Corby Glen Preschool

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

Staff greet children and their parents warmly as they arrive. This contributes to children entering pre-school happy and ready to learn. Children follow routines that are embedded by staff.

For example, they find their named peg in the cloakroom and hang up their belongings before joining their friends. Staff want children to be confident and independent. They create an environment where children can lead their own play and learning.

For example, children often choose to access creative resources. Staff suggest children try to put on their own painting aprons. Children choose and squeeze out the paint they would like t...o use.

With encouragement from staff, children use their fingers to paint and mix colours to create new shades. Attentive and motivating staff nurture children's delight in exploring the natural environment. Children share resources, such as magnifiers, as they search for bugs in the outdoor space.

Staff carefully capture a Daddy Long Legs and hand it to the children, they explain how to hold it gently. They introduce new words for children to learn, for example 'tickly'. Staff support children to build an early understanding of making healthy choices in the food they eat.

For example, during snack time staff tell children that eating red fruit makes their heart nice and strong. Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) receive individualised care and learning. This helps them to make good progress.

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

The manager is knowledgeable and acts as a positive role model for her relatively new staff team. Already, there is clearly a strong team spirit and a desire to support children to achieve good learning outcomes.The manager uses additional funding thoughtfully to support children's good health and development.

For example, one day a week staff provide ingredients and support children to make a healthy and nutritious lunch. This helps children to understand the importance of making healthy food choices.Staff attend one-to-one meetings with the manager.

Staff comment on how well the manager prioritises their well-being. However, the manager has not yet embedded support to help improve staff teaching practice over time.The manager plans a well-sequenced curriculum to help prepare children for the next stage in their learning.

The current focus for children's learning is to develop their personal, social and emotional skills as they settle into pre-school. The staff know the children well and plan activities based on children's interests and next steps in learning.Promoting communication and language is at the heart of this pre-school's practice, and interactions are, overall, of a very high quality.

Staff introduce interesting new words, such as 'slinky' and 'ooze', to help enhance and extend children's vocabulary. However, staff occasionally become so engrossed in established children's activities that they have less meaningful interactions with newer children.Staff implement well-organised routines that help children understand what is expected of them.

Children take on small tasks when asked, such as to help tidy the environment. During small-group time, children learn that an adult must open 'the bucket' used for the activity. Children practise social skills, such as listening, sharing and turn taking.

Staff provide opportunities to enhance children's growing independence. They sit alongside children and show them how to hold child-safe knives to cut up fruit for snacks. Children use their handling skills to pour milk or water from a jug.

Staff offer lots of praise and encouragement as children do things for themselves, such as putting on their outdoor shoes. This helps to raise children's self-esteem.Staff promote children's physical development well.

They provide plenty of opportunities for children to play outdoors on the large playing field. Staff support children in developing their large-muscle skills as they encourage them to run and ride balance bicycles and scooters.Staff foster children's love of books and reading.

During a recent 'readathon', members of the community, such as the local vicar, a police officer and family members, visited the pre-school to read to the children. The pre-school purchased new books to create a lending library. Children borrow books to take home and share with their parents and carers.

Children often independently choose and look at books or ask staff to read to them.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.The manager and staff understand their safeguarding responsibilities.

They are alert to signs and symptoms that indicate a child's safety is compromised. Staff are aware of how to respond should they be concerned about a child's welfare. Regular safeguarding training supports staff's up-to-date knowledge of concerns, such as the 'Prevent' duty.

The manager follows safer recruitment procedures and completes rigorous background checks on new staff to ensure children are cared for by suitable adults. Staff talk to children and use child-friendly books to help them learn how to keep themselves safe when using internet-enabled devices.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: develop support for staff to help them further improve their individual teaching practice support staff to provide newer children with consistently meaningful interactions.