Tilly’s Preschool Limited

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

Children have lots of fun and show high levels of engagement and enjoyment in this extremely stimulating learning environment. They are inquisitive and motivated learners with extremely positive attitudes towards new experiences. Staff successfully create a warm and welcoming atmosphere.

They strongly support children's emotional security and build their confidence and self-esteem. As a result, children behave extremely well and show consideration for others. Children have strong bonds with staff and show that they feel safe and secure.

Staff have high expectations for all children and show commitment to fostering each... child's unique potential. The quality of teaching is consistently strong. Staff skilfully promote children's interests and extend their learning through carefully planned activities that are exciting, creative and offer children good levels of challenge.

This is particularly evident indoors, and there is further scope to build on learning experiences when children play outdoors. Children benefit from an extremely rich language environment. Staff are very good at introducing and modelling new language.

However, on occasions, children are not given sufficient time to respond to questions in order to develop their thinking skills even further.

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

Children and families are warmly welcomed into the pre-school. It is highly inclusive, as shown by the effective support given to children with special educational needs and/or disabilities.

There are good channels of communication with parents, who can come in every half term to discuss their children's progress and next steps in learning. Parents express high levels of appreciation and gratitude. They state that staff are kind and caring and their children are making excellent progress.

Planned activities, especially indoors, are original and capture children's interest extremely well. They support children effectively to build on their prior knowledge and to develop a sense of awe and wonder about the world. For instance, children delighted in singing 'Incy Wincy Spider' as they caught 'spiders' and experimented with funnels and containers during water play.

Staff use activities like this to support children's understanding of different concepts such as sinking and floating. Children also showed good interest in making cakes with play dough. They enjoyed discussing the ingredients and measuring different quantities.

There is a strong focus on supporting children's language and communication skills. This is evident when children attentively listen to rhyming stories and participate in songs during phonics sessions. This also supports their growing understanding of sounds and letters.

Staff interact extremely well with children and use lots of descriptive language. However, at times, children are given insufficient time to think about questions and develop their own responses.Children have daily opportunities to play and learn outdoors.

This supports their physical development and imagination well. For instance, they enjoy riding on bikes, climbing and sliding, and chasing leaves, as well as playing with diggers in mud. Although children have fun outdoors, there is potential to offer a wider variety of activities to further promote their learning across all areas.

Staff have good opportunities for ongoing professional development and their well-being is prioritised through regular supervision and team meetings. As a result, staff say they feel happy and valued and are able to enhance their knowledge and skills regularly.Staff are excellent role models for children.

They are enthusiastic and make learning fun. They frequently offer praise and encouragement and acknowledge children's efforts and achievements. Relationships are extremely respectful and kind among children and staff.

Children are well supported to try new foods and learn about healthy food choices. The pre-school has recently participated in the Mayor of London's healthy eating scheme to reinforce positive messages about healthy lifestyles to children and families.Managers and staff are highly reflective and have high aspirations for the pre-school.

They successfully create a culture of evaluative practice and there is a strong commitment to making ongoing improvements.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.Children's safety and welfare are given high priority at the pre-school.

There are thorough recruitment systems in place to help to ensure the suitability of staff. Staff carry out daily risk assessments to minimise hazards and to help children play in a safe environment. Staff have a strong understanding of their responsibilities to protect children from harm.

They have good knowledge of safeguarding matters and recognise the signs that may indicate a child is at risk. Staff know how to report any concerns they may have to outside agencies to gain additional support for children.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: give children more time to respond to questions to support their thinking and communication skills build on the programme of activities outdoors to deepen children's experience across all areas of learning.