Tadpoles Community Pre-School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

Staff provide a warm and welcoming environment.

Children form secure attachments, and positive relationships between staff and children are evident. Children demonstrate that they feel safe and secure, as they make choices from a wide range of good-quality resources and play materials. Leaders are enthusiastic and committed to their roles and responsibilities.

They have high expectations for every child and have developed a curriculum based on children's interests and what they need to learn next. Staff demonstrate a good understanding of how children learn and develop. They provide an abundance of opportunities to enh...ance children's communication and language skills, such as through books, stories, songs and rhymes.

The dedicated managers and staff work very closely with parents and other professionals involved in children's care. This helps them to support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities effectively. For example, they regularly liaise with professionals and parents to seek advice, review children's progress and set children challenging targets.

Overall, children show high levels of interest. They explore, investigate and are keen to find things out. They benefit from an abundance of opportunities to play outdoors, including regular visits to woodland during forest school experiences.

Children learn about the natural environment and benefit from physical activity.

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

The members of the recently appointed leadership team are very ambitious and passionate about the service they provide. Managers have a strong vision for the nursery.

They highly value their staff and recognise the good work they do. Ongoing professional development opportunities, including supervision sessions, help staff continue to develop their skills. Staff report that they feel well supported.

Staff complete regular observations of children and assess their development effectively. This helps them to accurately identify when children may need additional support and implement plans to help them to progress further.Overall, children behave well and are kind and respectful to others.

Staff act as good role models and most implement rules and boundaries consistently. However, occasionally, some staff do not react quickly enough when children struggle to share.Children's early writing and literacy skills are promoted well.

For instance, children can confidently make marks and talk about their pictures. A lending library is well established, supporting children to develop a love of reading at home.Children readily use mathematics in their everyday play, such as when they build sandcastles.

Staff use these opportunities to determine children's level of understanding. For instance, when children have five sandcastles and add one more, staff ask them how many they now have. Children demonstrate that they understand simple addition.

They know that if they have five and add one more they have six.Partnerships with parents are good. Leaders and staff use effective communication methods to share information with them, including through daily discussions and face-to-face meetings.

Parents speak very highly about the nursery and report how well their children are developing.Staff support children well in their personal development. They give children consistent messages to help support them to make healthy choices.

For instance, staff provide healthy snacks, promote robust hygiene practices, and children benefit from lots of physical activity, indoors and outdoors. However, occasionally, staff do not always remind children when they might be at risk, for example by demonstrating how to hold scissors correctly.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

Robust recruitment and vetting arrangements help ensure that those working with children are suitable for their role. Staff have a good knowledge and understanding of child protection, including the wider aspects of safeguarding. Managers ensure staff undertake regular training so that their knowledge remains current.

Staff confidently describe the action they would take if they had concerns about a child's welfare or regarding a colleague's practice. They implement effective risk assessments that help to ensure children can play in a safe and secure environment.

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 be more consistent in managing children's behaviour and extend the highly effective behaviour management strategies currently used in some areas of the nursery strengthen the support for children to learn about risks and staying safe.

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