The Willows Pre-School Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children show positive relationships with staff. When they arrive, they are greeted warmly by staff, who offer open arms for cuddles when children need this. Children are supported to understand how they are unique. For instance, staff help them to identify different hair styles. Children learn that their hair is shorter because it has curls and bounces upwards.

Children show positive attitudes in their play and are supported to persevere when they struggle to find solutions to problems. Staff support children during these times, offering suggestions. When children use pens to create artwork, they remember previous learning, explaining to visitors that they need to put the lids back on pens or else they will dry out. Children invite staff to join their play, who model how to play cooperatively with others. Children show kindness to their peers, such as by picking daisies in the garden for them.

Children who speak English as an additional language benefit from staff finding out words in their home languages and using these, alongside English, to support their understanding of routines when they first start. Children's home traditions are celebrated in the pre-school, helping children to have a sense of belonging and for other children to learn about other people's cultures.

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

• Staff are supported to build on their knowledge of how to help children learn. For instance, they attend staff meetings to increase and embed their understanding of the curriculum. This includes staff helping children to explore and investigate nature. For instance, when staff help children to notice squirrels and ladybirds in the garden, they explain what the animals eat.
• Staff are skilful at challenging children's learning, such as to develop their physical skills. For instance, they provide children with bottles that squirt water. Children use the muscles in their hands to make marks on the ground. Staff ask children to extend their abilities, such as accuracy, when they hold the bottles at a different angle to squirt the water into hoops that are on a wall.
• Staff gather information about children's interests from parents. This helps them to build on children's interests when they first start and throughout their time in the pre-school. However, staff do not use information obtained from parents about children's abilities when they first start or ask for ongoing information about children's abilities at home. This will help staff to plan more precisely for children's development.
• Prior to children moving on to school, staff arrange for teachers to visit the children in the pre-school. This helps to develop children's confidence as they get to know and interact with the person who will be caring for them.
• Children show that they understand staff's expectation for their behaviour. This includes children sitting when they eat, washing their hands prior to eating and using good manners. If children do show any negative behaviours, staff help them to understand how to play positively, such as to use their feet to kick balls and their hands to show kindness.
• Overall, staff support children's communication skills well. For example, they talk to children when they play alongside them. However, sometimes, staff's interactions do not fully build on children's language skills. For example, at times, staff say the incorrect sounds of letters and when asking some questions, staff do not wait for children to respond.
• Improvements have recently been made to the pre-school to increase learning opportunities for children outdoors. For instance, staff provide experiences for children to learn how foods grow, such as beans and herbs. Children help staff to water plants and explain to visitors that it will make them grow. Staff provide children with herbs to explore in their play, such as in their role play experiences and when making pretend potions. Children give herbs to the cook to include in the nutritious meals she offers, promoting healthy eating.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen partnerships with parents, using what parents already provide when children start and gathering ongoing information about children's abilities at home, to help plan more precisely for their development
• support staff to develop their interactions with children to help build on their language skills.