Once Upon A Time Pre-School/after School Club

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision requires improvement Children arrive happily and settle quickly.

Toddlers form strong bonds with staff. They enjoy one-to-one time with staff during care routines. The provider is ambitious for all children to be confident and independent.

Staff use their understanding of children's interests and information gathered through observations to plan the curriculum. However, this is not consistently implemented, which means that children's learning is not always well promoted. Children's behaviour is often not well managed.

Staff do not help them to understand risks. For example, children practise using safety scissors. When they grab the... scissors from one another, staff do not support children to resolve their conflict or teach them how to use scissors safely.

Therefore, the impact on children's learning is limited.The provider knows the local community well and organises the nursery to meet the needs of local families. Many children in the area do not have access to outdoor spaces.

The provider, therefore, makes sure that children spend plenty of time outdoors in the fresh air, practising their physical skills. Children develop a love of nature. They help to grow sunflowers and vegetables in the nursery garden.

Children are active and curious. They are fascinated by spider webs in the bushes and sing a nursery rhyme about a spider.Children enjoy books and stories.

Staff read with expression, which inspires children's interest. Children learn about their own and other cultures. There are resources around the nursery that depict different cultures and languages reflected in the nursery.

Children discuss the festival of Eid and know that some families celebrate Eid and others do not.

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

The provision for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) is a strength of the setting. The provider uses additional funding effectively to support children with SEND.

Staff receive specialised training to enable them to meet children's medical needs. Staff get to know children well. They work with parents and other professionals to implement support plans.

Staff support children's language and literacy well. They comment on what children are doing and echo back what they say. Pre-school children use their rapidly growing language skills to ask questions and express their ideas.

Toddlers demonstrate their growing vocabulary. They repeat 'bubble, bubble' when staff set up the bubble machine. Staff introduce children to a variety of songs and rhymes.

Children sing loudly and join in with the actions.Children's ability to regulate their behaviour and resolve conflicts is limited. Staff do not manage children's behaviour consistently.

Some staff help children to learn how to share and take turns. However, other staff tell children to use 'kind hands' but do not offer support or explanations. Occasionally, children are discouraged from taking part in activities when children snatch equipment from them.

This limits children's access to the full range of learning opportunities.Staff promote children's physical development well. Children demonstrate increasing skills as they run, jump and climb in the garden.

Children enjoy squeezing slime through their fingers. This helps to strengthen their small muscles and support the development of early writing skills.Parents are welcomed into the nursery.

They receive support from staff and report that children quickly develop in confidence when they start. Parents receive daily feedback about their children's progress and have regular access to their children's learning records.Managers support staff's welfare.

Staff receive regular appraisals and training. However, managers have not identified weaknesses in staff's understanding of how to help children learn to keep themselves safe. Children have some understanding of how to keep healthy.

They know they must wash their hands before lunch. However, they are not supervised adequately at mealtimes. Staff stand in a group nearby but do not notice when children put food into each other's lunchboxes.

This does not support children to understand fully the risks to their health. Consequently, some children do not learn how to keep themselves safe.Children are generally well engaged by the interesting activities that staff plan at each session.

Toddlers join in enthusiastically with activities. They squeal with delight as they play hide and seek with staff. However, transitions between routines in the pre-school room are sometimes disorganised and children are not always engaged in stimulating learning activities.

When children come in from the garden, staff do not work as a team to support all children to settle into activities. Consequently, children become restless and begin to demonstrate unwanted behaviour.

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 meet the requirements of the early years foundation stage and Childcare Register the provider must: Due date support staff to manage children's behaviour consistently so that children understand how to regulate their feelings and resolve conflicts 18/11/2024 ensure that staff support children to learn how to keep themselves safe 18/11/2024 make sure that staff deploy themselves effectively to support children's understanding of how to stay healthy at mealtimes.18/11/2024 To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: review transitions between activities to ensure that these happen swiftly and children are always engaged in meaningful learning experiences.