West Hendon Pre School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children run to the door as they arrive at this well-organised pre-school. Caring staff greet children and parents warmly. They adapt their care for each child, quickly making plans after a swift handover from parents. For example, parents inform staff if their children slept well or if they ate breakfast, and staff use this information to plan children's day. Staff give children time to settle. Children approach their peers to play and seek out staff if they need a reassuring hug.

Staff provide a well-resourced, stimulating indoor and outdoor play environment. This supports children's development across all areas of the curriculum. Children choose resources from a wide range that is easily accessible to them. They access the resources confidently and engage purposefully in activities that interest them. For example, they use their imagination and link play to real-life experiences. When preparing food in the home corner, children approach staff with a plate and spoon to 'eat' what they have made.

Children's behaviour is good. Staff have high expectations for all children. Staff act as good role models, demonstrating respectful interactions and communication, which children observe and follow. Children happily follow routines, such as washing their hands before sitting down to eat fruit at snack time.

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

• The pre-school is inclusive and staff know children's backgrounds in detail. Staff celebrate children's home languages and cultures through an array of meaningful activities. Children and their parents delight in sharing many aspects of their cultural heritage, stories and traditional clothes. These rich, shared experiences help to foster children's knowledge of similarities and differences exceptionally well.
• Staff are skilled at encouraging children to be curious and to explore all areas of the setting. For example, children choose where they play, and the garden is often a popular choice. Children enjoy being active and using the equipment and resources outside, such as the climbing frame and water.
• All children, including those needing extra help, make good progress in their learning and development. Leaders works with staff, professionals and parents to meet children's needs. Regular visits from agencies provide additional support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. Staff use funding effectively to offer children individual support to enhance focused teaching and accelerate children's progress.
• Staff provide a curriculum that is ambitious and builds on children's current strengths to help them to move on to their next stage of learning. Children are excited to get involved in the experiences that staff offer and this provides a positive learning environment for all children.
• Partnership with parents is a strength of the pre-school. Parents speak very highly about the service they receive, and they praise the work that staff do. Staff upload photos and speak to parents daily to share their children's achievements and learning.
• Children, including children who speak English as an additional language, become confident communicators and readily chat with visitors. They use clear speech and repeat simple words and phrases to secure children's understanding. Staff working with younger children introduce songs, naming the actions and sounds.
• Staff interact well with children to extend their learning during planned activities. For example, they help children to make marks using different materials to support their early writing skills. However, when children engage in child-led play activities, staff do not engage as consistently to extend children's learning. For instance, as children play in the garden and choose their own resources to explore, some staff supervise children rather than engaging with them to further support their learning.
• Leaders care about the well-being of staff, children and families using the pre-school. Staff have regular supervision sessions and ongoing training opportunities are available for them. Leaders carry out their own observations and model high-quality teaching practice. However, there are inconsistencies in the quality of some staff's teaching skills. For example, although staff introduce mathematical language, such as 'more' and 'less' to support children to compare quantities, on occasions they do not extend children's counting skills. This prevents children from making even better progress.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to develop their interactions with children during child-led play activities
• enhance performance management processes to ensure consistently high-quality teaching, such as by supporting staff to implement mathematics more effectively to improve children's counting skills.