Highfield Community Pre-School CIO

A fish tank with colour-changing bubbles brings a memorable detail to Highfield's June 2021 account of early learning: children fed the fish and operated a remote control to change the bubbles' colour. Small experiences carried several purposes, combining care for living things with opportunities to use technology.

At its June 2021 inspection, Ofsted rated Highfield Community Pre-School CIO Good and found safeguarding effective. The setting has capacity for 20 children at Highfield Community Centre in Keighley; children attending in June 2021 were aged two to four.

In June 2021, children could move between outdoor and indoor play, with adults helping when needed. Making play dough involved choosing colours and adding glitter, while water containers and dry pasta gave children opportunities to explore movement, sound and texture. Photographs of their activities helped them explain what they had done.

The early years foundation stage provided the framework for learning and care. In June 2021, its practical expression included storytelling, vocabulary through rhymes, and outdoor movement such as balancing and climbing steps. Children contributed their own possibilities to familiar stories and connected the characters' families with their own lives.

The learning needed greater consistency. In June 2021, staff sometimes missed opportunities to extend children's existing skills, including using dough-making to develop mathematical understanding. Activities also needed closer attention to individual learning needs: younger children sometimes disengaged and moved away. These are useful points for families weighing how adult support develops children's interests.

At the June 2021 inspection, Ofsted found that children with special educational needs benefited from individual support from key staff, and that staff used home languages, visual prompts and gestures to help communication. This gives families a concrete picture of the support observed at that time.

In June 2021, home visits helped staff understand children's backgrounds before settling them into the setting. Communication with families also included ideas for gardening, phonics and rhymes during the pandemic, extending learning opportunities into home life. Adults encouraged children to recognise feelings and consider how their behaviour affected others.

Highfield Community Pre-School CIO is based at Highfield Community Centre, 21 Drewry Road, Keighley, BD21 2QG.

In June 2021, attendance ran during term time, Monday to Friday. The session windows were 9am to midday and 1pm to 4pm; breakfast club ran from 7.45am to 9am, with lunch club from midday to 1pm. These timings describe the arrangements at that inspection.

In June 2021, the setting provided funded early education for children aged two, three and four.

• Extending learning. In June 2021, adult support did not consistently stretch children's existing knowledge. Ask how staff now build mathematical learning into practical activities such as dough-making.
• Younger children's engagement. Some younger children lost interest in group activities in June 2021. Ask how activities are adapted to sustain each child's attention.
• Attendance planning. The June 2021 arrangements combined term-time sessions with breakfast and lunch clubs. What attendance pattern and funded-hours arrangement would fit your family now?

Highfield suits families drawn to practical exploration and communication support, with a Good judgement from June 2021. Its inspection-era attendance arrangements encompassed both morning and afternoon sessions, plus breakfast and lunch clubs. The central decision is how the setting now combines that hands-on learning with enough challenge and individual attention for each child.