Hopscotch Day Nursery Lee-On-Solent

Each child is appointed a Key Person on registration who works closely alongside the parents to ensure that we are meeting the children's individual needs. During the settling in process we will work with the parents to complete information which are called 'All About Me's' on our online learning journal. This will give us an insight to your child's likes and dislikes, strengths and struggles, so we know how to best support them. We use assessment tools to determine where the children are within their development to further extend any support needed, we discuss any concerns raised with parents to then discuss potential signposting or referring any children and families that may be need outside agencies, such as speech and language therapists or portage workers. The Nursery has a Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Coordinator (SENDCO) and a SENDCO Support Worker that can support your child and their needs, as well as your child's key person and Nursery Manager that are trained and knowledgeable regarding SEN too. If you need further support regarding SEN or have concerns and are not sure where to go, then your GP or Health Visitor will be able to support you as well. 

Our nursery SENDCO and SENDCO Support Worker attends regular meeting and updates within Hampshire, being updated with new guidance and legislation. They attend trainings that further extends their knowledge and gives them new ideas and supports strategies, this is then cascaded down to the staff and key persons within the rooms. Our nurseries policies and procedures are regularly reviewed and updated to ensure that resources, provision and training is adequate and relatable to the children's needs. Our Group SENDCO Support for all the Hopscotch group, works closely with all nursery to offer any further guidance and support if and when needed. 

The SENDCO will support the staff with activities, interventions and resources to best support the children with additional needs, we create Individual Progress Plans (IPPs) with set targets for the term, these are shared with parents to ensure continuity between nursery and home. These are reviewed regularly with the key person, SENDCO and parents to make sure we are working as a team. 

Your child's key person and SENDCO will work closely alongside any outside agency, with your consent, to guarantee that the children's individual needs are met. We have had experience with working in partnership with Speech and Language Therapists, Portage Workers, Inclusion Setting Support Officers and Paediatrician's. Any children that have additional funding, we discuss what the child needs with their families so they are on board with how and what this money is spent on to support their child. Furthermore, what we feel they could benefit from, for example - to get them ready for school, to transition in to the next age group or next journey in their development milestone. 

Throughout the setting we follow the Early Years Foundation Stage which is a statutory framework, alongside the Development Matters. We use your child's likes and interests to plan for what they need to learn and what areas of development we feel they need support in. We support and build upon the skills and abilities your child already has to create stronger foundations for learning. We offer short, enriched and engaging focused learning opportunities for our over 2 year olds. Our under 2 year olds have opportunities for explorational and sensory play that we follow by their interests and behaviour towards resources and toys. We offer opportunities for you as parents to let us know what you feel your child is enjoying at nursery and home and what you would like further support with, this is then integrated into the curriculum and how we teach your child. 

At the beginning of the day when you drop your child off to us we ask for a brief handover to how they have been, at the end of their day we then will feedback to you what they have been enjoying, playing with and progress has been made with interventions when attending nursery. We also use our online learning journal, Tapestry, where you will be updated with pictures and videos of them playing and learning. This is a two way tool where you can also upload and share moments with us. We also hold one parents evening a year to invite you into the setting to discuss your child abilities and development, this however is not restricted just to this one evening. We also offer three open mornings on a Saturday through out the year where you can come in and play within the room your child attends, see the next room they will transition into and speak to the staff that care for your child. 

We track the children's development through Observation, Assessment and Planning to make sure we offer age and stage appropriate activities. This is done by the Key person for individual children, so that children’s milestones are being met through enriched play based activities and areas within the rooms, based on their interests and abilities. We also incorporate next steps for each child with goals for them to achieve which is done by a variety of activities that the key person decides, this is to enhance their development and is shared with their parents. 

All staff are trained in first aid and all qualified members of the staff team are able to administer medicines to children. We have individual forms for medicine that we sign on every administration by staff and then by parents at the end of each session. 
We also have individual health care forms and allergy forms that parents complete in the initial settle sessions, if necessary, these help us to identify any needs the child may have and to make sure procedures are put into place before the child starts and to also ensure that staff have the appropriate training. 
We also have a '''positive behaviour policy''' which we follow and have a designated special education needs coordinator (SENDCo) that is available to help parents and staff in the setting to meet child’s individual needs. The SENDCo helps to put plans in place with the key person and parents to support the child’s development whilst in the setting these plans are reviewed termly or sooner depending on the individual child.
We have seen a huge increase in the need to support children's emotional well-being after the pandemic, this has increased our range of emotional development activities within the rooms, and we have increased the amount of small quiet spaces for the children. 

We have links with different outside agencies that can help us to support individual children. One of the main services we currently use are our Inclusion Setting Support Officers within Hampshire, they offer a phone line for us to use when needing further advise or support for any of our children. We also attend regular Hampshire SEN contact meetings which are lead by local ISSO's or other SEN professionals, this is to update staff on any changes in legislation and practises. We have families attending the setting that have Portage Workers, SALT, Physiotherapy and Paediatrician, we work closely with them to ensure we have child centred approach in supporting their development. Our staff are trained regularly in different areas, depending on the needs of their key children and the staffs interest, we have our own training platform that we use, as well as outside agency training events and in house training too. 

We have a trained SENDCO that is on site at all times and a SENDCO support worker who is also our room senior in our preschool room. All staff have behavioural training and use the ‘attending’ method throughout the setting to promote positive behaviour. We also work closely with Hampshire county Council and regularly attend workshops/support meetings to further knowledge and keep up to date with changing legislation and updates. As a company we hold our own in house SENDCO training which means when staff need to refresh their knowledge on Special Educational needs and Inclusion, we can offer this with experience based knowledge and as and when we feel necesaary. All Hopscotch SENDCO’s meet regularly to discuss our in house practices and offer support to one another, this is lead by our Group SENDCO and Early Years Lead. Where needed we will cater for individual needs and the Nursery Manager has a training budget for which we can use for bespoke training to support an individual need. Our SENDCO and SENDCO Support have recently attended local conferences to build up on their knowledge and gain new skills. Our SENDCO has also recently attended THOMAS Outreach Training to coach her through supporting children with Autism. This is something we are aspiring to attend regularly. Our preschool staff are trained in Early Talk Boost which is a language intervention we complete with a selected group of pre-schoolers and will be soon rolling our a further language intervention, Wellcomm. 

Our setting is beautifully situated in a local community, with a library, shops, park and beach a very short walk away. When we go on outing, we ensure each child has permission to go on outings, the outing is then risk assessed, and children go onto a smaller ratio to ensure safety.
We also ensure that any medicine that is necessary is taken along with a first aid kit and a qualified first aid member of staff is going on the trip/outing. We endeavour for children to be fully included in all activities and can adapt the activity to meet a child’s individual needs were necessary. We attend our local library once a week for singing and story times to embed a respect for the community and to support the children's social and language development. 

We are a purpose built nursery on the ground floor. All play rooms have access to an outdoor area which is accessible for all children, staff and parents and wheelchair users. We have wide access disabled toilet located at the back of the building, which is easy to access and suitable for wheelchair users. Wheelchair access is very good at the Nursery as we have a ramped entrance and a car park next to the Nursery.

We have a few bilingual families at the setting that have given us certain words for the key person to use to communicate with the children. We use an online translator to ensure we use daily words for objects that the children encounter the most. 
If we need to gain any further information, then we are able to contact the EMTAS team that can provide us with necessary information so that we can support them in their home language. 

All the children's main resources are accessible and at their level for them to access freely. We have other children that struggle with regulating their emotions, noise levels and sensory over loads. For this reason, there is a calm down reading area in preschool for children to use when needing quiet time and to 'reboot', there are fidget toys and ear defenders accessible if the children need them. 

When we have new children joining the setting we invite them to attend several settle sessions, these vary depending on the child’s individual needs. These sessions are for both the child and parent to begin to form a relationship with the child’s key person which is designated before the child starts at the setting. We also offer home visits for children with additional needs so that we have a better idea of how we can support them and ensure we are offering the right environment for when they start.
When the child is due to move rooms we begin a transitional process that helps the children to get to know the new environment that they will be moving into. We inform the parents of forthcoming transitions by provide a transition booklet that gives information to the parents about staff in the room and photos of the different environments. We do this process over a variety of sessions which can be for an hour/ two hours or for a whole morning or afternoon session. If the child or family feel they need further settling sessions then this is something we will look into for them to best support their settling in process. 
When children are moving to school we communicate with the school to devise a system of visits for the child with their key person to make them feel comfortable and settled in the new setting. This also helps them feel secure as they will then be able to communicate with the key person about the environment they will be moving into. We will arrange meetings at the school with the teachers and parents to ensure a detailed handover is completed with relevant paperwork also shared. We will also complete any Education Health and Care Plan's (EHCP) that the child may need to ensure further support at school. The setting also holds 3 open mornings through out the year where parents can come and visit the next room their child is transitioning into, as well as a school transition evening where we offer support and guidance. 

The resources and toys that are purchased for each age group within the setting are carefully selected to ensure that they are stage and age appropriate. The key person and room leaders will discuss this between themselves, considering the child's likes and interests to then use teaching methods that will engage the child to reach the best development milestones. The manager and SENDCO will then agree to what is being spend and ensure budgets are met. We would take the time to observe the child and underrated whether they seek or avoid sensory experiences to then incorporate this into the provision. Any children that receive additional funding we would always communicate how we are spending this money and involve the parent in the decision making of what is purchased. 

We do this by having regular meetings with parents and key person and follow instructions from parents in regards to supporting any additional needs. You can tell us about what your expectations are for support and we will be happy to explain what we can offer to a new parent to the setting. We are an open setting and would welcome visit from other professionals to share practice in regards to individual needs of a child, e.g., physiotherapist, Health Visitor. We strongly believe that working together with any other professionals and most importantly the parents is the best way to support any additional needs as a systematic approach to learning and development and a consistent routine is key to our support programmes. The staff are enthauastic about learning new skills and we have an open door policy where staff and parents can approach the management team with any additional support needed. The management team and SENDCO will then find training courses for the staff when requesting and needing them. As a setting we use a Assess, Plan, Do, Review when completing any IPP's and interventions, this is to ensure they are working the way we feel they should and the child is making progress using a graduated approach. If we feel like extra support is needed we would then communicate this with the parents to make a plan together. 

From the initial show around and through the registration process we work with parents from the onset. We involve parents at every stage if we feel there is a concern regarding their child’s learning and/or development.
If behaviour plans/educational plans/health care plans are in place we write these and decide on targets or goals with parents and everything is shared first with parents. If we need to seek advice from another agency we would first require parental consent to do this and would explain the reasons why we feel we/ your child needs additional support. Our emails and phone lines are available for parents to get in touch regarding any concerns they may have or any advice they require, we are always happy to help. When new IPP's are created each term they are forwarded onto the parents and explained by the key person. We involve the parents in making these targets and decisions, listening to their worries and doing our very best to support them.