West Hallam Village Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children enter the pre-school with enthusiasm and excitement, and demonstrate that they are happy and content in the safe and secure environment. They quickly engage in purposeful play and enjoy the range of stimulating toys and resources. For example, they fill toy trucks with pebbles and rocks and watch water roll down tubes.

Children behave well. They learn to share and take turns and play together, for instance while building towers. As the towers fall down, they giggle and say to each other, 'Lets build it again'. Children are proud of their achievements. This is because staff constantly praise their efforts, which helps them to gain confidence to engage further in their play.

Children have a positive attitude towards their learning. They make good progress as staff have high expectations of what they can achieve. For example, staff encourage children to recognise numbers and patterns while playing with the play dough. They compare sizes and lengths as they make long and short sausages. Children listen and concentrate attentively to stories and eagerly join in singing songs about caterpillars and butterflies. This also helps children to understand about life cycles and nature.

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

• The manager is ambitious and well focused on improving the quality of the pre-school. She has gained extra funding to enhance the role play area to help develop children's imagination. The manager and staff work well as a team. The manager supports her staff effectively through meetings and training to help improve the quality of children's education. For example, three staff have enrolled on the Early Years Professional Development Programme to help improve children's language skills.
• The manager and staff plan a curriculum that continually builds on what children already know, follows their interests and supports their play. They assess children's abilities and use the information to provide activities and opportunities to generally enhance children's individual learning. However, some staff do not fully understand how to implement children's specific learning intentions into their play. This is evident when staff intend to teach children the letters of their name during a slime activity. Children spend more time exploring the properties of the slime than learning the letters.
• Staff have a very proactive approach to working in partnership with parents. They support parents in contributing to their children's early education and well-being. They inform the parents of their children's learning effectively. Staff find out about children's current interests at home and build on these to extend their learning. For example, children learn to plant and grow herbs and tomatoes to extend their understanding of where food comes from.
• Staff support children's communication and language development well. This includes children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. Staff do this naturally and effectively through mirroring and extending children's language. They hold purposeful conversations and model language clearly. As a result, children become confident communicators. This is evident as a small group of children discuss going camping. They talk about their experiences of cooking marshmallows on the campfire and putting up their tents.
• Staff foster an atmosphere that is affectionate and caring, and children follow their example. Staff encourage the children to be kind and use their manners without being prompted. This is evident at snack time when children say 'please' and 'thank you'. They also use their personal skills well and follow good hygiene procedures, such as washing their hands before snack. Staff teach children about cultures and traditions through stories, activities and celebrating festivals, for example Chinese New Year, Diwali and Christmas.
• Children relish the time they spend outside. They are highly engrossed in their play as they balance on planks and crates. Children benefit from the spontaneous opportunities staff offer them to develop their understanding of mathematics. For example, they thoroughly enjoy hunting for bugs. They lift logs and use magnifying glass to count the legs on a woodlouse.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• develop all staff's understanding of how to implement children's specific learning intentions through their play.