Mickleover Methodist Preschool

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Summary of key findings for parents

This provision is good • Staff are caring and take the time to get to know the children.

The key-person system is effective. Children are happy, secure and settled. They build trusting bonds with staff and make strong early friendships, developing their good social skills.

• Children are confident and independent. They make choices about their play and staff encourage these choices through the well-resourced and stimulating environment. Children lead their own play and explore their ideas and show they are happy to attend the pre-school.

• Partnerships with parents and other professionals are strong. This helps to create good communication between all parties in...volved with the children. Staff work well with parents to help to engage them in their children's learning.

Parents regularly access children's detailed development files and are given ideas to support further learning at home. • Staff regularly observe and assess children's achievements to find out what they need to learn next. They use the information they gather from their observations to plan for the next steps in children's learning effectively.

They recognise and address any gaps in their development and closely monitor these to ensure that they are rapidly closing. All children make good progress given their starting points. • The manager evaluates the pre-school well and welcomes the views of parents and staff to improve the provision.

For example, they have changed the layout of the book area, so children can snuggle and look at books in comfort sitting on the new beanbags. • On occasions, staff do not adapt their teaching skills to make sure that older and most-able children are provided with extra challenge during their learning experiences. • At times, staff miss opportunities to build on children's mathematical skills and strengthen their awareness of early mathematical ideas.