Gissing Children’s Centre - A Community Pre-School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is outstanding

Children exhibit high levels of well-being and security in this welcoming, cosy setting. They engage in very warm, respectful interactions with attentive staff.

Children demonstrate great resilience with difficult tasks or when things go wrong. Staff provide children with sensitive, positive responses that recognise their feelings and praise their determination to continue or try again. Children respond well to these high expectations and demonstrate excellent independence and a can-do attitude in everyday tasks.

For instance, they wash their hands, get dressed to go outside and serve themselves snack and drinks... without needing adult support. Children glow with pride as staff tell other staff or parents about the things children have done particularly well, such as using excellent counting skills or being a kind friend.Children concentrate for extended periods of time and exhibit extremely positive attitudes to learning.

For example, they investigate the sensory properties of cornflour 'gloop' and experiment with adding and mixing colours using powder paint. Children demonstrate superb listening skills. They wait patiently for their turn to speak during group activities and follow staff instructions well.

Children delight in cooperative play and activities. They begin to grasp the rules of a range of games. For instance, children take turns to select yoga cards and recreate the poses.

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

The manager and her staff are dedicated to providing high-quality, nurturing experiences for children and their families. They are highly reflective and regularly seek out new ideas and perspectives. The team welcomes experts in a range of fields to provide feedback on the provision and train the team in new approaches, most recently to promote children's emotional well-being and communication.

The manager is inspirational in her approach and shares her expertise freely, including with other settings.Children form highly secure bonds with staff. They thrive with plentiful opportunities for cosy moments sharing books with staff.

Children demonstrate excellent behaviour. They understand the key rules of the setting and show empathy and kindness towards others. Children's uniqueness is celebrated and all children thrive in this fully inclusive environment.

Staff are hugely empathetic and responsive to children's learning needs. They recognise when children require further time to fully explore a particular resource. For example, staff put children's partially finished models onto trays to ensure they will not be tidied away and will be available for children to continue working on after lunch.

Staff use their knowledge of children's interests and current levels of development to offer a wide variety of rich, imaginative learning opportunities and resources.Parents call the setting 'wonderful' and comment how staff 'know each individual child really well and are so nurturing'. They report how much progress their children have made, including their increased social skills, confidence and independence.

Parents appreciate how happy their children are and say they are often reluctant to leave at the end of their session. They appreciate how well informed they are about their child's learning and the opportunities to continue this at home, with library books, workshops and activity suggestions from staff.Children delight in challenging and practising their physical skills.

They negotiate the outside space on balance bicycles and create their own bridges and slopes with planks and tyres. Children rush to the gate, eager to go and hunt for twinkly snowflakes in the woodland. Indoors, they enjoy walking in different types of shoes, including wooden clogs and heeled shoes that make clicking noises as they walk.

Children tell visitors they are excited to 'play yogas'. Staff deliver calm yoga sessions and praise children's growing skill in holding poses, focusing their attention and relaxing.Staff employ a range of highly effective teaching techniques.

They carefully introduce different concepts into their play alongside and with children. For example, staff skilfully introduce shapes and counting quantities as children build kennels for toy dogs. Children talk about the size of the kennels and the space needed for 'more than six' dogs.

Staff encourage children to talk about the similarities and differences of the toy dogs. They also talk about adopting a dog from another country, using it as an opportunity to talk about different languages and the modes of transport needed to travel such long distances.The manager uses a comprehensive improvement plan, drawing from a range of sources, to define specific actions to drive continuous improvement.

She uses information drawn from her meticulous monitoring of children's learning, feedback from parents and discussions with staff to ensure all improvements are sharply focused to meet the needs of children.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.Staff have a robust knowledge of the signs and symptoms that may indicate a child is at risk of harm.

They have an excellent understanding of the procedures to report any concerns about the welfare of a child or the behaviour of an adult. Staff know the whistleblowing policy and procedure for reporting allegations. The manager ensures staff keep their knowledge up to date.

Staff regularly attend training and have briefings during staff meetings. When appointing new staff, the manager follows thorough recruitment processes. This ensures staff are suitable and have the necessary skills to fulfil their roles in the setting.