Fish and Bricks PreSchool

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

The dedicated manager and enthusiastic staff work together as a well-oiled team.

They are very caring and calm and create a loving, nurturing environment. All children demonstrate how happy, safe and settled they feel as they explore the stimulating pre-school with great confidence. They eagerly take part in a wide range of experiences, such as wrapping presents, making play dough and creating artwork 'masterpieces'.

Children engage very well, persevere through challenges and show high levels of motivation in their learning. They quickly gain the skills needed for the next stage in their learning.Although the pre-schoo...l is affiliated with the Christian church, the manager and staff welcome and include all cultures and religions and celebrate diversity.

They create a fully inclusive atmosphere and support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities extremely well. Staff make great use of the expertise of local inclusion services and use highly successful strategies to identify and close gaps in children's learning.Overall, staff have high expectations for children and get to know them very well.

They provide a broad curriculum that supports children to explore their local community, meet their individual next steps and engage in valuable life experiences. For example, children grow and harvest vegetables, visit places of interest in the community and explore local nature and wildlife. This helps to ignite their fascination in the world around them.

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

The manager and staff assess and monitor children's development closely and confidently talk about the progress children are making. They work together to plan an exciting range of experiences to build on what children know and can do. For example, children carefully named and measured ingredients as they made dough and counted how many of each they needed.

Staff extended their learning very well, and encouraged children to describe the dough as they made it and decided what they needed to do next.The manager and her deputy are very passionate and experienced, and they want all children to thrive and reach their full potential. They actively identify any gaps in children's knowledge and focus on providing a rich set of experiences.

For example, they organise exciting pre-school trips to local farms, ensuring all children and families can attend, regardless of financial circumstances. They also focus heavily on outdoor play and ensure the garden is full of diverse and challenging activities for children with limited access to the outdoors. For example, children thoroughly enjoy exploring sand, water and creative play outside, as well as their physical play.

Staff are strong role models and consistently teach children to respect and consider each other's feelings, as well as how to stay safe, for instance when using scissors. However, they have not yet focused on how to support children's understanding of the potential risks involved with using the internet to help children keep themselves safe online.Staff's highly nurturing approach helps them to build excellent bonds with all children, who show high levels of self-esteem and confidence in their abilities.

Children proudly stand in front of the group to talk about special items from home and enjoy challenges, such as making train tracks and building structures with different shapes.The manager leads her staff by example and spends a lot of time with them and the children, modelling best practice. She provides staff with good support and staff feel very valued.

However, the manager has not ensured that staff have regular supervision meetings and has not precisely focused on how to raise their good quality further. Occasionally, staff overly direct children's play and do not make the best use of their interactions with children to offer further challenge and fully extend their learning.Children gain a wide range of skills that prepare them very well for future learning.

They are very creative and imaginative and delight in developing their ideas. For example, they eagerly fill up their ride-on vehicles with 'petrol' at the role-play garage and enjoy using a train set to 'take the passengers on holiday'. Children are very physically active and show great balance, coordination and strength.

They skilfully learn to ride bicycles with stabilisers, use challenging climbing equipment and carefully walk along tyres and crates. All children are inquisitive, determined and enthusiastic learners.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

The manager ensures that all staff have a thorough understanding of how to identify potential signs and symptoms of abuse and the procedures they would use to report any concerns. This helps to support the welfare of children. The manager uses effective recruitment processes to guarantee the suitability of staff who work directly with the children.

Staff receive consistent training and opportunities to update their knowledge of wider and changing safeguarding issues, such as protecting children from extreme views and behaviour. They vigilantly ensure a safe and secure environment for children.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: monitor and support staff performance more regularly and rigorously to help identify precisely how to raise practice to the highest level focus more on how to build children's understanding of the potential risks when using the internet and how to support their own safety online.