make choices about what they want to eat.
• Staff help children to be emotionally ready for changes that occur during the day. For example, they shake a tambourine when the daily routine changes, such as when it is time to sit on the carpet for group times. However, during some planned group activities, staff do not support all children to remain focused and interested. For example, when staff read a story, some children turn around and watch others playing. This means they do not learn as much as possible from the activity.
• Staff praise children for their achievements. For example, when children help to tidy up the role-play area, staff thank them for helping. When children struggle to play with toys with their peers, staff remind them to share. This helps children to understand what staff expect of them.
• Children with SEND are supported well by staff and meet their individual learning needs. The manager spends additional funding that some children receive to help meet their needs. For example, resources are purchased to provide children with sensory play opportunities to encourage their concentration.
• Parents provide positive comments about the staff and their children's experiences. They say that staff are friendly and that they are supported to continue their children's learning at home.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen staff's knowledge of how they can support all children who speak EAL with their language development and sense of belonging
• help staff to support all children to remain focused and interested during group times.