Precious Gems Preschool

Precious Gems Preschool and After Care Centre believe that all children are diverse and exceptional individuals who have strengths and who are naturally curios. Children need to be provided with an organised, child-directed learning environment that emphasizes mutual respect, fun, discovery, literacy and one that addresses sensory needs. They offer a supportive environment in which children can be challenged to build cognitive skills in Maths, Language Arts, and the Sciences. Self-esteem and personal relationships are emphasized as children meet peers and adults. They also nurture the spiritual nature of your child.

Precious Gems are open all year round from 7.30am-5.15pm. They offer breakfast and lunch and they received a 'Good' rating in their last school inspection report.

Their last school inspection report from March 2023 says the following:
Precious Gems Preschool was judged as good overall. The Centre had made remarkable improvement since the previous report when it received a weak judgement. There was improvement in almost all performance indicators, with only curriculum remaining satisfactory as it was in the previous inspection.

Children’s achievement in all four key focus areas had considerably improved, with their mathematical, cultural and listening skills being exceptional. Teaching had dramatically improved and teachers were now confident facilitators of a play-based approach to learning.

Classroom management procedures were consistent and effective and created a safe and pleasant environment which inspired learning.

Children were active learners with positive attitudes. They were able to engage in activities for sustained periods of time without adult support. While the Centre had robust assessment tools to monitor the achievement of children and there was good high-level analysis done of Centre wide assessment information, the details were not yet effectively used to plan to meet the needs of all children, and therefore assessment was judged as satisfactory.

Curriculum was judged as satisfactory. While the Centre offered a play-based approach and the curriculum was broad and balanced, lesson plans lacked detail of differentiation. The Centre had multiple curriculum documents which were of high quality but they now needed to be brought together to ensure full coverage for each group and across cohorts.

Health and safety were judged as good. The safety of children at the Centre was of utmost priority and there was a culture of safety and cleanliness throughout. Children were keenly supervised at all times and the Centre had met all regulatory requirements.

Support and guidance were judged as good as teachers knew the children’s needs well and relationships were nurturing and supportive. Children with special educational needs made good progress. However, reflection upon the academic progress monitoring system to ensure teachers gave good advice was required.

The Centre had gone through a remarkable journey of improvement since the previous inspection and the leaders had a vision which they were dedicated to for the Centre and leadership was judged as good. Self-evaluation and improvement planning had been effective and resulted in improvements across the Centre and were judged as good, as was links with parents and the community. Staffing and the learning environment were judged as satisfactory, with more effective use of the outdoor space needed to ensure that targeted learning
was supported.