The Croft Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff provide children with a broad and carefully sequenced curriculum in this bright and spacious pre-school. They follow children's interests and carefully weave learning opportunities into the daily routine. Children delight in the opportunity to dress up for World Book Day and share their favourite stories with their friends. Staff recognise this important learning opportunity and thoughtfully add related items in order for them to develop skills across other areas. For instance, children enjoy reading 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears' and staff introduce themed play dough mats and a variety of tools. They encourage the children's creativity and ask them to think about what they might want to make. Children eagerly mould and shape the dough into blankets for Goldilocks and carefully position them onto the pictures of beds on the mats. This supports children to develop their small-muscle skills in readiness for future writing.

Staff are calm and nurturing and form strong bonds with the children. This helps to support their emotional well-being. Staff give clear and consistent messages to children and model good manners and expected behaviours very well. Children become deeply engrossed in their play and are thoughtful and caring towards their friends. They enjoy playing in the role-play café and delight in their opportunities to make pretend cups of tea for visitors. Children demonstrate fluency in their language skills as they converse amicably with their friends.

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

• The pre-school prides itself on being an inclusive setting. Staff are highly skilled at identifying and supporting children with special educational needs and/or disabilities and meeting children's individual needs. They make timely referrals and work closely with external professionals to provide tailored support for children. The manager acts with integrity in using the funding the setting receives and identifies resources that she considers will have the biggest impact on children's development. Resources and strategies are also shared with parents to strengthen the home learning partnership.
• Partnership working and information sharing is well-developed. The manager has forged strong relationships with the local schools. Teachers visit the children in the pre-school to get to know them in familiar surroundings. The children's key person discusses their individual progress and end of term reviews are shared with their new teachers. This helps to ensure an effective and smooth transition.
• The manager has implemented effective daily information sharing for parents. This helps to strengthen the partnership between home and pre-school. Parents are invited into the pre-school to read to the children and share their favourite stories. They speak highly of the supportive staff team and comment on the significant progress their children make. Parents have an enormous amount of praise in particular for the 'rising four's' sessions, which aim to further prepare children for school. This helps to develop, consolidate and deepen their knowledge and skills in school readiness.
• Staff support children to build on what they already know and can do and have high expectations for their progress. For example, children confidently recall aspects of previous learning, such as knowing that 'yellow means happy' after reading The Colour Monster. Children beam with pride as they receive praise for their recollection.
• The manager has implemented a regular programme of supervision and offers staff further training to enhance their practice and improve outcomes for children. However, she has not yet identified specific training to help to close all gaps in learning. For example, the manager has purchased resources to extend children's interest in mathematics. However, staff have not had specific training on mathematics in early years to be able to deliver this part of the curriculum effectively to support children to achieve the best outcomes in this area of learning.
• Staff support children to be kind and considerate of others as they become active members of the local community. Children go on walks to the local bakery and post office where they post letters, purchase items and get a receipt. These real-life experiences help children to develop confidence and a growing respect for different people. However, learning experiences for children to develop an understanding about cultures, faiths and traditions outside their own community have not been fully developed. This means some children do not always learn about diversity in modern Britain.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• identify training opportunities that have a specific focus on the areas of learning that children need to develop in order to sharpen the quality of education even further
• build on the current practice for supporting children to learn about communities, faiths, beliefs and traditions beyond their own.