Tiny Steps Pre School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children love to come to this stimulating and nurturing setting. They happily play by themselves and with their friends. Children behave well and learn to be considerate of others. For example, children share their toys fairly by using a sand timer. They make good progress from their individual starting points.

Children are keen learners. They ask relevant questions that help deepen their understanding. Staff are sensitive and responsive to children's needs. Children freely explore the variety of interesting activities on offer. They are consistently supported to develop their imagination. For example, children make pretend cakes with natural objects in the outdoor mud kitchen and then 'bake' them in the toy oven. They are encouraged by staff to use a sand timer to understand that baking needs to be timed. This helps children to make connections with real-life events.

Children learn to adopt a healthy lifestyle. They are given many opportunities to be physically active and enjoy the fresh air. Children run, balance and climb with increasing competency. This is further extended as children use the larger equipment at the local park. Children have access to a sorting game of cards with a variety of foods on. They decide on which are healthy and understand that some treat foods should be limited to keep their teeth healthy.

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

• Leaders and staff place a high priority on the development of children's communication and language skills. Leaders have identified that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, children need extra support in their speaking and social skills. Staff model these skills well, which has helped children to become more capable of holding interesting two-way conversations with others. Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) show improvements in their speech due to the individual interventions in place, such as the use of familiar phrases from their favourite books. Children hear the phrases and repeat these independently.
• Staff gather comprehensive information from parents when children start at the setting. This information is used to assess what children know and can do. Staff skilfully use their assessments to plan specific activities matched to children's next steps in learning. Leaders readily seek advice from other professionals so that children's individual needs are catered for. Good-quality support is provided by speech and language therapists and early years advisers. This helps to ensure that all children are able to achieve well.
• Leaders are passionate about providing opportunities that children may not have experienced before, which helps to enhance children's knowledge and development further. Leaders and staff have worked together to devise an ambitious curriculum with 10 curriculum goals for children to work towards, for example 'to build a den'. This helps to provide children with skills for the future.
• Staff actively interact with children to develop their mathematical skills and understanding through appropriate activities. For example, children count scoops of rice to fill containers of different sizes and begin to make simple comparisons. However, staff do not consistently provide opportunities to extend children's learning even further. Staff, on occasions, have a tendency to talk too much when engaged with groups of children. They do not consistently allow children the opportunities to think critically, follow their own ideas and solve problems, when posed with a challenge.
• Leaders are dedicated to continual improvement. Staff feel valued and comment on the leaders being receptive to their needs. Leaders monitor staff's practice and provide them with training to improve their curriculum delivery. However, leaders do not fully consider tailored support for individual staff to take their practice to a higher level. This means that staff are not as well equipped with strategies to teach to their best and enable all children to make even better progress.
• Parents speak highly about the care and education their children receive at the setting. They are impressed with the advice and support staff give them, for example when toilet training. Parents commend the staff's nurturing approach and say that their children make good progress in their speech and social skills. They feel that their children are well prepared for their next stage in education.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• enable children to excel further in their learning, with opportunities to enhance their critical thinking, follow own ideas and have a go at meeting the challenges posed
• provide staff with individualised professional training opportunities to enable them to take their own practice to an even higher level.