Spring Pre School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

Children are happy and enjoy their time in this homely and welcoming pre-school. They thoroughly enjoy playing and interacting with staff and demonstrate they feel safe and secure. Staff build positive relationships with children and continuously offer them gentle reassurance, praise and encouragement.

They are sensitive to children's individual needs, particularly when they are settling into the pre-school.Since the previous inspection staff have created a highly impressive, and constantly evolving, outside play space for children. This has had a positive impact on children's physical development and engagement outdoors.
<...br/>This is demonstrated as children eagerly take part in digging and planting activities. They search for bugs outside and delight in looking closely at them through magnifying glasses.Staff have high expectations for all children to learn the necessary skills they need for starting school.

For instance, staff encourage children to be independent at snack time by pouring their drink and serving their own snack.Children are making good progress in their social and emotional skills. Staff help children to learn the expectations for their behaviour.

For example, they teach them to follow the pre-school golden rules. Rewarding strategies, such as star of the week awards, help to recognise and celebrate children's personal attributes and good work.

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

Staff recognise the importance of all children hearing more words in order to improve their language and communication skills.

Staff read books and sing songs with children throughout the day. Children gravitate to staff who read with great expression and pause dramatically to create a sense of excitement. This helps to increase children's early love of books and stimulates their communication skills.

Staff skilfully introduce new words within their teaching and use language appropriate to each child's level of understanding.There is a strong importance placed on making links with the local community. Meaningful experiences, such as visits from a local police officer, help children to learn about different occupations and contribute towards their ability to keep themselves safe.

Children attend festivals at the church and enjoy people coming into the pre-school to share with them their own cultural celebrations. This helps to enhance children's learning and contributes to their understanding of the community they live in.Staff benefit from regular supervision and good training opportunities.

For instance, recent training on behaviour management strategies has had a positive effect on children's behaviour in the setting. The manager monitors staff practice and, overall, helps them to identify their strengths and areas for improvement.Staff know their key children very well.

They have a good understanding of children's starting points, gained through discussions with parents, and their initial observations. They use this information to plan a range of activities to support children's individual needs and interests. However, during these activities they do not maximise opportunities to promote challenge and extend children's learning, to help them reach their full potential.

All children are given the same level of opportunity to develop in the setting. The manager closely monitors the overall development of different groups of children. Additional funding is used effectively to help narrow the gap in learning.

For instance, they use additional funding to offer children the experience of meeting and handling reptiles, insects and farm animals. This has helped to increase children's understanding of the world.Staff build good partnerships with parents.

Feedback from parents is extremely complimentary. For example, they describe staff as 'amazing'. Staff work closely with parents to support children's learning.

For instance, they offer regular parent workshops to help parents understand the aims of the curriculum and what they can do to help their children to be ready to move on to school. They have also introduced 'home learning packs' to offer activity ideas to complete at home.Staff promote good hygiene practices.

They consistently remind children to wash their hands before snack and after messy play. However, they do not use valuable opportunities to enhance children's awareness about the benefits of healthy eating and how this affects their bodies.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

Staff have a secure knowledge and understanding of their role in protecting children from possible harm and the procedures to follow if necessary. The manager regularly assesses their knowledge and understanding by, for example, creating quizzes for them to complete. This has had a positive impact on staff's knowledge of safeguarding procedures and their role in keeping children safe.

All staff have completed relevant training to ensure that they are aware of the possible signs of children being exposed to extreme behaviour and harm. Recruitment and induction procedures are robust.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: further extend learning during activities, for example by using questions that challenge children and make them think nimprove staff's knowledge of how to support children to gain an even more secure understanding of healthy eating.