Olive Tree Pre-School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

Staff promote children's emotional well-being positively. They listen to children and take time to explain what is expected of them. When small disputes occur they encourage children to work as a team and give gentle reminders to share and take turns.

Older children show kindness and consideration to their younger peers. This is demonstrated as younger children build towers and are unsure where to place the bricks. Their older friends step in and help them to succeed.

Children learn to take safe risks. They stand on their towers and balance on them carefully. Children have many opportunities to build on their skills in...doors and outdoors.

For instance, they show growing independence and put on their coats ready to go in the garden. Once outdoors they build dens and show good coordination skills as they connect shapes together. This helps to develop their small muscles in preparation for early writing.

Children learn to use tools for a purpose. They push rakes through the sand and enjoy making patterns. Indoors, children explore different textures.

For example, they fill containers with pasta and show an understanding of 'full' and 'empty'. Children delight in using resources in different ways. This is demonstrated as they thread wool through pasta shapes and tell staff they are making a necklace.

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

Children have opportunities to learn about the wider world. They visit the local care home and enjoy activities with the residents. Children also take pleasure in outings to the local park and walks to the nearby woods.

They collect a range of natural resources and delight in discussing what they have found. For example, they use magnifying glasses and explore different textures and patterns, such as on leaves and bark.Staff know the children well.

They hold discussions with parents and take time to find out about children's abilities and interests on entry. Staff continue to work well in partnership with parents. They have introduced a lending library and activity bags to help provide support and guidance on how to continue children's learning at home.

Parents are very positive about the staff. They state that their children are making good progress and enjoy coming to pre-school.Children learn how to keep themselves healthy.

For example, they wash their hands before snack and help themselves to a range of nutritious fruit and vegetables. Children wash up their plates and cups without prompting, which helps to build on their future life skills.Children are motivated to learn.

This is demonstrated as they invent new games and spend time making up their own rules. For example, they roll dice, count quantities and write numerals and number names. However, occasionally, some staff do not build on what children know and can do.

At times, they do not make the most of valuable opportunities to fully extend and challenge children in their learning.Staff assess children accurately, such as in their development. They quickly identify children who need additional support and work closely with other professionals, such as speech and language therapists, to help close gaps in learning swiftly.

However, staff do not make best use of information about children's cultures to share their home languages, traditions and experiences to further support their learning. This also has an impact on how well they support children to learn about the similarities and differences in lives of people from backgrounds different to their own.The manager knows her staff team well.

Staff comment that she holds regular supervision meetings and works closely with them to build on their skills and knowledge. However, the manager does not focus on professional development rigorously enough to help raise the quality of staff teaching skills to the highest level.The manager regularly evaluates the environment and works closely with staff to improve the pre-school.

For example, together they have enhanced the book area to make this more inviting to children. At the inspection, children showed a love of books. They acted out stories, such as 'The Gruffalo'.

Children took on different roles and characters and discussed how the story ends.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.All staff have a thorough knowledge of the signs and symptoms that may indicate a child is at risk of harm.

They know who to contact if there are any concerns about a child's welfare or if they have concerns about another member of staff. The manager provides staff with regular updates. She frequently tests their knowledge about safeguarding issues to help keep them up to date with latest legislation.

Staff supervise children well and complete regular risk assessments to help ensure children are safe. The management team has robust recruitment and ongoing monitoring systems to ensure staff remain suitable to work with children.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: develop staff's good teaching skills to enable them to extend and challenge children's learning to more consistently build on what children already know and can do build on the use of children's home languages in their play and daily routines and help all children learn about and celebrate their own and other people's similarities and differences.