Playdays Preschool 7

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

Children settle well and form close relationships with their key person. Children demonstrate high levels of independence as they explore freely using a wide range of resources. Staff skilfully move around to supervise and support children during their play.

Children welcome their contribution, encouragement and reassurance. Children excitingly sing along and do actions for different nursery rhymes. Older children develop their literacy skills well.

They enjoy using puppets to make links to stories. Older children learn to express themselves effectively. They demonstrate good memory when recalling and retelling their p...ast experiences.

Overall, staff communicate their high expectations for children's behaviour and children respond to them well. Children show a good understanding of the daily routines and they adapt quickly when changing between activities and routine tasks. Children willingly help to tidy up the resources.

They wash their hands and sit without fuss to eat their lunches. However, staff do not ensure all children consistently bring healthy food to eat. They do not build close partnerships with other providers that children attend to promote continuity in their care and learning.

In addition, staff miss some opportunities during children's play to extend their mathematical skills further.

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

Staff create a stimulating and welcoming environment for children and provide interesting activities for them to develop their skills. For example, children enjoy a group activity exploring ice.

They add different colours and pretend to do fishing. This activity supports their social skills, sensory skills, imagination and cognitive development.Staff observe, assess and plan children's learning effectively.

As a result, they know individual children's interests and needs well and they provide opportunities to build on their existing skills. Children make good progress with their development in relation to their starting points. Staff inform parents of their children's progress and they encourage them to extend learning at home.

Staff support children's communication and language skills effectively. For example, they skilfully use sign language to communicate with children and they comment and ask questions to encourage them to talk about their play.Staff provide good opportunities for children to learn about nature, people and transportation.

For example, they arranged a nature walk for children to collect autumn leaves and conkers, and they provided a caterpillar for them to learn about the life cycle of a butterfly.Staff provide a selection of resources for children to use and develop their balance, movement and coordination. For example, children learn to balance on the see-saw and they learn to climb and slide safely.

The manager consistently reviews the strategies in place to encourage children's positive behaviour. She ensures staff support individual children to manage their feelings and to handle disagreements positively. As a result, children behave well.

They listen to others and they share and take turns to use resources.Parents provide complimentary feedback about the pre-school. They speak positively about staff's practice and the opportunities available for children.

Parents receive regular information about their children's learning and they are happy that they are making good progress.Staff benefit from regular supervision meetings, peer-to-peer observations and ongoing professional development opportunities. These help to enhance their knowledge and skills, and they implement their roles and responsibilities effectively.

The manager makes effective use of feedback obtained from staff, parents and children to help evaluate and improve the overall quality of the pre-school. For example, she has increased the opportunities for children who enjoy playing outside to use resources in the garden and to visit the local park.Although staff provide some opportunities to support children's health and physical well-being, they do not consistently ensure all children eat healthy food options at lunchtime.

Staff do not form close working partnerships with other provisions that children attend in order to enable continuity in their care and learning.Staff miss some opportunities during children's play to develop further their mathematical skills, in particular their knowledge of shape, size and measurement.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

The manager and staff have a secure understanding of their responsibilities to safeguard and protect children in their care. They attend safeguarding training and are familiar with the signs and symptoms that could indicate a child is at risk of harm or abuse. The manager and staff are aware of the procedures to report any concerns and allegations to the relevant authorities.

Rigorous recruitment procedures are in place to ensure suitable staff are employed to work with children. The manager informs staff and parents of any changes to the safeguarding policies and procedures so they know the expectations from them.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: nencourage all parents to provide healthy food options for children to eat at the pre-school build close partnerships with other provisions that children attend to promote continuity in their care and learning make better use of opportunities to develop further children's mathematical skills.