Hopscotch Day Nursery Fareham

Each child has a key person who will build a strong and trusting relationship with your family. Once your child has fully settled in and feels at home with us, we use assessments from nursery and information from home to build a good picture of your child's strengths. This can highlight areas of learning and development that your child needs extra support with.  If you think your child has a special educational need, please speak to their key person in the first instance and the SENCo (Special Educational Needs Coordinator) is always on hand to offer advice and support.

Our Nursery SENCo holds an accredited Early Years SENCo Award and is trained by Hampshire in supporting children with special educational needs. We have robust policies and procedures in place which are reviewed regularly, ensuring that our resources and environments are suitable and accessible for all.

The SENCo will work closely with the key person and parents to differentiate resources, experiences and activities to support the child, creating individual progress plans (IPPs) based around their strengths and interests. The plans and activities will be reviewed by the key person, SENCo and the parents regularly to ensure we are working as a team and providing the best possible support.

With parental consent, the SENCo will liaise with other professionals such as our Inclusion Setting Support Officer (ISSO), Paediatricians, Early Years Outreach Workers, Physiotherapists, Speech and Language Therapists (SALT) and Health Visitors to gain further advice in supporting each individual child.

The Early Years Foundation Stage is our statutory curriculum that states every child is unique and that the very best teaching is achieved with parents in partnership, following children's interests in play and starting from each individual child's current level of development. This fantastic model of best practice alongside short, engaging enhancement activities means all our children have their needs met whilst ensuring high levels of well-being and involvement.

Parents are given a personalised daily handover by nursery staff so that they feel well-informed about their day. We use Tapestry as a two-way communication tool between parents and nursery so that we both gain a full picture of a child's strengths, interests and achievements. All parents have time with their child's key person during our yearly 'Parents Evening'. Children who are receiving additional support will have more regular meetings with the key person and SENCo. The frequency of these will be based on the needs of each child. Working together as a team with a joined-up approach to support a child is the most effective way of working and communication is vital to this being a success.

The key person will form a strong and caring bond with your child and their well-being will be at the forefront of their mind. 80% of our staff are first aid trained and those staff follow our procedures for administering medication.  All staff are trained in Allergy Awareness, Promoting Positive Behaviour, Food Hygiene and Safeguarding & Child Protection. We work with parents and children around allergy and food intolerance management and have robust systems in place to ensure there is no cross contamination.

Despite being a new nursery we already have links with our Inclusion Setting Support Officer, Community Nurses, Educational Psychologist, Portage Team, NHS Speech Therapists and Physiotherapy team. We attend the Hampshire SEN Network meetings in order to remain up to date in terms of legislation, best practice and services available to support children and their families. As children come into our setting with different needs our SENCo and experienced staff across the team form relationships and work with outside agencies in order to support the children in our care.

Within the setting all our children have access to a large indoor soft play area. This can be used as a space for structured physical play activities to support our children with any ongoing therapy programmes. In addition to this our soft play room also offers a sensory area with a ball pool, a range of lighting and space for safe climbing and gross motor play. 

Our qualified Manager with a foundation degree in childhood studies and over 30 years experience in Early years settings, leads our nursery to ensure that children make the best possible progress from their individual starting points. Working alongside the Manager, our trained SENCo and multiple room leaders hold an accredited Early Years L3 award in Special Educational Needs. Several of our staff are trained and have experience in working with children with Speech and Language difficulties, children on the Autistic Spectrum and children with Cerebral Palsy. As children join our setting with different needs, we reassess our staff's training requirements. Our recent training in social communication development reflects the current needs identified in the Nursery development plan.

A variety of external training courses accessed by several of our nursery staff include:

• THOMAS Outreach programme -This is a Hampshire approach to meeting the needs of children with social communication difficulties and autism in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)
• Hampshire Portage Workshop – This is an introduction to the Portage Approach to working with children with additional needs and their families.
• Early Talk Boost – This programme is a targeted intervention aimed at children with delayed language helping to boost their language skills and narrow the gap between them and their peers.

The enviable adult to child ratios in nursery mean that all children are included in all activities both inside and outside the nursery.

The setting is all on one level without steps so is very accessible for adults and children with impaired mobility. The calm natural environment is designed not to over-stimulate children, allowing them time to think, process and communicate. The environment can be adapted or enhanced to meet each individual child’s need. There is a wide variety of open ended resources which can be used in several ways allowing for differentiation.

We have a program of settling in sessions and stay and play sessions which are designed to make the transition to nursery as smooth as possible for both of you. Transitions within the nursery to new rooms are carefully managed with regular short visits. Our vision panels allow children to become very familiar with the setting before moving rooms which very much eases the process. Good communication with the new key person and parents is also a vital part of a successful transition.

As children move onto school we welcome their new teacher into the setting to meet their key person and to play with your child in order to start to get to know them, their strengths and interests. The key person and SENCo may join you in a 'Transition Partnership' meeting with their new school so that their teacher knows the strategies and support that works for your child and/or accompany your child on one of their transition visits to school.

For some children with complex needs, transition to school may involve requesting support through an Education, Health and Care Assessment plan (EHCP). This may be because there is agreement that specialist provision may be appropriate or because they will require a higher level of support within mainstream school.

If your child needs specialised equipment or resources, we have budgets allocated every month from which we can purchase new resources.  We can also apply to Hampshire County Council for funding to support with cost of specialist equipment and resources.

Communication is key, you can tell us what your expectations are for support and we will be happy to tell you what we are able to provide in the setting; working together to support your child. With your permission we will also take on board advice from outside agencies and professionals such as physiotherapists, speech and language therapists, paediatricians and psychologists in order to provide the most effective targeted support for your child. When we all work together as team the best possible outcomes can be assured for your child.

Our children have the best outcomes when we work as a team. As the expert on the child, parents are strongly encouraged to be involved in decision making and planning their next steps. We also enjoy as a community Parents' Evenings, Charity Events and Family Days as well as inviting parents with special skills and interests into nursery to share them with the children.