Highfield Hoppers Ltd

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

The leaders are passionate about their role and have a clear vision for their team. They adopt a curriculum that is rich in language. Staff actively promote children's communication skills and are good role models.

Children have opportunities to borrow books to take home from the sharing library. This helps to promote early reading skills, and children gain a love of reading from a very young age.Children benefit from a range of exciting activities across different areas of learning in early years.

They become engrossed in their learning while they play 'noisy neighbour'. Children listen attentively to hidden noises ar...ound the classroom. They successfully identify objects that could be making the same sound.

Children enjoy recognising rhyming words in whole-group activities. This helps to promote children's early literacy skills. However, staff sometimes miss opportunities to extend children's learning even further.

Staff create a welcoming and calm environment for children to play and explore in. Children feel safe and they demonstrate positive attitudes to learning. They show high levels of curiosity in their play.

They are captivated while investigating the properties of ice in the outdoor area.Children are happy and settled. They have formed strong attachments with staff and made close friendships with their peers.

Children behave well because staff embed the rules of the setting from an early age. Children play well together, taking turns and sharing equipment.

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

Leaders have forged partnerships with a range of professionals.

They work well with relevant agencies, which ensures children receive the specialist support they need. This helps to improve staff's knowledge of how to support children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities.Staff introduce mathematical language such as 'bigger' and 'smaller' to children as they play.

Younger children order three objects by size, from the smallest to the biggest. Older children use magnetic fishing rods to count how many fish they can catch in the water tray. This helps to promote mathematical skills.

However, staff sometimes miss opportunities to question children in their play, to extend their learning even further.Staff liaise effectively with the local school. The headteacher reads the children a story every month.

A book containing photographs of children's new teachers and the school environment is sent home over the summer holidays. This helps to prepare children for their move to school.Parents are thrilled with the level of care that children receive.

They are thankful for the large bank of activities sent home. This helps parents to extend their children's learning at home. Parents state that staff 'go above and beyond' to support families.

Staff have recently supported parents with finding specialist provision.Staff track the development of all children, which ensures that they can plan effectively for children's next steps. Children make good progress from their starting points.

Leaders ensure they provide children with access to experiences and opportunities that help them to gain the key skills needed for the next stage in their development and eventual move to school.Self-evaluation includes the views of staff, children and parents. Leaders have recently altered the prices of sessions following parents' feedback.

They have also introduced a daily menu board in the entranceway.The manager monitors the practice of staff through supervision meetings. However, systems for assessing the quality of teaching have not been embedded.

Professional development opportunities are not focused on improving teaching.Children are becoming independent learners. Younger children put on their own coats and freely access the resources.

Older children put on costumes by themselves and manage their own personal hygiene well.Leaders recently failed to notify Ofsted about a significant event. They have since evaluated their practice and put appropriate measures in place to ensure the incident does not happen again.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.Staff have a good understanding of what constitutes a safeguarding concern. They understand the procedures to follow to protect children from harm.

Staff attend training courses, access online training and have monthly staff meetings to improve their safeguarding knowledge. Good recruitment procedures and rigorous background checks ensure that children are always cared for by suitable adults who have the necessary skills to fulfil their roles in the setting. Risk assessments are completed to minimise any risks to children.

Children are supervised well in all areas of the setting. Consequently, children are protected.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: support staff to ask children even more challenging questions to further extend their learning nenhance professional development opportunities for staff to focus on raising the quality of teaching and learning even higher.

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