St Pauls Pre-School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

The dedicated manager shows a strong drive and commitment to providing high-quality experiences for children. She and her staff plan a broad and interesting curriculum for children. They have high expectations for what all children can achieve.

Learning is tailored to children's individual needs and helps to build on children's skills, in readiness for their future learning.Children enjoy coming to the pre-school and are happy and safe. They develop good attitudes to learning and concentrate well in activities that interest them.

Staff place a strong focus on promoting children's physical skills. They have successfully... focused improvements to the setting, since registration, to help benefit children's experiences of active play. This helps children to explore and develop their understanding of the world and promotes their physical development effectively.

Children develop strong bonds with staff, who know their key children's care needs well. Staff are particularly successful in helping to promote good personal, social and emotional development. They teach children about positive behaviour well.

For instance, they talk to children about the importance of taking turns and sharing. They help children to recognise their own emotions and to learn about the emotions of others. This helps children to develop strong friendships with their peers.

Children behave well and are kind and caring in their interactions with each other.

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

The manager and her staff team work well together. They are committed to providing children with a variety of learning experiences that support children's literacy skills well.

For instance, younger children sit together and listen to stories as staff read enthusiastically, bringing favourite tales to life. Staff help older children to use factual books to find out 'where you can find volcanoes'. They teach children how to use computer tablets to find pictures of animals that live in the sea.

These experiences help to foster children's early interest in reading, to support them in readiness for school.Parents speak very positively about the pre-school. They value the regular exchanges of information they have with staff about their children.

Parents are actively involved in supporting children's learning at home, particularly to help develop children's writing skills. Overall, children's attendance is good. However, a few children who are in receipt of funding do not attend the pre-school when they are expected to, which impacts on some children's learning and the progress they are capable of making.

Children enjoy a variety of experiences that help them to learn about the wider world. For instance, they enjoy visiting the church and take walks in the local area to find out about their own community. Recently, children enjoyed learning how to grow, cultivate and harvest fruits and vegetables.

Staff taught them how to cook and eat what they had grown. These experiences help to broaden children's understanding of the natural world.Staff plan activities that engage and motivate children to learn.

All children develop very good attention skills and concentrate well as staff share information with them. For instance, children thoroughly enjoy learning how to make volcanoes. They excitedly mix ingredients and enjoy measuring how high their volcano can go.

However, sometimes, staff do not use these experiences to encourage older children to share their own thoughts and ideas, to challenge their learning more consistently.Staff work closely with other professionals involved in children's care. Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities are supported well through a range of helpful strategies by caring staff who develop partnerships with a range of professionals.

This joined-up approach to supporting children's learning and care has a positive impact on the progress children make from their starting points.The manager, staff and senior management team work collaboratively with parents to successfully identify areas where improvements can be made. Since registration, significant changes have been made to the outside play space.

The garden is spacious and well resourced, and provides exciting opportunities for children who prefer to learn outdoors to explore, as well as engage in physical play and exercise. For instance, children enjoy pushing themselves along on ride-on bicycles and tricycles, and practise kicking the football to staff. These activities help to promote children's active play and support their good physical coordination skills.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.The management team and staff have a good understanding of how to keep children safe. They implement robust training for all staff to help them understand their roles and responsibilities in promoting children's welfare.

Staff have a thorough understanding of the signs and indicators that a child might be at risk of harm. They know how to report concerns about children, following the pre-school's safeguarding procedures. The management team implements effective recruitment for new staff.

The team ensures the suitability of all staff who work at the setting, including on an ongoing basis. This helps to promote a safe environment for children to play and learn.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: support all children's good progress by ensuring that parents understand the importance of good attendance and how this impacts on children's learning focus more closely on the available opportunities within activities to challenge and extend children's learning to help them develop their critical-thinking skills more independently.

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