Tykes @ Queensbury

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff give a friendly and enthusiastic greeting to children, who eagerly enter the safe and secure pre-school. For example, after learning about pets, children are excited to show staff the food that they have brought in for the gerbil after a family trip to the pet shop. Staff demonstrate caring relationships with children. This helps children to feel happy and settled. For example, staff help children to hang up their coats before placing their names on the registration board.

Staff have high aspirations for children and plan generally effective educational programmes that, overall, help children to make progress and develop skills in readiness for school. This includes children in receipt of additional funding and those children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). For example, three-year-old children develop their independence as staff encourage them to pull their coat zips up, pour drinks from small china jugs and put on their wellingtons. Staff and children laugh together during activities. Staff enhance children's fun and enjoyment and expand their learning. For instance, children curiously explore the smooth and silky texture of the shaving foam.

Staff help children to develop good social skills and friendships. For example, they use large sand timers to help children to understand the expectations for their behaviour, such as sharing and taking turns. In addition, staff use initiatives, such as a tidy-up song, to help children to understand what happens next and to make such daily routines fun.

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

• Staff plan a broad range of activities that generally promote children's all-round learning. However, after the intake of more two-year-old children, staff have not fully adapted their curriculum to precisely target this age group's younger stage of learning and interests.
• Three-year-old children delight in developing their imagination skills while exploring dough, autumnal items and other tactile media in the outdoor exploratory kitchen. As they do so, staff skilfully expand children's thinking skills as they ask questions and introduce new vocabulary.
• Staff continually monitor children's progress and quickly identify any gaps in their development. They create internal support plans to help children to catch up, and they make timely referrals to other professionals. Staff work in excellent consultation with parents and others to ensure that children with SEND are included exceptionally well.
• Staff help children to test out their ideas, such as observing how fast the toy cars whizz down plastic guttering. Children learn about the world around them by, for example, closely observing the insects in the bug house as they scurry away. Staff introduce early mathematics as they count the woodlice with children.
• Staff enthusiastically read stories and sing songs, including during care routines. This helps to support children's early language. Staff help children to recall a favourite rhyming story through role-play resources, such as a witch's cauldron. Where communication barriers exist, staff use pictorial aids to help children make choices and understand daily routines.
• Children have good opportunities to develop their essential physical skills. For example, they manoeuvre wheeled toys and use metal resources to dig, fill and pour while playing in the large water tray and indoor sit-in sand pit. Two-year-old children stack cardboard cones and giggle after their tower comes tumbling down.
• Staff provide healthy snacks. They invited a dental health team into the pre-school and distributed toothbrushes and toothpaste to families. This helps to instil early messages to children about living a healthy lifestyle.
• Staff share information with parents about particular aspects of children's development, such as their early speech and the importance of reading stories. As part of this, staff have re-established their lending library, which previously ceased as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Parents express their appreciation of this resource and many other positive aspects of the pre-school.
• Staff are very nurturing. However, they do not always recognise when two-year-old children require greater levels of adult support to engage in activities, manage handwashing and develop their language skills. In addition, staff do not consistently work in partnership with parents to the highest level to support younger children's certain developmental milestones, such as learning to use the toilet.
• The passionate pre-school owners work directly alongside staff in their role as managers. This helps them to observe and mentor staff, support their well-being and identify continued professional development that builds on their existing qualifications. The owners are currently focusing on supporting new staff and those who have returned after covering at their other pre-school setting.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• plan the curriculum so that the environment and activities take greater account of, and support, two-year-old children's individual learning needs and interests
• strengthen the key-person system in order to build on partnership working with parents and provide the youngest children with greater support and opportunities to develop their language skills.