William Cowper Preschool

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

Children join in enthusiastically with learning opportunities that staff plan to support specific areas of their development.

For example, staff work with a group of children to make dough and then encourage specific movements such as squeezing and rolling to develop children's hand strength. Children benefit from plenty of conversations and interactions with the adults.Children develop close bonds with the small, attentive, staff team and enjoy their company.

They listen carefully to adults and respect what they say, promptly following their requests. Staff introduce lots of learning opportunities, often based around ...themes. This gives children breadth and depth to their developing knowledge.

Staff help them develop an understanding of the world around them, including learning about different cultures. For example, staff provide painting invitations for children to join in with making their own rangoli designs and Valentine's themed crafts.Children freely follow their own interests and express their individuality, such as dancing freely to music that is played.

They get along well together most of the time. They share their ideas as they play and invite each other to join in during unstructured play times where they can choose from a wide range of enticingly presented resources. Staff encourage children to develop their knowledge in mathematics after having identified this as an area of the curriculum to strengthen.

They ensure they include children who are learning to speak English as an additional language by learning how to count in the children's home language. Children talk about money, and use numbers, as they enthusiastically use role-play toys to pretend to go shopping.

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

Staff know children well and carefully plan for their individual learning.

They work closely with parents to understand children's needs and interests. They use what they know to plan learning opportunities that they know will motivate individual children to learn.Staff ensure that children's speaking and listening skills are well promoted.

They provide daily story and singing times. Children join in confidently with the stories and songs that they know. This supports children's vocabulary to develop and promotes their early literacy skills, including helping them to develop a love for reading.

Partnerships with parents are trusting and supportive. Staff work closely with them to ensure that children's needs are met, and parents find it easy to approach the dedicated staff. Staff promptly offer help to parents and work closely with other professionals whenever there is a need to do so.

Staff send home challenges for parents to complete with children, which helps parents to support and continue children's learning at home.Leaders evaluate the quality of provision. They focus mainly on recognising what assessments are telling them about where children are in their learning and development.

They make changes to the curriculum accordingly to ensure that all areas of children's learning are well supported. Essential training and ongoing staff professional development are well established to ensure that children are safeguarded and their welfare is promoted. However, there is sometimes a lack of focus on developing staff's understanding of developments in teaching practice to help raise quality higher.

Children understand what is expected of them. Staff give them clear boundaries and, where children struggle to keep within them, staff reiterate what is expected. Consequently, children learn how to behave appropriately towards one another.

Where children have special educational needs and/or disabilities, staff work with parents and other professionals to understand and provide the support that children need. They also seek information from other settings that children attend to help them to understand individual children's needs.At the start of the day, some children play very actively.

Staff do not always help them to channel their drive for physical movement. Children's time playing actively, for example, in the spacious and well-resourced outdoor area where they like to climb and play active games, is sometimes shorter than they would like it to be. This contributes to some children finding it harder to focus on some aspects of learning when indoors and occasionally disrupting the play of other children.

Leaders carefully plan for children when they move on in learning, for example when they start school. They take children on regular trips to the local school to prepare them. This helps to familiarise children with the environment and understand what the next stage in their education will look like.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.There is an open and positive culture around safeguarding that puts children's interests first.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: focus professional development to develop staff's knowledge and teaching skills further to help them refine and adjust their teaching strategies over time consider the organisation of daily routines to provide more opportunities for children to play actively when they would like to do so.