Cullingworth Pre-School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

The pre-school is highly valued and forms an important part of the local community. It is welcoming to all children and inclusive.

Children are eager to attend and thrive in pre-school. They learn to care for others who are less fortunate than themselves and collect food for the local food bank. Children are happy and feel safe.

They smile confidently and talk to visitors about what they are doing. Children are kind and behave well. They praise each other for 'doing a great job' and show a strong sense of fairness.

For example, they state, 'I'll go after you.'Staff provide consistent nurturing care. Children s...ettle quickly at the pre-school and develop warm, trusting relationships with their key person.

Overall, staff have high expectations of what all children can achieve, including those who receive additional funding. Children learn about the order of the colours in a rainbow. They concentrate well as they experiment with mixing paint colours together.

Children confidently make orange and delight when they discover how to make different shades of purple when mixing red and blue together.The manager and staff are sensitive to the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the children and parents. They used technology effectively to maintain contact with families when the pre-schhol had to close.

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

The manager and staff are ambitious for all children. They provide children with special educational needs and/or disabilities with individually tailored support to help them to develop skills and knowledge. Staff use a wide range of strategies, such as the 'attention bucket', to help children to take turns.

Staff work very closely with other professionals to help children make progress.Children are imaginative and creative. For instance, they confidently use recycled resources to make a space shuttle.

Children persist in fastening foil lids to plastic bottles and confidently use scissors to cut card to make the wings. They develop good hand control and refine their small-muscle skills. Children are proud of their achievements.

They show their good knowledge and confidently state, 'Rockets go to space.' Staff support children's language development well, overall. They introduce interesting words, such as 'sapphire', 'investigate' and 'audience'.

Children use a wide range of vocabulary and speak articulately using sentences. However, on occasions, staff ask children too many questions during activities. They do not give them the time they need to think and respond.

The manager provides effective support to staff. She provides supervision, appraisal and training to help them to understand their role and develop their teaching skills further. However, the management committee does not provide constructive challenge and support, to help the manager continually improve the learning and development experiences provided for children.

Staff read a wide range of stories to children. They read with expression and repeat stories to build children's memory and recall skills. Children confidently become the characters in the story about an enormous turnip.

They show good understanding of the sequence of the story. Children listen attentively and demonstrate their love of books.Staff teach children new songs each week to help to develop their language and literacy skills.

Children display their understanding of the pattern of sounds and identify different words that rhyme with their name. Staff use children's interest in songs well to help them to develop a good foundation in mathematics. Children count confidently, recognise numbers, identify how many items there are and place objects in order of size.

Children spend plenty of time learning outdoors. They are very well motivated and show high levels of energy as they enthusiastically run up and down the hill in the garden. Children challenge their physical capabilities and learn to balance on the wooden planks.

Staff teach children how to grow food, such as potatoes. Children understand the importance of eating healthy foods.Parents speak very highly of the pre-school and are pleased with the progress their children make.

They highly recommend the pre-school and state that staff 'go over and above' to support their children. Parents also find the play sessions for parents 'really beneficial' as they help them to understand how play supports their children's learning.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

The manager implements robust staff recruitment procedures to ensure that they are suitable to work with children. Staff understand the possible signs that might indicate a child is at risk of harm. They understand the procedure to follow should they have concerns about the welfare of a child or the behaviour of a colleague.

Staff access training to keep their safeguarding knowledge updated. All staff are trained in paediatric first aid. This helps them to act swiftly in a medical emergency.

Staff are vigilant and teach children how to manage risks safely. They ensure that there are good levels of security to prevent unauthorised people from entering the pre-school.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: nensure that staff consistently give children the time they need to plan and think about their responses to the questions that staff ask strengthen support for the manager to help further enhance learning and development experiences for children.