The Pier Head Prep Montessori School Limited

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children enter the setting happy and excited to start their day. They are warmly welcomed by staff with smiles, hugs and cheerful greetings. Staff form very strong relationships with children, which helps them to feel safe, settled and secure. For children who are still beginning their journey with the setting, the key-person relationship is effective in ensuring that children know who they can seek out if they need comfort or reassurance. This allows children the confidence to begin to go off and explore the varied learning experiences on offer as part of the setting's ambitious curriculum.

Staff have high expectations for children. They encourage them to be independent, such as by hanging their coats up when they return from the garden and washing their hands. Children's behaviour is good. They enjoy seeking others out to play and begin to form friendships with others. In the garden, older children play ball games together, laughing in delight as they throw the ball to each other higher and higher each time. Children understand the rules of play and that resources need to be shared. They ask if they can have a turn next and wait patiently until their friends have finished.

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

• All staff at the setting are passionate and driven to ensure that all children can access a broad curriculum that gives them the best start to their early education. They use their indoor, outdoor and local area to provide exciting and versatile experiences to teach children about the world around them and what makes them special and unique.
• Staff know children well. Accurate baseline assessments when children start, as well as gathering information about children's interests, allows staff to plan meaningful activities that build on what it is children need to learn next. Staff monitor children's learning and development regularly and share information with parents to continue to ensure that appropriate and challenging next steps are in place for children. Children are well prepared for the next stage of their learning.
• Staff are enthusiastic in their engagement with children. For instance, in the garden, they blow large bubbles for children to count and pop or are down at children's level mixing 'potions' in a large tray. Staff are constantly thinking about how they can continue to provide exciting opportunities for children to keep them engaged and focused on their play and learning.
• Staff are sensitive to children's care routines. They work collaboratively with parents to make sure that potty training is a positive experience for children. Staff make nappy changing routines exciting, such as by offering lots of songs and conversations while they change children. At sleep times, children have their own comforters, and staff rock or soothe them to sleep, just as they would be at home before they transition to their travel cots.
• Overall, the curriculum for communication and language is good. Staff support children, especially those who speak English as an additional language, to develop wide vocabularies through lots of repetition and narrative in their play. Staff introduce new words in context as children take part in activities. However, when staff converse with children, their questioning is sometimes too closed and does not fully give children the opportunity to share and recall what they know and understand.
• Children are confident and independent learners. They purposefully select the resources they would like from the shelves and sit down to complete them. Children show sustained levels of concentration as they use their problem-solving skills to work out difficult tasks, such as a depth perception mathematical puzzle. Staff are skilful facilitators of children's play. They stay close by in case children need support but allow them to achieve through trial and error.
• Partnership with parents is good. Parents speak highly of the long-standing, nurturing team and the positive relationships staff develop with all children. They feel well informed of their children's learning and development in the setting and how they can continue to challenge their children's learning at home.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• consider how questions are asked to enable children greater opportunity to share their knowledge and understanding of what they have learned.