Wix & Wrabness PreSchool

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are extremely confident, excited and motivated learners. They wave goodbye to their parents and immediately begin their day by finding their friends and deciding what they are going to play. Children move confidently between the two pre-school rooms. They enthusiastically explore in the enchanting environment, which is packed with fun, purposeful learning experiences, to challenge and spark their imaginations. Children are extremely kind and caring. They show the utmost respect for each other. Children reach out and give the child next to them a hug, just because they know that they can. The affection is reciprocated with caring smiles and a warm embrace.

Children are fiercely independent. They are provided with real-life resources, such as glasses to drink from. They learn to take risks and gain exceptional understanding about how to manage their own safety. When accidents happen, such as a glass being broken, staff calmly and confidently clear away the broken pieces. They show children how to manage such situations without panic. Children are expressive. They paint their interpretation of vases of flowers, talking confidently about the colours they are using and the shapes of the flowers. Children demonstrate their love of the resources and tell visitors 'how lucky they are' to have such nice things to play with.

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

• During the COVID-19 lockdowns, staff and managers worked extremely hard to keep in regular and effective contact with families who could not attend the setting. They reviewed all of the children's needs on their return to the pre-school. Staff considered ways of further supporting children's emotional well-being as they returned to some kind of normality.
• Staff and managers work together extremely well. They proficiently go about their daily tasks, so that the pre-school sessions run seamlessly. Staff and managers support each other exceptionally well.
• Partnerships with parents and others are highly effective. Parents share extremely positive comments both verbally and in writing. They collectively comment on the superb support they and their children receive at this pre-school. Many describe the pre-school as a home from home and use words, such as 'nurturing, welcoming' and 'fantastic' in their written contributions to the inspection. Many parents state that the 'kind and caring attitude' of all of the staff and manager helped their children to settle quickly into their pre-school life and has helped them to become strong and independent learners.
• Children calmly participate in the morning yoga session. They chat about the different poses with staff, who support these discussions superbly, often linking the pose to whatever theme they are exploring that day. For example, when focusing on planting and growing, many of the yoga poses relate to being a small seed and growing taller.
• Children learn to understand their own emotions and feelings, as staff proficiently use resources and books to help them to talk about how they feel. They encourage them to understand what makes them feel that way and what they can do to help themselves to feel better. For example, children confidently use the emotions stones to describe that they feel sad and are able to articulate that this is because they have a sore finger.
• Staff confidently extend children's mathematical thinking through planned activities, as well as spontaneous ideas that come from the children's interests. For example, staff help the children to make a race track on a large piece of paper. They draw numbers one to five and use pull back cars to race and see whose car goes the farthest. When exploring fruits linked to a favourite book, staff talk about whole, half and quarters. Children tell staff which of the fruits they liked during a tasting activity and staff record their preferences. Staff and children collate the data from this activity to see which fruits are most liked. Some children comment that 'they are not a fan of oranges'.
• Children spend much of their time exploring and experimenting. For example, they use scissors to cut the herbs they grow in the garden and use them in their mud cooking in the garden. Staff are on hand at all times to introduce new vocabulary and to hold interesting and meaningful discussions about what the children are doing.