The Villages Pre-School Ltd Eldwick

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children progress well in their learning, overall. Children aged over two years, in particular, take part in a highly challenging, motivating, and expertly constructed curriculum. Consequently, they gain an abundance of knowledge and skills for their future learning. For example, children concentrate intently as they explore and test out their ideas, and they make choices from a rich range of resources and activities. Books, stories and songs play a key role in developing children's communication and language across the nursery. Older children develop wonderful friendships and express impressive language as they play harmoniously. For example, they solve problems while completing large floor puzzles. Children develop their large and small physical skills while creating a balancing obstacle course together and using fine paint brushes.

Children who are new to the nursery settle very quickly. They have secure attachments to staff, who greet them warmly. This helps them to feel safe and secure. For instance, toddlers place their photographs on their coat pegs before happily waving 'bye-bye' to their parents. Children over two also follow familiar and consistent nursery routines. Staff support them through an array of photograph displays. They plan daily routines exceptionally well to develop children's independence skills, in readiness for school. Children's behaviour is excellent. They follow staff's high expectations and help to create the nursery rules, which staff display and reinforce daily. Staff sensitively support younger children learning to share and take turns, for example, as they send toy cars down plastic guttering.

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

• Staff gain a wealth of important information from parents to help children settle in. Thereafter, they meticulously observe and assess children's progress and take swift action to help those working below expectations to catch up. This includes, for example, implementing targeted in-house 'nurturing development' plans and supporting parents to make prompt referrals to other professionals.
• Staff work tirelessly to support and include children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. They use excellent early interventions that include speech and language initiatives. Staff work in a first-class partnership with parents and others. For example, they create 'special' resource boxes and use pictorial aids to help overcome communication barriers.
• Staff's qualifications and opportunities for continued professional development have a particularly positive impact on children aged two and above. For example, staff use challenging questions that encourage children to develop early mathematical skills during water play. They effectively adapt group activities that help children learn about emotions and feelings.
• The setting now take children from the age of one, and numbers have increased two-fold since September. Generally, staff have a well-planned and sequenced curriculum. However, they do not plan some aspects of the curriculum for younger children as precisely, to ensure that they consistently benefit from the same high-quality support as those who are older.
• Staff inspire parents to support children's learning. They share a wealth of information through various channels, including an online app, displays, progress meetings, and newsletters. Staff share activity ideas and resources, including book bags and videos where they model practice.
• Staff deepen children's knowledge and recall of learning in a variety of inspiring ways. For example, they capture activities and real-life experiences, such as a visit from the police, within displays. Staff plan exciting activities around a breadth of topics and children's favourite stories.
• The provider does not effectively make the best use of available space and resources in the under two's room. This means that children sometimes lose focus and cannot move around as freely, especially given the focus on their physical development.
• Staff plan exciting activities in the nursery's community garden that help children develop a superb understanding of the world around them. For example, children learn about the wonders of the changing seasons and life cycles, and observe the diverse species of insects and birds that access the feeding station.
• Staff help children to develop healthy lifestyles exceptionally well. For example, children learn about maintaining good oral health through displays, stories, activities, and brushing their teeth in nursery. They harvest a wide array of fruit and vegetables, which they use during cooking sessions.
• Children have extensive opportunities to learn about their own uniqueness and the diversity of the world in which they live. For example, staff teach them about a different country each week and ask families for photographs of the special places they have visited, to display and talk about.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• focus teaching and the curriculum more precisely on supporting younger children's individual learning needs, to optimise their progress
• improve the organisation of space and resources to increase younger children's engagement and enable them to move around more freely.