Ripplings Pre- School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

Staff at this setting are long standing and nurturing. They welcome children with warmth and enthusiasm.

Children, even those who have only recently started, separate easily from parents. They run in happily to see what adventures they will have today. Leaders have a clear and ambitious curriculum in place for children that incorporates their current interests and stages of development.

Children show real focus and engagement in each task and activity they undertake. As the morning draws to a close and parents arrive to collect their children, children show a genuine disappointment that the session is over. Children's ...behaviour is good.

Staff are positive role models for children, supporting them to share resources, using aids such as timers. Children quickly understand they need to wait if they would like a turn. They go to the timer and turn it over independently to indicate they know they must wait to be next.

Staff have high expectations of children, and children respond positively to these. Children understand the routine of the setting and thrive on this sense of safety and security in knowing what will happen next. As staff prepare snacks, children help to tidy away the resources, moving tables and chairs together without prompting, so they can all eat socially together.

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

Staff know children well. They understand their starting points in development and spend time observing and accurately monitoring children's learning. This helps them to discover what it is children already know and can do and what it is they need to learn next.

Staff offer children challenge and ensure that they are ready for the next stage of their learning.The curriculum for communication and language is a strength of the setting. Staff provide a narrative on children's play, introducing new vocabulary to enhance children's understanding of the world around them.

Where children mispronounce words, staff clearly repeat back the correct pronunciation without making children aware they are correcting them. Children enjoy singing familiar rhymes and songs with their peers.Staff offer children lots of praise and encouragement and, as such, children are fiercely independent.

At snack time, children take the lids off their yoghurt pots and peel their own bananas without help. Staff respect and listen to children's voices. Children have choices about which resources they would like to see out the next day, and they help to set these out before they go home.

Children are then excited about coming in the following day. Children are proud of their achievements when they have completed a tricky task.There are times in the day when staff are not always clear about why they would like children to follow certain rules, such as having toys on the slide or wearing dressing-up clothes while climbing.

Staff do not consistently provide children with reasons as to why these actions are not safe, for example, that they may trip or fall. This does not help children to understand cause and effect and learn how to keep themselves and others safe in the future.The setting is part of a diverse community, and children learn about the world around them in a variety of ways.

Staff take children on trips locally to the library, parks, shops and local soft-play centre. They use these visits for children to learn about local bus routes, places of interest and what makes them unique and special. Staff invite parents into the setting to share special family recipes, stories or songs with children.

Partnerships with parents are good. Parents describe the setting and staff as caring and approachable. They feel they are kept well informed about what their children are learning through daily verbal handovers, termly newsletters and regular progress meetings.

Staff report that their well-being is well supported within the setting. Leaders ensure that as well as informal debriefs every morning, there are also opportunities for more formal supervisions and appraisals to support the professional development of everyone at the setting. Leaders reflect regularly on how they can continue to enhance the service that the setting offers, liaising with the local authority and other community services.

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 further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: promote children's understanding of why there are rules and boundaries in the setting, so they develop their knowledge of how to keep themselves and others safe.