Windmills Opportunity Playgroup

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children make friendships and enjoy their time at this nurturing and inclusive playgroup. They receive a warm welcome from their friends and the very attentive staff when they arrive. Staff provide effective support to help reassure children throughout the day. This helps children to continually feel settled and secure.

Children are confident to move between the indoor and outdoor space and make decisions about what they play with. For instance, children have great fun developing their balancing skills as they navigate along a low-level climbing apparatus. Staff skilfully encourage the children. They praise them for their efforts and offer their hands to hold. Very soon, children's confidence grows and they show visitors how they can jump off the steps.

Children behave extremely well. Staff help children to share resources and take turns. They use visual aids, such as pictures and timers, to help children understand the expectations for behaviour. When children struggle to regulate their emotions, staff calmly intervene and provide successful support. Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities and those who speak English as an additional language are very well supported. Staff use additional funding effectively and provide a stimulating curriculum. Adaptations are made to ensure that all children are fully included in all activities.

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

• Leaders are committed to the playgroup's continuous development and continually evaluate children's learning and welfare. For example, specific training to help children's learning is implemented to help all children make good progress. Leaders are extremely passionate about ensuring that children's well-being is at the heart of everything the playgroup does. To help achieve this, they work closely with parents and other professionals involved in children's care.
• Staff at the playgroup know the children very well. They understand what they know and can do. They plan activities to help build on children's skills and learning. For example, following the theme of healthy eating, children make muffins using courgettes and cheese. They weigh and grate the ingredients and then take turns to help stir these into the mixture. Children excitedly show their parents and/or carers their cooked items. This helps to promote children's self-esteem.
• Staff encourage children to learn about various aspects that keep them safe and healthy. For example, children sing a song that helps them to remember how to seek help if needed. Outdoors, children pretend to make soup and vegetable pies and offer these to the adults.
• Overall, staff promote children's language and communication skills well. They model language by asking children questions and talking to them. However, on occasion, some staff do not recognise opportunities to include new language or encourage problem-solving during activities.
• Staff provide targeted support to encourage all children to make good progress in their learning. For example, they make very good use of the environment to help children manage their emotions. Children have use of a sensory room and a newly developed 'chill-out' area. They independently help themselves to the visual resources, such as cards and books, to help them communicate their feelings.
• Children enjoy a varied curriculum that includes outings within the immediate environment. For example, children visit the nearby school library, where they enjoy listening to stories. This helps children to become familiar with the school that they may attend in the future. Children and staff visit shops to buy ingredients for their baking and go on bus journeys to explore their surroundings. These outings help children to gain an understanding of their community and the wider world.
• Staff have developed a close relationship with the headteacher and staff from the adjoining school. They discuss the learning needs of children and implement any suggestions through fun activities. For instance, there is a focus on developing children's hand-eye coordination in readiness for hand writing when they go to school.
• The manager and her staff have developed strong partnerships with parents. They regularly share information about their children's progress and provide support about how to extend children's learning at home. Parents report that their children have come on in leaps and bounds since joining the playgroup. They say that the manager and her team are fantastic and are very flexible in meeting their needs.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to develop a more consistent approach to extending children's learning when joining in with their play.