Winton Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children thoroughly enjoy their time at this welcoming pre-school. They are enthusiastic learners, who freely access the interesting activities on offer. Children form warm and affectionate bonds with staff. They readily make friends with peers and invite each other into their play. Children show care and compassion to friends and share their favourite toys with them if they are a little sad. They demonstrate growing independence to manage their self-care needs, such as using a tissue to clean their nose and carefully disposing of it in the bin. This helps children understand the importance of good hygiene routines.

Children respond well to staff's high expectations of behaviour. They are praised by staff for showing positive behaviour and politeness towards others. Children who may display their frustrations are supported in a calm and nurturing manner. They show increasing confidence when asking for adult support. Those with speech delay are guided to express themselves, using gestures and vocabulary they have learned. Children who speak English as an additional language acquire good language skills quickly, as staff use words from their home languages to further aid their understanding. Children are familiar with daily routines. For instance, they put on their coats independently before going outdoors.

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

• The manager is committed to driving improvement. For example, she draws on specialist expertise from external agencies when needed. The manager and staff focus even more on developing children's social skills, due to the limited interaction with people during the COVID-19 pandemic. Parents and staff work together on this with successful results.
• The manager and staff get to know children well. They gather detailed information from parents when children start. This helps staff to plan purposeful activities, which build on children's interests. For instance, children's fascination with animals is enhanced as they play a farm animals lotto game. With staff guidance, they learn more about animals and begin to take turns. This approach helps children to enjoy learning, wait patiently for their turn and develop mutual respect for each other.
• Children love being active in the fresh air. They demonstrate good physical skills, such as when zooming around on balance bicycles with great control. Staff challenge children by holding up 'green' and 'red' signs in succession. Children quickly understand that 'green' means they continue and 'red' means they stop. In this way, children begin to make connections with the real world.
• Staff's interactions are ambitious, as they extend children's knowledge in other areas of the curriculum. For instance, children show a keenness to learn more about the pet stick insects. They say 'it is a stick' and commit to searching for them on the twigs. Children are supported to use positional language as they spot each stick insect and manage to find three out of four. They quickly understand they have one more to find. This supports children's early mathematical knowledge in an engaging way.
• Staff's well-being is given high priority. Staff say they feel valued by the manager and team. They participate in regular staff meetings and training opportunities to enhance their existing knowledge. The manager regularly observes staff's practice. However, at times, some feedback she gives is not precise enough to help staff fully understand where improvements are needed.
• On the whole, staff deployment is effective. Staff are attentive and actively interact with children engaged in activities. For example, they use expressive voices for story characters when they share a book. However, on occasion during transition times, staff engagement with children is less well organised. Some staff leave children in the middle of an activity to undertake other duties. Consequently, children's learning is disrupted and they do not fully benefit from consistent quality interactions with staff.
• Parents speak highly of the education and care their children receive. They are impressed with children's progress since the start. Parents praise children's increased level of independence, confidence and willingness to engage with others. This has been further promoted by staff sharing ideas of what parents can do at home to reinforce what children learn at the setting.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• improve staff deployment at transition times in the day to provide children with effective interactions without disruption
• provide more precise feedback to staff on their practice to help improve their existing teaching skills to a higher level.