Skylarks Community Pre-School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Summary of key findings for parents

This provision is good • Partnerships with parents are good. Staff support children and their families effectively to enable children to move on to their next stage in learning, including school.

They provide guidance and suggestions for learning at home, such as a book-lending service and resources to support children's speech and language skills. Parents comment that they fully value this assistance, which helps them to extend their children's knowledge and development. • Staff are skilful at supporting and extending children's chosen play.

For example, when children show a great interest in splashing in puddles, staff empty a large tray of resources to enable children... to jump with great excitement and exuberance in the water. • Children enjoy each other's company and develop good friendships. They exhibit the trusting bonds they have with staff as they actively involve them in their play and seek them out for guidance and reassurance.

Children show concern for those younger than themselves and help them to learn the routines of the pre-school. • Children enjoy their time at the pre-school and make good progress in their learning. They thoroughly enjoy making cupcakes in the mud kitchen, working together to decide when to add water to their mixture.

They show great skill as they negotiate their ride-on toys in the outdoor area, manoeuvring around other children and resources with care. • Staff do not consistently use their effective teaching skills to provide children with high-quality learning experiences during routine times of the day, such as snack times. • Circle times, when staff bring all of the children together, are sometimes too large for all children to remain focused and the activities undertaken at these times are not always meaningful.