Treasure Island Playgroup

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provider creates a warm and inclusive environment where children feel safe, secure and valued. As a result, children settle quickly and demonstrate high levels of emotional well-being. Staff implement well-established routines that support children's understanding of what to expect next, promoting a sense of stability and helping them to develop positive attitudes towards their learning. Children show curiosity and enthusiasm for learning, engaging confidently in the activities available. Staff recognise the importance of becoming immersed in children's imaginative play and use their knowledge of individual children to extend their learning in the process. For example, when children explore role-play resources such as dental mirrors and lights to look at their teeth, staff ask if they have been to visit the dentist before and suggest that they can go soon to show them their teeth. This demonstrates staff's understanding of the importance of making links in children's learning and their lived experiences to support and promote children's understanding of healthy lifestyles.

The curriculum is broad and ambitious and enables all children to make good progress from their starting points. Staff ensure that each day is varied and interesting, and, in general, children take part in a range of well-planned activities, tailored to their particular learning needs. Children receive effective and consistent support for developing their communication and language skills, and those children with identified gaps in their learning benefit from high-quality targeted interventions and teaching. For example, staff model and consistently use simple signs to support new vocabulary, and even the youngest of children show familiarity and use these spontaneously in their learning and care routines.

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

• Leaders have a good understanding of what they want children to learn and how to incorporate their unique interests within the curriculum they provide. They offer children a variety of opportunities to support their learning and prepare them for the future well. For example, they promote a love of stories, rhyme and books. Children choose favourite stories and read them to one another. They act out being a teacher and deliver story time to their friends, recalling and retelling familiar tales and favourite action rhymes to the group. This encourages the children to listen well and to develop their early literacy skills.
• Leaders make thoughtful decisions about how to teach different skills. They plan a balance of structured activities and independent play, which helps deliver a well-rounded curriculum. However, the outdoor area is not organised well enough to build on what children learn indoors. This can lead to too many choices and distractions during free play, which sometimes affects children's behaviour and disrupts others' learning.
• Staff and the committee work well together to provide children with good care and learning. Children are generally well prepared for school, and they show interest in their activities. Younger children behave well and follow the positive example set by staff, who model good manners and respectful behaviour. However, some older children struggle to manage their behaviour during free play, especially outside. They do not always treat the environment, resources or each other with respect. Not all staff respond consistently, which means children are not always clear about what is expected of them.
• Children develop good levels of independence. Staff make good use of daily routines to teach children to meet their own needs. They teach children the need to wait for a space at the snack bar, how to self-register and self-serve their meals and drinks and how to clean up after themselves. This supports children's growing sense of achievement and self-esteem.
• Children who have identified special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) receive effective support. Leaders establish strong working relationships with other agencies, including through securing additional funding and completion of assessments. Staff deliver targeted support that meets children's individual needs successfully, ensuring that children with SEND are supported to close gaps in their learning and that they and their families receive an effective transition to school.
• Partnership working with parents is a strength of the setting. Parents speak very highly of the staff team. Staff provide a wealth of information to support continuity of learning at home. This includes through parent workshops that are aimed at promoting positive parenting and work with partner agencies, such as Barnardo's and health professionals, to ensure a joined-up evidenced-based approach. This effective collaboration supports new children to settle well and contributes successfully to existing children's continued good progress.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• review the outdoor learning environment to further promote children's engagement in purposeful play that fully contributes to their good progress
• develop and support staff to implement consistent behaviour management strategies that build on pre-school children's understanding of behaviour expectations.