Uplyme Pre-school CIO

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children arrive happily and immediately settle into playing at this welcoming pre-school. Leaders ensure children take part in a good range of learning opportunities based on their interests. Children are excited by the different activities on offer. They concentrate as they throw beanbags into hoops, persevering until they are successful. Children carefully construct shelters for their cuddly toys from home on a teddy bears picnic themed day. They learn to make walls and roofs using toy bricks. Staff help them to take photos of their creations, advising them to move closer or further away from the object. Staff support children to develop a love of reading. Children carefully select books and ask staff to read to them. They cuddle into staff and listen attentively, answering questions and talking about the pictures in the book. Children benefit from warm relationships with staff who know them and their families well.

Staff have high expectations of children's behaviour. They support children to manage their feelings and develop a sense of right and wrong. Children become more independent over time. Staff encourage them to chop their own fruit using safety knifes at snack time. Children carefully pour their own drinks into open cups. They demonstrate great pride in helping to tidy up.

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

• Children develop their small-muscle skills very well. Staff have a clear understanding of what they want children to learn, and when, as part of a progressive curriculum. They provide children with regular opportunities to improve their skills, including through using tools as they explore how to make changes to play dough. Children demonstrate very good control using scissors to cut out shapes and using pens to make marks.
• Staff ensure children learn about a wide variety of topics linked to their wider understanding of the world. Children benefit from having regular visitors to the pre-school, including from the local police and fire service. Leaders plan activities linked to topic work. However, occasionally, they do not effectively communicate the intent of planned activities to other staff. At these times, staff do not support children as well as they could to achieve their next steps.
• Children's vocabulary development is good. Staff regularly introduce new words to children, such as teaching them names of different parts of an egg during a baking activity. Children confidently communicate their ideas and hold thoughtful conversations with adults and their friends.
• Staff are knowledgeable and experienced. They present information clearly to children and deepen children's understanding of different topics well. However, on occasion, during adult-led activities, the group sizes are too large for all children to be effectively involved and some children do not remain engaged.
• Staff recognise when children have special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). They knowledgeably discuss children's starting points and progress. They work effectively with other settings that children attend and other professionals to provide targeted support to enable children to make good progress across the curriculum.
• Children are confident. Staff encourage children to make choices about their play and self-select their activities. Children happily ask others to play and take turns with them, building on each other's ideas. They excitedly ask to sing songs on their own in front of their friends during music sessions. Staff celebrate their efforts and develop their confidence further.
• Leaders provide training opportunities for staff. Staff take part in supervision meetings and discuss the areas they would like to improve in their practice. For example, some staff have recently attended training on supporting anxious children to thrive in the setting. Leaders comment on the positive impact this has had on children becoming less anxious.
• Parent partnerships are good. Staff reflect regularly on how best to communicate with parents, including through the recent introduction of an online system. They provide parents with good opportunities to come into the setting, such as through settling their children in every morning, parents' evenings and sports days. Parents talk confidently about their children's next steps and how well prepared children are to start school.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• develop further communication between leaders and staff to ensure the intent of planned activities is clear and children are more fully supported to meet their next steps
• improve the organisation of adult-led activities to help children to remain engaged.