Tilly's Preschool Limited

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are happy, confident and independent. Staff provide a welcoming and engaging environment, which children happily explore throughout the day. Staff support children's emotional and social well-being. For example, they encourage sharing skills and provide comfort when needed. Children explore with their friends and engage in activities with staff. They share their thoughts and experiences, such as role playing in the home-corner cafe, or engaging in activities that follow the theme of 'All About Me'.

Children make good progress because staff have high expectations of what they can achieve. This includes children who receive additional funding and those that have additional support from external professionals. Staff ensure that all children, especially those with special educational needs and /or disabilities (SEND) and who speak English as an additional language, understand the routine and where to find resources. For example, staff use a visual timetable and label all of the toy boxes with picture and word labels.

Staff place a key focus in the curriculum on communication and language development and preparing children with skills to be ready for school. For example, they encourage children to use self-registration boards. Children are very independent and confident in their routine. They put their belongings away on their labelled pegs, help to tidy up and put their own lunch boxes away in the morning. The key-person system is well embedded. Staff have secure bonds with children. Children behave well. They show high levels of interest and positive attitudes to their learning.

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

• Staff plan a variety of activities that scaffold children's learning experiences. For example, they create an art table, which follows the theme of a book about sharks that children previously enjoyed. This has a positive impact on children's progress and supports them to achieve their next steps in development.
• Children have access to water, sand, sensory and malleable play throughout the day, including play dough and painting. Children with SEND benefit from the sensory activities, such as pressing on the sequin board and running their fingers through the texture. Staff plan these experiences to encourage children to be expressive and creative.
• Staff reflect on the planning each week with leaders. They discuss if children's learning goals have been met or if they need to adapt the activities. This ensures that all children make progress and reach their personal developmental milestones, which key persons create with parents and carers' input.
• Staff have an ambitious curriculum in place, which has a key focus on children's communication and language, independence, social skills and school readiness. However, staff do not support children in other areas of learning as consistently, such as mathematics, For example, at times, they do not develop children's counting skills further.
• Leaders are aware of the limitations they have on promoting physical play outdoors due to the garden size. They, therefore, implement some activities indoors, such as dancing. However, leaders have not considered how to extend the curriculum for physical development to include other skills, such as balancing, skipping, running and engaging in risky play. This does not support children to practise a range of physical skills.
• Staff support children to understand healthy eating habits. For example, they engage children in conversations about good food choices. Staff provide children with a healthy option snack trolley that they have access to for a rolling snack time.
• Parent partnership is strong and important to staff. Staff create monthly newsletters, post daily activities, have frequent discussions about children's progress and use interactive systems, such as whiteboards, to relay key messages. They work closely with parents. For example, staff provide a lending library and post daily ideas for activities that families can easily access. This helps children to continue their learning at home.
• Leaders are ambitious about staff's professional development. They provide good opportunities for staff's training and development. This has a positive impact of children's learning.
• Staff meet children's personal and care needs well. For example, they use privacy boards for nappy changing. Staff encourage children to wash their hands before meals, as well as providing comfort and reassurance when needed. This helps children to develop their self-care skills.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• provide opportunities to support children's physical play and development further, indoors and outdoors
• develop the curriculum to support children's early mathematical learning and development more consistently.