Little Oaks @ Forty Green

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

The committed and passionate leadership team and staff provide a safe, welcoming and stimulating environment for children to play and learn in. Children happily arrive at the pre-school and are individually greeted with tremendous warmth by all staff.

Children demonstrate a positive attitude towards learning and are extremely eager to explore the wide range of well-planned and interesting activities set up for them. Leaders and staff consider children's individual needs and interests well when planning the curriculum, to help them make good progress in their learning. Children's views are valued as they have a clear input into ...the planned themes and activities on a weekly basis.

As a result, they spend significant amounts of time engaged in meaningful activities and show excellent levels of concentration. Staff are extremely effective at supporting children's emotional development. They plan interactive and fun activities which support children to attach meanings to different feelings and emotions.

As a result, even younger children are learning how to regulate their behaviour. Children play together extremely well because they receive positive messages about the importance of taking turns and sharing. They benefit from exceptional opportunities to explore and celebrate their similarities and differences.

For example, the 'marvellous me' board helps children celebrate their individual characteristics and what makes them unique. Parents are encouraged to come in to help their children share unique aspects of their home lives, and meanings behind different cultural celebrations.

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

Leaders and staff have high expectations.

They regularly evaluate the quality of the provision with a clear focus on improving outcomes for children. There are focused ongoing plans for improvement. Staff are fully involved in the process and given accountability for driving forward specific areas of change.

Leaders regularly seek feedback from parents and children and take account of their views.Staff provide a language-rich environment. The book library system enhances children's love of reading, as they get to take their favourite stories home to read with their parents.

Staff develop children's vocabulary well during activities, which supports their overall learning. For example, their weekly 'vocabulary boost' means that staff introduce agreed new words to children on a weekly basis.Leaders provide the well-qualified staff with lots of opportunities to develop their skills and extend their knowledge through training.

Staff feel well supported in their roles. Leaders have systems in place to coach and monitor staff practice through regular supervision. However, these systems could be enhanced further to ensure that staff practice is of the highest possible level.

Staff provide children with lots of opportunities to learn about healthy lifestyles. Children select and prepare their own snacks, such as pears, apples and cucumber, in their snack café. Staff provide regular cooking activities where children have an input as to what they want to cook.

For example, they get to take home the Greek salad they have made, or serve the hummus in their snack café with vegetable dips.Children have lots of opportunities to develop their mathematical thinking. They learn concepts such as 'taller' and 'shorter' as they work together to build towers.

They estimate whether their towers are 'taller' or 'shorter' than their teachers, and then use tape measures to find out. Children learn how to write numbers as they note down the pieces of fruit and vegetables they have had at snack time.Partnerships with parents are strong.

Staff keep parents informed of their children's progress and share ideas as to how they can extend their children's learning at home. Parents comment that the 'brilliant' and 'approachable' staff take the time to get to know them and their children during the settling-in process. They feel that their children are extremely happy and well cared for.

Children demonstrate good levels of understanding and are confident to express their views and ideas. For example, they point out that the motion of a pizza cutter is like that of a bicycle wheel. On some occasions, staff do not always make the most of interactions with children to allow them to express themselves fully and take their learning to the highest level, particularly children who are more reluctant to speak.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.Leaders make sure that staff have a clear understanding of the procedures in place to keep children safe through regular training sessions where they test out staff's knowledge. Staff are confident about how to identify and act on any signs which could indicate a child is at risk of harm.

They deploy themselves well to make sure that children are supervised both indoors and outdoors. There are effective systems in place to make sure that staff are aware of and can respond promptly to any specific health needs where necessary, to support children's well-being.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: strengthen the systems in place for the monitoring and development of staff practice to raise the quality of teaching so that it is of a consistently high quality develop teaching skills further to ensure staff make the most of all opportunities to extend children's learning to the highest possible level.