Swallow Risers Playgroup and Out Of School Club

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children walk eagerly and happily up the path to this friendly setting, where they are welcomed by staff. Staff promote children's positive attitudes to learning well, encouraging and praising them. This supports their engagement and motivation. Children delight in joining in with sports day, proudly sharing their medals with their friends. Staff ensure that children are safe. They remind children to take their water bottles and hats outside when playing in the sun. Children follow the routines of the setting well. They wait for their friends to have their turn, share the dressing-up toys together and behave well.

Staff use children's interests to plan an ambitious curriculum that includes every child. For example, children's interest in learning about people who help them was extended by staff to promote children's understanding of stranger danger. This supports children's understanding of the wider world. Staff successfully prioritise children's language and communication, physical, social and independence skills. For example, children hold thoughtful and sensitive conversations with staff about the Titanic and submersibles. Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) are well supported. All children make good progress and quickly become confident communicators.

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

• Leaders and managers are proactive in seeking advice and support from external agencies. They have prioritised accessing local authority guidance to support practice and provision. This is having a positive impact on young children's learning and development and the opportunities staff provide. Leaders and managers talk highly of the support they receive from the committee.
• Children benefit from warm, positive staff, who celebrate all children's cultures and home languages. Staff encourage parents to provide words in their home languages to help children who speak English as an additional language to settle in. Staff speak different languages to support children's understanding. This promotes children's emotional well-being.
• Parents talk highly of their children's key person and the relationships that they have. They appreciate the support they receive to help their children with some aspects of their development at home, such as toilet training. They talk highly of the progress their children have made and the 'little touches' that staff provide, such as making individual cards for family members. However, staff have not fully embedded opportunities for parents to be more involved in their children's learning at the setting and at home.
• Staff say they enjoy their jobs. They say that leaders and managers are approachable. They work well together. They welcome the opportunities they have to develop their own skills and knowledge and to gain additional qualifications. However, at times, newer staff do not receive enough information to make sure they understand specific children's next steps. This does not ensure that all staff have a thorough and consistent understanding of children's needs.
• Children benefit from staff successfully prioritising gaps in learning following the COVID-19 pandemic. Staff understand their local community well. For example, they invest in new resources for the outdoor space to support children who do not have outdoor access at home. They have plans to enhance it further to support children's physical skills.
• Staff prioritise one-to-one support for children with SEND to ensure they make good progress. They are swift and timely in accessing additional support. They have effective transition processes in place to support children going to school. This supports children's understanding of their next steps.
• Children remain focused and engaged for a sustained period of time when playing together with a doctors kit. They explained confidently what happens in 'surgery' and how doctors help people. Staff plan a range of outings to support children's wider experiences. For example, they go on the bus to the theatre and visit a local farm.
• Staff share songs and stories with children. Children delight in using musical instruments to join in with favourite rhymes. Staff use books to interest children, who confidently join in when listening to a story. Staff extend children's thinking. They ask questions and give children time to respond. They use words such as 'gusts' when explaining about the wind outside.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen arrangements for sharing information to support new staff so that they have a firm understanding of children's individual learning needs from the outset
• strengthen the arrangements for involving parents in their child's learning in the setting and at home.