Whitegrove Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are happy and enjoy their time at the pre-school. They show they feel safe and are confident in the care of the dedicated staff team. Children demonstrate that they are eager to play and that they enjoy the activities on offer. For example, children have fun as they dress up and play imaginatively with dolls and kitchen sets. Children have many opportunities to explore with media and materials, which in turn helps to build their hand-eye coordination and muscles in their hands ready for writing. For instance, children enjoy creating pictures from stickers and creating patterns and marks with the dough and sand. Staff support children's communication skills well overall, through consistent dialogue.

Children benefit from the effective key-person arrangements that are maintained to ensure that all children receive the support and care needed to help them succeed in learning. Children have many opportunities to do things for themselves, such as wiping their own noses and washing up plates and cups after snack times. This gives them responsibilities that helps to build on their self-confidence and self-esteem. Staff offer children a good amount of praise when playing and exploring.

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

• The management team and staff work well together to create a warm and welcoming environment for the children. Staff have a good awareness of how children learn, they follow their interests well and adapt their teaching to interweave as many of the seven areas of learning as they can into an activity. This supports children's learning and development effectively.
• Staff are deployed well to meet the needs of the children. Children have many opportunities to choose what they would like to do, and staff are nearby to facilitate and support children's ideas, play and learning well. For example, as children explore with crafts, construction and puzzles, staff interweave mathematical concepts to help children to learn about number, shape, and colour.
• Staff communicate regularly with the children, which helps them to hear language and learn new words well. However, at times, staff do not give children enough time to process questions asked and to express their thoughts and ideas before staff ask further questions. Nevertheless, staff sing enthusiastically with children and children enjoy activities that support active listening skills, such as group times and stories.
• Children learn to follow a healthy lifestyle. For example, they understand the importance of washing their hands before eating. Children enjoy being active and they have many possibilities to build on their cardiovascular physical skills, as they successfully learn to balance and climb on apparatus and use wheeled ride-on toys.
• Staff are kind and considerate of children. For example, staff recognise when children need reassurance and provide a calm and caring approach. Staff support children's behaviour well, as they remind them of the rules that are expected in the pre-school. However, at times, some staff do not provide sufficient guidance to children to help learn why these rules are in place. This does not always support some children's understanding of expectations.
• Partnerships with other professionals and parents are good. Staff understand the importance of working with other professionals involved in children's care and education to maintain a consistent approach to their learning and development. Parents comment positively about the progress their children make at the pre-school, such as in their confidence. They say the staff are friendly and that they have trust in the care they provide to their children.
• The management team have a good oversight of the provision. Overall, they reflect well on staff practice and take appropriate action when needed, such as providing professional development. Staff have a good understanding of their roles and responsibilities for safeguarding children. Suitable recruitment processes are maintained by the management team to keep children safe. Staff comment positively about the support they receive from the managers, which includes supervision and team meetings.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to understand the importance of giving children the time they need to think about, and answer, questions to enable them to speculate, test their ideas and challenge their thinking
• build on staff's awareness of providing consistent guidance to children to further support their understanding of expectations for their behaviour.