Ladybird Pre-School Limited

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

Staff are warm and welcoming to the children and provide a supportive learning environment to promote children's development. Staff are attentive to children's needs and are well deployed. Children show positive attitudes to their learning, and overall, children behave well.

Staff help children to feel safe in their surroundings as they form good relationships, which helps them feel secure. Staff generally encourage children's speaking and concentration skills well. For example, in group times, children sit together and participate with staff who read and sing interactively with them.

Children show excitement and inter...est in the activities available to them, both indoors and outdoors. Staff plan experiences to build on children's learning and understanding, which helps them to be curious and motivated in their learning. For example, children learn to explore and take safe risks as they use a range of climbing apparatus and obstacles in the garden, such as planks and tyres.

Staff help children to be self-sufficient and do things for themselves. For instance, children help to put resources away at tidy-up time, and they are supported to pour their own drinks and serve their own fruit at snack times.

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

Leaders are confident in the learning intentions they want children to achieve and learn.

They work well together with the staff to implement a curriculum that supports the children's development. Staff ensure that all children benefit from learning that builds on what they know and can do.Staff know the children in their care well, and they maintain a key-person approach which is effective in helping all children to succeed in their learning.

Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities are supported well. The leadership team uses additional funding well to support individual children as required.Staff understand the importance of supporting children's communication and language skills.

They engage purposefully with the children and take time to model language appropriately. However, at times, some staff do not give children enough time to think or express their thoughts and ideas before asking further questions. Children are polite and helpful, and they behave well overall.

Staff offer children a nice amount of praise and encouragement, which in turn supports their confidence.Children make choices about what they would like to do throughout the day. Children have fun as they play imaginatively, and they enjoy caring for their babies and making 'hot chocolate' in the mud kitchen.

Children have many opportunities to explore with media and materials, and they draw and explore with paints and dough. This allows them to practise mark making, which helps to develop muscle strength for early writing.The leadership team provides staff with regular training that benefits the children in their care.

New staff have a robust induction process to help them understand their roles and responsibilities. Supervision meetings are offered to staff. However, the ongoing coaching and mentoring of staff do not focus enough on providing clear feedback on staff practice so that they can use this to further develop the quality of teaching.

The special educational needs coordinator fully understands her roles and responsibilities to maximise the learning opportunities for children. She recognises the importance of working with parents, staff and other professionals to get support for children as needed. This helps to support children and prepares them for the next stage of their education.

Partnerships with parents are good. Staff gather detailed information about children's individual needs and preferences when they first start with them. They regularly share learning achievements with parents to ensure they are kept up to date with how their children are developing.

Parents comment positively about the communication they receive, and they praise staff for their effectiveness in meeting their children's needs. Staff help parents to extend their child's learning at home well. For instance, they offer a book lending library programme to encourage a love of reading at home.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.There is an open and positive culture around safeguarding that puts children's interests first.

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 understand the importance of giving children the time they need to think about and answer questions, to enable them to speculate, test their ideas and challenge their thinking build on the arrangements for staff mentoring, coaching and training to further develop their skills and raise the quality of teaching.

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