They are confident within the secure routine set up by staff and this enables them to enjoy very good relationships with other children and with staff. Children are able to concentrate for increasingly longer periods of time, such as when listening to stories, singing together or when playing with the sand. The resources and the activities are appropriately chosen to reflect a range of cultures and beliefs and to foster children's growing sense of community very well. Good progress is being made overall towards the early learning goals in communication, language and literacy. Children show a good interest in books and stories and a growing interest in how they can be used to obtain information and how they should be handled.
Children enjoy writing and make very good use of the writing area.
They show growing pencil control and are beginning to talk about the way letters are written. However, the imaginative play which is ongoing for much of the session is underused as a resource in order to extend these skills and to think about writing for a particular purpose. Children are beginning to use language in order to organise their play and they show a growing understanding of conversational skills when sharing information with staff, for example, during cooking activities. They listen well to stories and to staff instructions and staff promote their vocabulary skills well when talking with them, effectively extending their range of descriptive language. Mathematical development Children are making very good progress in mathematics towards the early learning goals.