St Catherine’s Pre School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is outstanding

Children have a wonderful time at the pre-school and thrive in staff's excellent care.

Staff give great attention to detail in their provision, which inspires and engages children extremely well. For instance, staff extend sensory play with extensive use of many natural and authentic resources. For example, children play with highly sustained concentration as they mix fresh herbs with dried pasta and 'make tea' with tealeaves, water and real teapots.

Leaders and staff create a highly stimulating environment and provide an exciting curriculum based on children's specific interests. They have high expectations of ...children and continuously extend learning. Children make excellent progress from their starting points, particularly in their emotional and language development.

Children show immense delight in their play activities and are confident in their learning and selection of activities. Staff involve children well and skilfully interact to extend challenges. Children take great pride in their achievements and are heard to declare 'we love this' as they play.

The pre-school has a lovely, calm atmosphere and children settle extremely well. Staff make children feel very important and they enjoy special celebrations together. Children develop high levels of self-esteem.

Behaviour and attitudes in children are exemplary. Children develop an excellent sense of care and responsibility and are very quick to learn about consequences of behaviour. They take part in innovative activities to learn about and respect different backgrounds.

Staff and children are extremely proud of their local community project. They thought about local concerns and what they could do about people not cleaning up after their dogs. Children designed posters which they displayed in the local area, which successfully made their community a cleaner environment.

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

Leaders and staff successfully strive for continuous improvement. They are highly conscientious as they reflect on their practice and find innovative ways to enhance their provision. For example, the 'garden room' has provided an additional area for small-group work and quiet activities.

Support and development of staff is exemplary. The committee and manager have an excellent overview of the pre-school. Staff value the effective training opportunities and share their skills and expertise.

Newer staff comment on how much the experienced staff inspire them to extend their teaching skills. Training has enhanced staff's teaching skills in communication and language development, to further extend children's learning. The pre-school is visited by other providers as it is held as an example of excellence.

Staff know the children extremely well and the key-person system is highly effective. Children feel very secure and have close bonds with their key member of staff. Shy or quiet children very quickly gain confidence and trust as they form good attachments.

Staff expertly help children with less vocabulary to make independent choices and decisions. For instance, staff use signing and photographs to further support communication. They upload videos to demonstrate signing, which parents copy and use at home to successfully reinforce children's learning.

Support to children with special educational needs and/or disabilities is excellent. Staff have extremely good partnerships with other agencies to provide additional help where needed. Additional funding is used exceptionally well to provide extra support.

For instance, the manager has invested in a programme to enhance communication and language assessment. Staff have used additional resources to create a unique speech and language activity known as 'Wilbur's group' time, which children thoroughly enjoy.Staff value the uniqueness of each child.

They take great care to reflect and celebrate children's individuality. For instance, children hear and sing 'happy birthday' in their home languages. Staff make excellent use of family photographs to help children settle quickly and understand their importance.

Children take great delight in the range of exciting learning opportunities in the curriculum. Staff skilfully incorporate and extend all areas of learning throughout activities. For instance, at beach school children learn how to be safe near water, how to catch sea creatures with care and how to work together as a team.

A trip to a farm helped children to make links between what they eat, what they see at the shops and what happens on the farm.Partnerships with parents are excellent. Parents provide extremely positive feedback about the pre-school.

In particular, they place great value on the quality of information and support given by staff. For instance, parents find the workshops about children's development helpful. Parents said how much they learned about how children's physical play at forest school also supports children's early literacy skills.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.Leaders, staff and committee members confidently apply their thorough knowledge of safeguarding to ensure that policies and procedures are robustly in place. They recognise potential signs for concern and take immediate steps to protect children from risk of harm.

Their close working relationships with other agencies enhance the very good support available to families. Staff understand the importance of early intervention and engage parents with success, including those who are initially unwilling. Parents trust the staff and they work exceptionally well together to increase parenting skills.

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