Aqueduct After Hours

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

Children make good progress in their learning in this friendly pre-school.

Staff successfully support learning for all children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), and those who speak English as an additional language. Children gain a secure foundation in their learning and are well prepared for school. They understand the rules and boundaries, and develop strategies to manage conflict.

For example, older children control their feelings well and ask staff for help when they find a situation frustrating. Children behave very well.Children progress well in their personal developmen...t.

They learn to value and celebrate their differences. For example, they enjoy learning words in the various languages that their friends also speak. They learn a range of greetings and sing songs in different languages, such as Polish.

Older children develop empathy for others and support friends when they have fallen over. Staff value each child's particular interests and actively encourage these in their play. For example, they provide valuable learning opportunities to support children's imaginative ideas.

Children eagerly recreate familiar roles and experiences in their role play, such as being superheroes. Together with staff, they make props to further enhance their role play ideas. These experiences help to enrich children's language development.

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

Leaders provide staff with effective ongoing monitoring, training and support. This helps them to reflect on their practice and identify ways to further develop. Staff say that recent training related to children's behaviour helped them to extend their knowledge, to support children to manage their feelings.

Leaders ensure that additional government funding is used effectively, to benefit the children it is intended for.Good communication between staff and leaders helps to provide consistency, to ensure that children's needs are successfully met. Leaders closely monitor the progress that children make.

Staff swiftly identify where children need additional support and work with parents and the local authority to ensure that children receive the help they need. The special educational needs coordinator ensures that targeted plans are implemented for all children that need additional help.Leaders reflect well on the service they provide to ensure that it benefits children and their families.

They recently began welcoming parents back into the pre-school, following the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions.Parents speak very positively about the pre-school. They say that their children are always happy to attend and that they see improvements in their children's communication and language.

They appreciate the help that staff give them to support children's continued learning at home.Leaders have a secure knowledge of child development and how young children learn. They have identified broad curriculum aims for the children who attend the pre-school.

However, their education programme is not yet comprehensive enough to fully support staff in their planning for children's learning. This said, staff have a good knowledge of each child's uniqueness and interests. They make good use of observation and assessment to identify what children need to learn next.

Staff plan an exciting learning environment, both indoors and outdoors. For example, children work in pairs to enthusiastically dig for treasure buried in sand. This supports their large-muscle movements and social skills well.

Children cooperate well as they take it in turns to roll objects down a drainpipe, excitedly retrieving them from the end. However, at times, staff follow routines too strictly and limit the opportunities for children to make decisions about where and what to play. This means that on occasion, some children are not fully motivated and engaged in their learning.

Staff skilfully challenge children's thinking. Children consider what they need to do to make a square using play dough. Staff provide good models to help older children extend their counting skills.

Children decide they want to make ten sausages out of dough, and use drawings to help them to identify when they have made them all.Staff follow good hygiene routines to help stop the spread of infection. This includes completing rigorous cleaning of the pre-school and equipment that children use.

Children learn about the importance of regular handwashing.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.Leaders ensure that staff are well trained in their safeguarding policy and procedures.

Leaders and staff have a secure understanding of the potential signs that may indicate that a child is at risk of harm. They are aware of local safeguarding issues and how to report concerns about the conduct of a colleague. Staff risk assess effectively and take effective measures to minimise risks to children.

They help children to understand about risk and keeping themselves safe, such as wearing a helmet to protect their heads when they use the bikes. Leaders complete thorough vetting procedures to check the suitability of staff.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: refine the overarching curriculum aims to precisely identify the sequence of knowledge and skills that the children need to develop over time, to help staff fully extend children's learning nincrease opportunities for children to make decisions in their play, to help maximise the level of motivation and engagement in their learning.