The Chesterfords Community Preschool

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The caring and nurturing staff team creates a warm and welcoming environment where children settle well. Children actively seek out their key person when they arrive at the pre-school. This demonstrates the strong bonds they have formed. Learning opportunities are created using children's interests and key topics that the pre-school follows. Practitioners enhance learning, and, as a result, children remain at activities for long periods.

The pre-school has a real community feel, and children are right at the heart of all that staff do. Staff use the local community area to build on children's knowledge of the world around them. This includes accessing the 'nature space' and visiting local shops and amenities. A visit to the local library enhances children's love of books.

A well-established routine allows children to understand what is expected of them at different times through the day. During play, staff encourage children to take turns, and they provide sand timers for children to manage this independently. Staff offer children praise when they are kind to each other and practise good behaviour. As a result of the strategies put in place, children's behaviour is kind and age-appropriate.

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

• Staff demonstrate a good understanding of the children in their care. They confidently talk about the children's learning and plan experiences to build on the skills and knowledge they already have. Staff talk about children's next steps in their learning and how they support children. However, children's next steps are broad in their focus. This means that, at times, gaps in areas such as language development are not always given priority.
• Staff awareness of their cohort and demographic enables them to plan a curriculum that builds on children's knowledge of themselves and others. Staff talk to children daily about their emotions and how they are feeling. They support this with 'colour monsters' and emotion cards when children are struggling to understand how they feel. Parent visits to the pre-school help children learn about other cultures and religions. Children enjoy experiencing festivals first hand, such as making dragons to celebrate Chinese New Year.
• Children of all ages access books. There is a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction books readily available to children. Staff encourage children to take time to read books independently and teach them how to hold books. Staff talk to children about how to use the pictures to help tell a story. Group story time is completed daily. Staff build on children's knowledge of familiar books and ask children questions to help them revisit what they know and can remember.
• Children at the pre-school have a clear love of books.
• The pre-school staff are keen to ensure that children develop healthy lifestyles. They look at ways to make exercise and healthy eating fun and enjoyable. A local sports coach provides children with a weekly class, where they build on their physical skills. The 'nature space' is an allotment area where children grow their own fruit and vegetables. From 'seed to plate' they take care of their vegetables and delightfully make vegetable soups and fruit jam with their accomplishments.
• Parent partnerships are a key strength of the pre-school. There are a wide variety of communication techniques used to support information-sharing. Staff meet regularly with parents to share information about their children's development and look at ways in which parents can support their children at home. Parents describe the staff team as being the 'making of the wonderful pre-school'. They would not send their children anywhere else.
• The leadership team supports staff well-being effectively. Staff talk of the love they have for their roles and enjoy completing the training opportunities made available to them. The leadership team completes regular supervision sessions with staff. However, the team does not always focus supervision targets to build on staff practice to ensure that the quality of teaching is always at the highest level.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to develop their knowledge and ability to set next-step targets that build on the areas children need to develop the most
• focus supervision targets more precisely to support staff and raise the quality of their teaching to the highest level.