Thundridge Preschool Ltd

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff happily welcome children. Families are an important part of the setting. Staff know about children's home lives and talk to them about their families, enhancing their sense of belonging. They place family photos for children to look at. Staff use the information from home visits to plan activities that they know children will like. Children are keen to explore and start their day of learning and playing. Children are keen to have a go at developing new skills and staff are always close by to help if needed. This helps to build children's self-confidence. They show a positive attitude to learning and are ready to explore. Staff have adapted the paint bottles, so that children can tip the paint bottles upside down and squeeze paint into a pot. Children enjoy mixing paints and discussing the changes they see when mixing them together.

The curriculum to support children's personal, social and emotional development is good. Staff teach children how to recognise difficult feelings and manage frustration. For example, they talk to children about using 'kind hands and feet'. They encourage children to use the cosy sensory spaces to calm down if they need it.

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

• Leaders are clear about the curriculum intent and, overall, staff implement this well. Staff plan the environment to support children's development. They use children's interests when planning activities. However, not all staff are fully aware of the intended learning to help children to stay engaged. They do not directly teach children the skills and knowledge children need to learn from the activity. Consequently, some children wander around the room from one activity to another.
• Staff raise any emerging gaps in children's learning with leaders and seek additional support when necessary. This enables staff to work in partnership with parents and other professionals to devise strategies and to help reduce gaps in learning.
• Children are beginning to understand the daily routines. They recognise the song that indicates they need to help tidy up. They know they need to wash their hands before snack time. Children show pride as they are given tasks to help put the place mats on the table. They are encouraged to share, take turns and be kind to each other.
• Staff organise the outdoor space well. Children dig in the sand and find hidden toy animals. Children explore the outside space and design their own games while practising their physical skills. For example, some children sit on bikes and ride down the slope, while others release cars from the top to see who gets to the bottom first.
• Children develop good communication and language skills to help prepare them for the next stage in their learning. They introduce children to new words and sentences through everyday conversations, songs and stories.
• Children demonstrate their love for reading as they freely access a range of books and ask staff to read to them or look at the pictures and tell their friends about the story.
• Staff model and promote counting, sorting and number recognition. Children learn about numbers and mathematical language as they link up play elephants using the trunks and tails. Staff help children to sequence the elephants by number, colour or size.
• Partnerships with parents are good. Parents appreciate the regular updates they receive when they come into the setting to drop off and collect their children. They value the home visit, which they report helps their children to settle quickly into the pre-school, when they first attend. Parents report they bring back siblings due to the support they have had in the past.
• Leaders provide a range of training opportunities for staff. Leaders work alongside staff each day. They make suggestions, in the moment, about what staff can do differently to support children's learning. That said, staff do not have clear and precise targets to help them understand how they can raise the quality of their teaching further.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• focus staff's teaching during children's play to help children fully benefit from the intended curriculum, so that children make even more progress
• enhance the support and coaching offered to staff to better target gaps in their teaching practice.