St Paul’s Pre-School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

Children thoroughly enjoy their time at the setting.

They arrive happily and separate from their parents and carers with ease. There is a strong sense of community, and staff work closely with parents and other professionals to ensure that children and families receive the support they need to make good progress. Staff know children very well and use the information they gather during the settling-in sessions about children's stages of development and interests to help them to settle quickly.

Staff provide a range of activities for children to explore that immediately grasp children's interest. For example, children us...ed magnets to help them find magnetic numbers in a tray filled with shredded paper. When children found the numbers, staff supported them in matching them to printed numbers on the board.

Staff allowed children time to have a go at matching the numbers and saying what they were. Children behave well and as expected for their age. They play well together and listen to instructions from staff.

They have a good understanding of what is expected from them and understand boundaries. Overall, staff are attentive to children's learning needs. However, some staff do not consistently recognise opportunities to challenge children and extend their learning as much as possible.

Children are learning to be independent and enjoy taking responsibility for themselves. For example, some children help to prepare fruit for their snack and understand how to use knives safely. They clear away their belongings when they have finished, take themselves to the toilet and can get ready to go outside.

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

Staff have a good understanding of how children learn and what they need to do next. Observation and assessment of children's learning are accurate and their next steps clearly link to their individual stages of development. The manager closely monitors children's learning and has regular meetings with staff.

This helps her understand how staff are supporting the children and ensuring that they make good progress.Partnerships between parents and staff are strong. Parents speak highly of all staff and state that they provide 'excellent' support to them as a family unit.

Staff regularly share information with parents about their children's learning and encourage further learning at home. For example, when children arrive in the morning, they choose a book to put in their book bag to then take home and read together with their parents. Staff invite parents to meetings each term so they can discuss their children's progress and highlight how they are getting them ready for their next stage in learning.

Staff focus on developing children's small-muscle skills in preparation for writing and plan a number of activities for them to choose from. For instance, children enjoyed moulding dough with their hands and then staff extended their experiences by providing them with rollers, knives and scissors to help them make marks. This helps to develop the small muscles in their hands.

Children demonstrate high levels of concentration when trying to achieve their goal. For example, they persevered when using tweezers to collect different-sized pom poms and placed the correct amount onto printed cards. This challenged children's mathematical skills as they were expected to count the items and recognise printed numbers.

Staff know which children need a little support and do so gently so they can still feel a sense of achievement. Older children are given time to think and praised enthusiastically.Occasionally, some routine times of the day are not very well organised.

Children do not always receive the same good-quality interactions from staff that they do during their play, and learning opportunities can be missed.Children have constant access to the outdoor area, which enables them to choose where their learning takes place. Some staff demonstrate skill as they make the most out of spontaneous opportunities to enhance children's learning.

For example, children noticed that the rainwater was dripping from the gutter awning and were extremely excited to see the drips falling on the floor to make a puddle. Staff suggested finding a pot to collect the water. Children found a pot and watched with high levels of curiosity as the pot filled.

Staff captured children's engagement by asking them to describe what they could hear; children responded, 'Drip, drip, drip, drop.'

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.Staff have a good knowledge and understanding of their role and responsibilities of protecting children from possible harm.

They have a secure awareness of the possible signs of abuse and the procedures to follow should they have concerns about a child's well-being. The manager understands the importance of ensuring staff have a good safeguarding knowledge and makes this a key discussion point during staff meetings and supervision sessions. Staff undertake regular safeguarding training and receive any updates from their manager.

The manager has robust recruitment and induction procedures in place. She completes rigorous checks to ensure that only those suitable to work with children do so.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: support staff to recognise opportunities that arise to offer even more challenge during their interactions with children review and improve the organisation of some aspects of the daily routine to enable staff to focus on more fully supporting children, to provide more consistency in the quality of teaching.

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