Went Valley Pre School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are safe and secure in this friendly, nurturing pre-school. Staff provide opportunities for children to develop their social skills. Children chat together while they have snack. Children compare how old they are going to be on their next birthday. They talk about their hobbies and interests with each other. Children enjoy playing and talking together. They build positive bonds with each other and with the staff.

Managers use assessment well to understand what children know and can do. They use this information to carefully consider what they want children to learn next. This ensures that learning is tailored to individual children's needs. They identify gaps in children's learning and ensure that staff focus on these areas in their teaching. For example, staff focus on modelling language to children so that they develop their vocabulary.

Staff help children to learn what is expected of them. Children learn that they must sit at the table for snack and help to tidy up. Staff use lots of praise and encouragement to promote more good behaviour. When staff say, 'thank you' children say, 'you are welcome'. They wash they hands before snack time, because they know that this is part of their routine. When younger children occasionally need help to remember, staff sensitively model this for them. Children learn what is right and what is wrong from positive adult role models.

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

• Managers and staff consider the skills they want children to have by the time they start school. By the time children leave the setting, they are confident talkers and can interact positively with their friends.
• Staff provide opportunities for children to develop their physical skills. They build structures out of large blocks, reaching up high to stack them. They draw big circles with chalks. This helps them to develop the muscles in their arms, ready for later writing.
• Children enjoy the range of resources that are provided for them. They enjoy using their imagination. They pretend to talk on the telephone and race trains around a track. They pretend to be characters in a pirate ship and a tree house. Staff skilfully join in with children's play or sit back and provide commentary.
• Staff are skilled at introducing mathematics into children's play. They sit alongside children pointing out the numbers on jigsaws and encouraging them to count the corresponding objects on the pictures. Staff point out shapes in the environment as children play. Children pretend to serve ice-cream in the 'ice-cream shop'. Staff use this as an opportunity to introduce colours, numbers, size and shape. Children learn a range of mathematical concepts and language.
• Children recall the story of the hungry caterpillar and remember all of the different foods that it eats. Children enjoy listening to stories as they sit and listen attentively. Staff make stories sound exciting and interesting, as they read with enthusiasm and different tones of voice. This helps children to develop a love of stories.
• Managers find out about the experiences that children arrive with. However, they are not yet providing a wide range of opportunities for children to develop their sense of belonging to their community or develop their individual characters and interests.
• Staff help children to develop their critical thinking skills. Children make ramps for their cars out of pipes. Staff ask questions to help them to figure out the best way to do it. Staff ask children if they can remember how to make ice. Children remember that they need water and that it then needs to go in the freezer.
• Occasionally, opportunities for children to develop their independence and creativity are not consistently available. Areas for children to develop their creativity do not allow children to make choices or experiment with different materials. In addition, children's independence is not consistently promoted during mealtimes.
• Parents say that their children develop positive relationships with staff and other children. They say that staff help them to continue learning at home such as, toilet training. This helps children to continue to learn and practise new skills at home
• Managers evaluate the provision and identify changes and developments. For example, they have added more large-scale resources outdoors, to help children to develop their physical skills.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• consider how you can plan for children to be provided with wider experiences that help them to develop their interests and sense of belong to a community
• provide more opportunities for children to develop their independence and creativity.