Templegate Tiny Tots Pre School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The quality of education provided by the pre-school is excellent. Experienced practitioners are skilled and knowledgeable at meeting the needs of all children who attend. Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities in particular, make superb progress. Children experience a wide range of exciting, fun and innovative activities through a superbly ambitious curriculum. The team have created a purposeful and challenging environment that supports children's emotional well-being as well as their learning. For example, children attend forest school on a regular basis. They embrace the natural world, learn to care for their environment and creatures with whom they share the area. Children enjoy music sessions, learning new songs and developing an understanding of rhyme and rhythm. Children are active learners. They experience the life cycles of ducks and butterflies first hand and learn new techniques used by different artists. They create their own artwork using materials, such as charcoal and photographs.

Practitioners have high expectations of children and communicate this in a clear, sensitive and consistent manner. Children demonstrate superb behaviour. They listen to instructions, follow boundaries, are independent, active, capable and enthusiastic learners who thrive in this nurturing pre-school. Children develop a positive attitude to learning, having the freedom and autonomy over where to explore and with which resources. Through careful questioning, practitioners help children to think and learn about different concepts, supporting them to test out their ideas.

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

• The quality of education is excellent. Assessment and tracking is implemented by staff to the highest standard and gaps in individual children's learning are supported through tailored interventions. This helps all children make superb progress.
• The manager and staff continue to strive for excellence. Practitioners complete high-quality training around communication and language skills, delivered as a whole-team approach. Practitioners themselves demonstrate excellent communication skills, increasing children's vocabulary at every opportunity. Children develop a love of reading and learn about topics that interest them, such as space.
• Children's safety is of paramount importance. Practitioners understand how to keep the environment safe for the children and help them recognise danger for themselves. When crossing a car park to access forest school, children stop, listen and look for any moving vehicles. They do so with little prompt from practitioners as it is embedded in their routine.
• The manager nurtures her staff team, aware of the importance of monitoring and supporting their well-being. Practitioners feel valued and cared for, confident to share any concerns they have about a positive work-life balance.
• Children are well supported to move into the pre-school through home visits before joining, as well as arranging a shared communication process for any receiving schools when they move on. This helps to provide a seamless move into and then onwards from the pre-school. It means that important information about individual children is shared, helping them to settle quickly.
• Practitioners communicate very well with each other and have developed a highly reflective practice. Parents and children are asked about their thoughts on the pre-school and how this can be improved. For example, parents fed back about timings of stay-and-play sessions and the manager amended the process following feedback to improve attendance. This constant analysis and drive for excellence is evident in all areas.
• Parents feel that celebrating diversity and being an inclusive pre-school is truly embedded into everything the manager and staff deliver. It is evident that this is an intrinsic part of their ethos and seamlessly incorporated into their daily activities.
• Parents talk with great pride and fondness about the pre-school. They give varied examples of the team giving ideas of how to support their child's learning at home. They feel lucky that their child has had the opportunity to be part of the pre-school and talk with great enthusiasm about how nurturing and caring the practitioners are to their children and themselves. Information about their child is shared through a variety of ways, which helps keep families up to date about any accidents or forthcoming events happening in the pre-school.
• The manager and staff implement various policies that promote children's health. These include a stringent lunch box policy, choosing fresh fruit for snack and being mindful of the impact sugar has on children's teeth.