Little Berries Preschool @ Bassett

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

The manager and her team plan a varied curriculum for children. They take account of children's individual interests and plan a broad range of learning experiences based on these. For instance, staff introduce topics based on children's love of transport.

They skilfully weave in mathematical learning as they follow children's interest in cars and trains. This helps children to be engaged and motivated learners, as they gain positive attitudes to building on what they know and can do. Managers and staff support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities and those in receipt of additional funding well.

T...hey work very closely with parents and other professionals to ensure interventions are in place to support children. Staff place children's well-being at the centre of all they do. They place a strong focus on building children's personal, social and emotional development.

Strong bonds with staff help children to feel safe and secure. This successfully helps children to develop excellent levels of confidence, resilience and emotional maturity, in readiness for school. Children are very independent, as staff have very high expectations for what children can do.

Staff teach children about the wider world extremely well. Children behave well. They understand and value the uniqueness of each other and enjoy learning about the community they live in.

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

Staff develop strong partnership working with children, their families and carers to provide them with exceptional levels of care. These strong bonds are highly effective in providing all children with the emotional security they need to develop children's emotional health. As a result, children are confident to try new experiences.

They persevere at new tasks and develop the emotional resilience that supports them to be prepared well for school.The manager and her staff are well-qualified practitioners, who create a happy and harmonious environment for children. Staff capture opportunities to build on children's knowledge in spontaneous activities.

For instance, as children prepare snacks, staff help them think about which fruits and vegetables grow above or below the ground. They encourage children to think how bananas grow and teach them to use computer tablets to research the answer. This helps children to play and explore with interest and supports their good thinking skills.

Staff know their key children well. They make regular assessments of learning to check the progress they make. However, sometimes plans for children's next steps are not as sharply focused in specific areas, to target teaching and learning as precisely as possible.

At times, this hinders how group activities can be adapted to meet the differing needs of children. In particular, to support their communication and language skills as fully as possible.Parents speak very highly of the pre-school and the high levels of care that staff provide.

They comment positively on how staff find out about any special family occasions or celebrations and share this in the pre-school. This helps staff to provide rich learning experiences to support children's awareness and further their knowledge of the different cultural backgrounds and experiences of their friends. For instance, children have recently learned about Diwali and regularly visit the local residential care home for older people.

The manager uses effective staff supervision, coaching and training for staff to build on their good-quality teaching. For instance, staff have recently improved the outdoor environment to promote children's mathematical experiences. This has been particularly successful for those children who prefer to learn outdoors.

The committee, manager, staff, parents and children contribute to the evaluation of the pre-school. Together they identify how they can continue to improve the setting, to continue to support good outcomes for all children. For instance, as a result of parents' suggestions, staff involve parents in drop-in sessions, where they help children learn to cook, share favourite stories and accompany children on outings in the local community.

This helps to build strong links with families and enables parents to support children's learning at home.Children are highly independent and gain excellent physical skills. Staff teach children routines that promote their physical health.

For instance, children explain how washing their hands before they eat stops them getting germs in their tummies. Staff help all children, including the youngest, to learn about how to take appropriate risk and challenge in their play. For instance, they teach them about the areas outside which are softer for children to fall on, when they take part in active role play.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.All staff receive regular training to keep their knowledge of local safeguarding policies and procedures up to date. Staff know how to identify if children are at risk of harm, including from extreme ideas or behaviours.

They understand their responsibility to report concerns and have a robust knowledge of the action they should take if they have concerns about children's welfare. Staff risk assess effectively and take action to promote a safe and secure environment for children to play and learn.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: nenhance the planning for children's next steps in learning to ensure they are more finely tuned to the individual needs of each child review the organisation of whole-group activities so that the differing learning needs of all children are more precisely targeted.