Burnside Pre School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is outstanding

Children thrive and make excellent progress in this vibrant and inclusive pre-school.

They arrive eagerly and ready to play with the extensive range of toys and resources available. The pre-school is a rich hive of activity both inside and outdoors. Staff gather detailed information about children and their families from the outset.

This helps them to provide personalised settling-in procedures to ensure that all children settle quickly and are ready to learn. Children are superbly supported by attentive and knowledgeable staff as they make choices about what they would like to play with. Staff enthusiastically ...join in children's play.

They skilfully understand when to intervene and provide each child with the optimal amount of challenge to extend their learning further. For example, when making dough, staff encourage children to relate to their previous learning and test their ideas in order to ensure the dough is not too dry. Staff have exceptionally high expectations of all children and prepare them exceedingly well for school.

They are passionate about providing the very best start for children and their families. Staff have a superb understanding of the services available locally and work in very close partnership so that all children receive exactly the support they need to achieve to the fullest. All staff are fantastic role models who use a range of innovative strategies to empower children to understand and manage their own behaviour.

Children are encouraged to express their emotions and to think of ways in which to best handle conflict amicably. All children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, are exceedingly well behaved.

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

The inspirational manager shares her vision with the dedicated staff team.

She has an astoundingly detailed knowledge of the needs and priorities of the local area and uses this knowledge extremely well to drive practice and to ensure that families receive the support they need. Additional funding is used impressively to enhance and enrich children's experiences. For example, parents report that they are looking forward to building their confidence when attending swimming classes with their children and staff.

The manager and staff have a profound commitment to continuous reflection and self-evaluation. Staff are encouraged to research the latest developments in the field of early years. For example, recent research on children's emotional development has been used highly successfully to support children in recognising and dealing with their emotions.

Detailed reflection and consultation with parents and children mean that enhancements are made regularly to the already outstanding provision.The highly skilled manager monitors her staff rigorously and tailors a variety of supervision and coaching opportunities to their needs. She checks that staff are confident and happy in their role and that they have an excellent work-life balance.

The manager has an extensive knowledge of the range of services available that staff can draw upon for support if required.All staff have an excellent understanding of what children need to learn next. They skilfully enhance the environment to ensure that children have plentiful opportunities to extend their learning in all areas of the curriculum.

Children confidently demonstrate the characteristics of effective learners in abundance. They explore, investigate and help each other to persist and solve problems. For example, while playing outside, a child notices their friend persevering in an attempt to put up an umbrella.

She then finds another umbrella and carefully demonstrates how it is done. The two children celebrate their success and enjoy playing in the rain with their umbrellas.Staff place high priority on the development of children's early literacy skills.

All children, particularly boys, choose to share books. They handle books carefully and delight in re-telling their favourite stories to adults. Children as young as three are beginning to recognise familiar words as they point to text.

Opportunities for developing mathematical skills are plentiful. For example, children enthusiastically measure real food in the home corner. They predict how many tins of peas they can fit into a dish and compare their answers.

They then carefully programme the microwave to number 5 in order to 'cook' the peas.Parents are superbly supported to contribute to their child's learning at home. The setting offers a wide range of extremely popular training opportunities for parents, including healthy eating, child development and first-aid workshops.

Staff share detailed information with parents about what their child is learning. They provide an abundance of ideas and resources, based precisely on each child's individual next steps, to help parents in extending their child's learning at home.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

Staff have a robust knowledge of the procedures to follow should they have any concerns about the welfare of children. Safeguarding policies and procedures are reviewed regularly and staff undertake monthly workshops to consider in greater detail the various different aspects of child protection. This helps to ensure that staff knowledge is extremely detailed and up to date.

Furthermore, staff ensure that parents understand the action to take should they have any concerns about children in the local community. Staff are vigilant about children's safety and well-being. They follow robust procedures that enable them to ensure all indoor and outdoor areas, equipment and resources do not pose risks to children.