Kirkstall St Stephen's Pre-School

Kirkstall St Stephen's Pre-School

Unique reference number (URN): 2794018 Address: Kirkstall St. Stephen's C of E School, Morris Lane, LEEDS, LS5 3JD Type: Childcare on non-domestic premises Registered with Ofsted: 18/07/2024 Registers: EYR, CCR Registered person: Kirkstall St Stephen's Pre-School

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Safeguarding standards met

The safeguarding standards are met. This means that leaders and/or those responsible for governance and oversight fulfil their specific responsibilities and have established an open culture in which safeguarding is everyone's responsibility and concerns are actively identified, acted upon and managed. As a result, children are made safer and feel safe.

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How we evaluate safeguarding

When we inspect settings for safeguarding, they can have the following outcomes:

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How we evaluate safeguarding

Met: The setting has an open and positive culture of safeguarding. Not met: The setting has not created an open and positive culture of safeguarding. Not all legal requirements are met.

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Achievement Needs attention

Children do not consistently achieve as well as they could. Weaknesses in the implementation of the curriculum result in staff not supporting children to develop knowledge and skills progressively over time. This is because learning does not routinely build on what they already know and can do. As a result, children are not well prepared for the next stages in their ongoing learning journey, in preparation for their eventual move on to school. This particularly affects quieter children and those children with special educational needs and/or disabilities, who do not consistently benefit from teaching and interactions that help them achieve their potential.

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Achievement Needs attention

Despite this, older children develop communication and language skills as they share stories, join in with familiar phrases and begin to think about characters' thoughts and feelings. Some younger children, when they engage, recall the different actions to songs. Some children use early mathematical knowledge to compare size, recognise patterns and solve simple problems during play. Children develop their physical skills as they climb, balance and explore outdoors with increasing confidence.

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Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines Needs attention

Children do not consistently receive the support they need to develop positive behaviours, attitudes to learning and self-regulation. Staff do not consistently reinforce expectations, explain why behaviours are expected or encourage good manners. When children do not respond to reminders, staff do not consistently adapt their approach to reflect children's age, stage of development or individual needs. As a result, opportunities to help children understand expectations, manage their own behaviour and develop positive attitudes to learning are frequently missed. This particularly affects quieter children and those who require additional support, who do not consistently receive the guidance they need to participate fully in learning and daily routines. For example, during group time, when children are fidgeting with resources and putting them into their mouths, staff asks them not to do this but do not explain why. As children continue to do this, staff then take the resources off

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Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines Needs attention

them and offer no further explanations to help them to learn why this behaviour is unacceptable.

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Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines Needs attention

Despite this, children are happy and settled within the setting. They develop positive relationships with staff and their peers and generally behave well. Children follow familiar daily routines and enjoying participating in the activities on offer. Appropriate arrangements are in place to promote children's attendance and follow up absences where needed.

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Children's welfare and wellbeing Needs attention

Children do not consistently benefit from the high-quality care and support they need to promote their health, safety and wellbeing. Arrangements to support children's safety and wellbeing are not effective. Staff do not consistently provide effective supervision to identify and respond to potential risks during everyday experiences. As a result, some children do not receive the support they need to remain safe, engaged and well supported throughout the day. For example, as children freely access breakfast, staff are around the area but as they are also doing other things, they do not effectively supervise them while they are eating. This does not protect children from the risk of silent choking.

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Children's welfare and wellbeing Needs attention

Staff do not use opportunities to reinforce safe practices. This means that children's welfare is not promoted consistently across all aspects of daily practice. For example, when children climb up the slide, staff remove them but offer no guidance or explanation as to why they should not do this. This results in children continuing to repeat this action as staff do not support them to learn why this behaviour is unsafe and not appropriate,

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Children's welfare and wellbeing Needs attention

Despite this, children develop warm and nurturing relationships with staff who know them well. They are happy and settled and demonstrate that they feel safe and secure within the setting. Staff respond warmly to children, helping some of them to build confidence and feel valued. Children are supported to develop their independence through everyday experiences, such as managing their personal care, making choices and taking responsibility for simple tasks. They begin to understand healthy lifestyles through daily routines and benefit from caring interactions that support their emotional wellbeing.

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Curriculum and teaching Needs attention

Children do not consistently experience learning that builds on what they already know and can do. Staff do not consistently use what they know about children's learning needs, next steps and support plans to plan learning that meets every child's needs and moves their learning forward. Planned experiences follow children's interests but do not build on children's learning needs, next steps and abilities. As a result, opportunities to develop children's knowledge and skills are frequently missed, and children are not supported to make progress across the curriculum.

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Curriculum and teaching Needs attention

Some staff do make use of the activities which have been set out to help children to develop their communication and language, mathematical understanding and physical skills. However, as the learning intent is based on children's interests, other staff are unfamiliar with children's specific next steps for learning and they therefore fail to support their ongoing learning and development. Children access play opportunities across all areas of the curriculum both indoors and outdoors. However, the quality of teaching is not consistently effective. Staff do not routinely adapt activities, interactions or teaching to respond to children's learning or build on what they already know and can do. Staff fail to recognise children who wander around. These children, while happy to play, do not receive quality interactions and support to promote their knowledge and skills. Consequently, staff do not provide opportunities to deepen children's understanding and move their learning forward.

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Curriculum and teaching Needs attention

Leaders do not identify these weaknesses in teaching through monitoring or take sufficiently effective action to ensure that the curriculum is implemented consistently. As a result, quieter children and those who require additional support do not consistently benefit from high- quality teaching that enables them to participate fully in learning or make the progress they are capable of.

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Inclusion Needs attention

Children who require additional support, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), do not consistently receive the help and support they need to enable them to participate fully in suitable learning experiences. This hinders the progress they make. Staff do not consistently use children's individual needs, identified strategies or next steps to plan activities, adapt their teaching or support children with SEND during daily routines. As a result, barriers to learning are not consistently removed and opportunities to extend children's learning, promote their communication and encourage their participation are frequently missed. For example, identified interventions to use objects of references, are rarely used by staff and whey they are used, they are not used appropriately. This does not support children's ability to make choices.

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Inclusion Needs attention

Leaders work with parents and external professionals to identify children's individual needs and develop individual support plans. Staff are provided with information about children's needs and the strategies intended to support them. However, leaders do not identify through monitoring that agreed strategies are not consistently implemented or take effective action to improve the quality of inclusive practice. Consequently, some children do not consistently receive the support they need to meet their needs or to access the curriculum successfully. For example, leaders have failed to identify that staff providing one-to-one support for children with SEND, tend to follow the children round, but do not use the targeted interventions within their support plans to promote their learning and development.

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Leadership and governance Needs attention

Leaders do not evaluate the quality of education and care accurately enough to identify where improvements are needed. Monitoring does not precisely identify weaknesses in teaching, staff interactions, children's experiences or the implementation of strategies intended to support individual children. Leaders do not recognise when planned experiences lack purpose, children are not meaningfully engaged in learning or staff practice is inconsistent.

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Leadership and governance Needs attention

Consequently, improvement actions are not sufficiently focused or effective to bring about the necessary improvements. Leaders have not ensured that staff consistently use assessment information, children's individual needs and next steps to inform teaching and support children's progress. Weaknesses in inclusive practice, behaviour support and arrangements to promote children's welfare have not been identified or addressed promptly. As a result, inconsistencies in practice remain and children do not consistently benefit from high-quality education, care and support.

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Leadership and governance Needs attention

Despite this, leaders work in partnership with parents and take steps to support staff wellbeing. Staff value the support they receive and feel supported in carrying out their roles. Leaders have reviewed their procedure for when anyone leaves the setting following an incident. They have strengthened their procedures to ensure the main playground gate is fully closed and secured when anyone now leaves the setting. This helps to keep children safe and secure.

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Compulsory Childcare Register requirements

This setting has met the requirements of the compulsory part of the Childcare Register.

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Register

When we check if settings meet the Compulsory Childcare Register requirements, they can have the following outcomes:

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What it's like to be a child at this setting

Children do not consistently receive teaching and support that helps them learn well. Staff do not plan activities around what children already know, what they need to learn next or their individual needs. As a result, children do not make the progress that they are capable of. Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) are not supported in their learning by staff. While targeted interventions have been identified for these children, staff fail to implement these. Quieter, less confident children also often play alone, unnoticed by staff. While these children are quite happy to play with the resources and activities, which have been set out, staff fail to engage them in purposeful learning experiences.

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What it's like to be a child at this setting

Children arrive happily and are greeted warmly by staff. Some children confidently make choices from the start of their day, including voting for the story they would like to hear later and independently serving their own breakfast. Children enjoy exploring the range of experiences indoors and outdoors, including construction, sand, water and imaginative play. Outdoors, they confidently climb, balance, play football and practise using stilts, which helps to support their physical skills. However, the focus of these activities and experiences is linked to children's interest and not to their individual next steps for learning. Therefore, while children gain some skills and knowledge during their play, teaching lacks purpose and does not provide effective opportunities for children to develop key skills in preparation for school.

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What it's like to be a child at this setting

During group times, some older children enjoy joining in with familiar phrases and talking about how characters might be feeling. Staff fail to adapt their teaching to engage every child, so some children do not benefit from the learning opportunity provided. Younger children are taken into another area to do a singing activity. However, staff also fail to engage all children in this activity. During free play, some children begin to develop mathematical knowledge as they compare the sizes of animals, recognise patterns and use mathematical language as they choose to engage in this play opportunity. Children develop warm relationships with staff, feel secure in their care and generally behave well. They enjoy spending time with their friends as they generally play quite well.

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Next steps

To meet the requirements of the Early years foundation stage and Childcare Register the provider must take the following actions by the assigned date:

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Action Completion Date

ensure children are consistently supervised when eating 10/07/2026

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Action Completion Date

ensure arrangements in place, to support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities, are consistently implemented, with specific regards to children's individual support plans 30/07/2026

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Action Completion Date

ensure staff know what they want children learn and that they understand the most effective ways to teach this 09/09/2026

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Action Completion Date

ensure staff understand children's individual needs and abilities and use this information to plan challenging experiences which build on each child's prior knowledge and skills 09/09/2026

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Action Completion Date

ensure staff supervision provides support, coaching, and training for practitioners to support their continuous improvement so that children benefit from consistently effective teaching 09/09/2026

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About this inspection

The inspector spoke with leaders, staff, parents and children during the inspection.

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About this inspection

We carried out this inspection under sections 49 and 50 of the Childcare Act 2006 on the quality and standards of provision that is registered on the Early Years Register. The registered person must ensure that this provision complies with the statutory framework for children's learning, development and care, known as the early years foundation stage.

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Address:

Kirkstall St. Stephen's C of E School Morris Lane LEEDS LS5 3JD

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Address:

Type: Childcare on non-domestic premises

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Address:

Registered person: Kirkstall St Stephen's Pre-School

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Address:

Operating hours: Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday,Thursday,Friday : 09:00 - 15:30

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Facts and figures used on inspection

This data was available to the inspector at the time of the inspection.

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Exceptional

Practice is exceptional: of the highest standard nationally. Other settings can learn from it.

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Strong standard

The setting reaches a strong standard. Leaders are working above the standard expected of them.

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Expected standard

The setting is fulfilling the expected standard of education and/or care. This means they are following the standard set out in statutory and non ‑ statutory legislation and the professional standards expected of them.

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Needs attention

The expected standards are not met but leaders are likely able to make the necessary improvements.

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Urgent improvement

The setting needs to make urgent improvements to provide the expected standard of education and/or care.

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Urgent improvement

services providing education and skills for children and learners of all ages, and inspects and regulates services that care for children and young people.

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Urgent improvement

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Urgent improvement

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Urgent improvement

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Urgent improvement

T: 0300 123 1231 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.gov.uk/ofsted

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