New Longton Under 5’s

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

The manager and staff team provide a welcoming and nurturing environment where all children flourish. The key-person system is well established, and children form secure relationships with the caring staff team. Children demonstrate that they feel safe and secure.

Staff know the children well and share affectionate bonds with them. Children settle quickly and appear to be happy and content. The manager and staff have a proactive approach to working in partnership with parents and carers.

They arrange regular meetings and provide guidance to support them in contributing to their children's learning at home. Overall, the... manager and staff team take effective steps to ensure that children are supported to gain the skills to develop and learn effectively. Children are prepared for the next stages in their learning and for their move on to school.

Staff know children well and provide them with good opportunities to enhance their learning. Children behave well and show positive attitudes towards their learning. For example, older children enjoy physical exercise indoors and learn new yoga positions.

Younger children relish the opportunity to visit older children in the nursery. They explore sand and make models from dough with staff. Activities outdoors are thoughtfully planned to stimulate children's curiosity and imagination, and challenge their physical dexterity.

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

The manager provides strong leadership. She has a clear and ambitious vision for the setting and these high values are shared by all the staff. The manager monitors staff's practice and observes them in their role.

She is considerate of the emotional well-being and workload of staff. Targeted training helps to develop staff's practice and improves their knowledge. Staff work closely with other settings children attend, such as the local school.

Children form secure relationships with the kind, caring and nurturing staff team. As a result, children demonstrate that they feel safe and secure. Staff use positive praise to support children's good behaviour.

Children are looked after in a safe and well-organised environment. Staff implement good hygiene practices. They follow the correct procedures for changing children's nappies and provide children with healthy and nutritious foods.

Staff promote children's language and mathematical development. They extend children's vocabulary during their play by introducing new words and enhancing their understanding of numbers. Overall, interactions with children are good and staff engage them in meaningful conversations during their play.

However, at times, some children in the pre-school dominate the conversations during group-time activities. This means that less-confident children do not always get the opportunity to talk to others.Overall, literacy is promoted effectively.

Children frequently choose books and sit with staff as they read to them. Staff read with good expression and hold children's attention. They ask children questions about the story.

Children are happy to speak about what they see, sometimes confidently anticipating words and phrases. Babies join in with actions during songs and rhymes. Most children have good opportunities to make marks and draw.

However, staff do not always build on babies' interest in sensory and small-physical experiences, by introducing more opportunities for them to make marks.Children's independence is promoted well. Most resources and toys are easily available for children to choose what they want to play with.

At snack time, younger children confidently use knives to put spread on their crackers. Older children register their own names at the start of the day and find their designated place to sit at lunchtime. They put on hats, coats and scarves with very little help from staff.

Children take pride in their play environment and help to tidy away resources.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.The manager and staff team demonstrate a secure knowledge of how to safeguard children.

They know the possible indicators of abuse and neglect. Staff have a good knowledge of wider safeguarding issues and are confident in how they would report any concerns about the welfare of a child. Staff complete risk assessments to ensure all areas of the setting are safe and secure.

Staff check the identity of visitors to ensure that only authorised people enter the building. The manager follows robust recruitment processes that help to assure the suitability of all adults working with children.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: provide more sensory opportunities that enable babies to make marks and extend their small-physical skills support older children to learn the importance of listening and allowing others to speak during group-time activities.