Willow Brook Pre School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are incredibly calm, contented and happy in the pre-school. They build strong and trusting bonds with the staff and super relationships with their peers. They thrive in the welcoming and nurturing environment. Children have a zest for learning, which is skilfully nurtured by the staff, who have an enthusiastic approach to teaching. Children are extremely confident communicators. They have a wide vocabulary and often show they know more and remember more. Children recall words such as 'solar system' and the name of the artist 'Yayoi Kusama'. Staff have high expectations of what children can absorb and use rich vocabulary when talking to them.

Children remain highly focused and engaged in their play. They explore hands-on learning experiences, which builds on their natural curiosity as learners. For example, staff introduce bath bombs to water. Children use their hands to break up the bath bombs and describe the feeling as 'tickly'. Staff introduce new vocabulary, such as 'dissolve'. Children marvel as the water changes colour. Children show consistently good manners. They ask staff, 'Please may you put my hood up?' Children choose a coloured 'emotion' pom-pom to indicate how they are feeling and tell staff, 'I'm happy today.' This contributes to their well-being and helps them to recognise their feelings.

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

• The provider is passionate and knowledgeable about early years education. She values each staff member and supports their continued professional development. For example, she asks staff to deliver workshops to their colleagues to help extend their teaching skills. Furthermore, she encourages staff to progress with their childcare qualifications to a high level. This helps the provider to retain a skilled, knowledgeable team that provides children with exceptional care and learning experiences.
• Children make excellent progress and enjoy opportunities to research subjects of interest to them. For example, children thoroughly enjoy learning about space. They explore the sky and technology using a real telescope. They use their imagination and dress up as an astronaut. Staff extend the space theme by encouraging children to test out their creative flair and make rockets out of recycled packaging.
• The provider has identified a clear and ambitious curriculum. Staff have a firm knowledge of the curriculum intent and how to implement children's next steps in learning into everyday practice. Staff place a strong emphasis on encouraging children to develop their independence. They actively encourage young two-year-old children to dress themselves in full splash suits ready for outdoor play, which children persevere and succeed at. Children very soon become self- sufficient in their self-care and are school ready.
• Staff consistently reinforce their expectations of children's behaviour. They use innovative ways to secure children's understanding. For example, at welcome time, children have no trouble recalling the rules that link to popular television programme characters, saying, 'We play nicely like Chase and Skye.' Children consistently behave well.
• Storytelling is inspirational. Staff use a monkey puppet to help them tell the story. Children are thoroughly mesmerised and laugh out loud as Charley the monkey turns the pages too soon. This helps to develop a love of books and promotes children's literacy skills.
• Children have superb opportunities to get fresh air and be physically active in the forest school sessions. They learn to take manageable risks as they climb trees and balance on narrow beams. Children learn safety measures, such as not going too near the shallow pond. Children enjoyed inviting their grandparents to join them in the sessions for an 'intergenerational day'. This contributes to children learning about their friends' families, while celebrating their own.
• Staff are keen to teach the children about sustainability and caring for the environment. At snack and lunchtime, children save their food leftovers in a compost caddy, which they then take to the forest school area and place in the compost bin.
• Parents speak very highly of the pre-school. They say they are constantly in awe of what their children have learned. Staff keep parents fully up to date with their child's learning and development through a secure online platform and daily handovers. This is highly effective in providing a united approach to children's learning. Staff provide families with a wide variety of ways to continue children's learning at home. For example, early in the summer term, staff provide the families of children who will move to school in September a 'school readiness pack'. This contains items such as scissors and threading activities to enhance children's fine motor control.