Children with SEND at Buckshaw Village Nursery

Buckshaw Village Nursery is situated in a purpose built building opening in August 2011. The building as a whole is called ‘The Hub’ and houses ‘Splash’ - a Swimming Pool & Private Swim School; 'Cappuccino’s’ coffee bar; ‘The Salon @ The Hub’ & Buckshaw Village Nursery which is situated in a secure, self-contained wing of the building. We are a very busy, large setting, we usually run at capacity & have 6 playrooms for the Nursery: they are Caterpillars & Butterflies rooms which combined, care for our under 2’s (Caterpillars for 12 babies up to around 15 months old & Butterflies for 15 babies up to 2 years old) Lower Buckshaw 1 & 2 are for 16 children each, aged 2 years to 3 years & Upper Buckshaw 1 is for 24 children & Upper Buckshaw 2 is for 24 children also, aged 3 years to school age children. We are situated on a residential estate of approx 3,000+ houses, directly across from a primary school, with a Community Centre & Doctors Surgery on the other sides. Our setting has self-contained outdoor space for under 2’s, along with a ‘pod’ leading from each of the Caterpillar & Butterfly rooms, which is a covered outdoor space allowing shade from direct sun & shelter from inclement weather. The children who attend are mainly white British. We also have children from other cultures such as Ethiopian,Romanian, Italian, Eastern European & Asian.

The building has level access from the car park & ramped access at the front of the building. The external doors have electronic disabled access & entry to the Nursery wing is gained either by electronic key fob entry, or by being granted access by a member of staff from the office. Internally the children’s rooms are all on ground floor level. We have a further room (Training Room) which we can use for small group work which has lift access.We are open 51 weeks per year, closing for Bank Holidays & in-between Christmas & New Year. Nursery is open from 7.30am to 6.00pm.

Our staffing structure is as follows:

• Nursery Co-ordinator, who takes overall responsibility for the setting.
• 2x Nursery Manager’s who takes responsibility for the day to day running of the setting one who is SENCO level 3 trained and oversees all SEND throughout the setting.
• We have one trained SENCO who is designated specific days out of the setting to focus only on SENCO each week.
• A third in charge, who may assume responsibility in the absence of the Nursery Co-Ordinator & Manager, and is also the setting’s Safeguarding Officer.
• Senior Practitioners based in each room.
• 1 x EYT (Early Years Teacher)
• One person responsible for PICO (Parental Involvement Co-Ordinator)
• One person responsible for Behaviour Management.
• One language lead.

The building is fully accessible, & has level access from the car park, with accessible car parking spaces, & ramped access at the front of the building. The external doors have electronic disabled access & entry to the Nursery wing is gained either by electronic key fob entry, or by being granted access by a member of staff from the office. All doors are wheelchair accessible. Internally the children’s room are all on ground floor level. There is an accessible toilet on the ground floor level situated over at Splash. We pride ourselves on safety & cleanliness, undertaking daily risk assessments; daily cleaning schedules by both our staff & a commercial cleaning company.

All displays for parental information are clear, precise & at an accessible height, mostly in large font. All policies & Procedures are accessible on reception & can be made available in some other languages.

All children have open access to outdoor play facilities with level access. Outdoor areas have different anti slip floor surfaces, with decorative aggregates in places. All indoor resources are child friendly heights. We have tables & chairs also at different heights. Our activities can be adapted for accessibility, such as using floor space/ lap trays, floor trays & sand/water/messy active trays that are height adjustable, & making the activities large-scale.

The setting makes reasonable adjustments for specialist seating and cutlery and have worked in partnership with physio therapy.

We are trained in PEG feeding these are used to feed a person straight into their stomach. If children has a problem feeding by mouth cannot maintain their weight or are unable to digest food. It can be used either to meet all of their nutritional needs or to supplement the diet.

Practitioners use FM systems to support children who wear hearing aids or need additional support with hearing and processing.

All practitioners have a basic knowledge of British Sign Language. A session is held weekly withing the setting to continue to build the children and practitioners knowledge of BSL.

We use our curriculum and Birth to Five Matters to assess milestones of all children’s progress. In order for us to identify any child who may have special educational needs, we assess & observe children in a variety of ways. We complete a ‘Two Year Old Check’ which is forwarded to the child’s Health Visitor as a liaison document; along with summative assessments which are completed 3 times per year to give us an instant visual guidance of where the child may need increased input from their Key Worker; & an online Lancashire County Council ‘Pupil Tracker’ summary report is completed twice yearly. We also complete baselines for every child on entry to the nursery.

All these assessments give us a clear indication of how the child is progressing, & if we are concerned in any way about a child, we will monitor their progress through increased observations & Targeted Learning Plans. In accordance with our SEN/Inclusion Policy, if there are still concerns, with parental consent we would approach the IDSS (Inclusion & Disability Support Service) with a formal request for guidance. Our staff may also seek advice from, and work alongside outside agencies such as Speech & Language therapist; Physiotherapists; Educational Psychologists; Health Visitors; Social Workers etc.- all to give us strategies of how to help the child, both whilst at Nursery and at home.

Parents may raise any concerns with us in a variety of ways: with their child’s Key Worker at daily drop-off or collection time, at Parents Evenings, at workshops such as behaviour management etc, or with the Nursery Manager. Concerns can be raised initially on an informal basis, progressing to any outside requests for guidance to be made always with parental consent, and are supported by evidence from observations, TLP’s & monitoring alongside the child’s parents in their home setting. Any meetings or discussions regarding the child’s welfare will include a necessary outside agencies, and the child’s parents, & will lead us in the direction of which pathway the setting & parents need to progress upon.

The setting are able to provide early intervention for speech and language using specialist speech and language strategies, working in partnership with private and NHS therapists, the Wellcomm tool kit and having our own inhouse Speech and language lead. We also have training in PECS, we host BSL (British Sign Language) training weekly available for all children.

We work with teacher of the deaf and incorporate strategies, along with working with deaf role models. Our setting show an awareness of basic BSL across the board.

Buckshaw Village nursery also offer phonics training sessions for our pre school training weekly for an additional cost.

Our SEN Policy (which is available to view at all times) outlines the values & goals of our setting and the responsibility for the suitability of the policy lies with the manager and all staff to ensure it is a viable working document, that is constantly reviewed and is produced in conjunction with parents. Our Nursery Practitioners are highly trained and provide children with quality interactions, activities & opportunities to learn & develop, always with reference to the curriculum. Our practitioners are skilled & trained to know when to intervene with children, they know their Key Children well, and understand when to allow them to learn through play, and when to share any concerns they may have. Every child is monitored & tracked through the milestones of Birth to Five Matters, starting with baseline assessments which will be completed on joining the setting and if a child causes us concern, a discussion will take place with parents explaining that we wish to open a request for guidance with IDSS. At this stage we will use an ATTS tracker (tracker broken into smaller steps) to identify & help us guide the child to reach their full potential. We will use graduated, differentiated support depending on the needs of the child, taking advice from outside professionals, and the lead from the child itself. The organisation & the layout of the setting offers children, whatever their need, to access all provision which is age appropriate, and can be enhanced to aid development as necessary.

Wherever possible, we would match a Key Worker if they had relevant training or experience to a child, if we knew they had previously cared for, or been trained alongside any child with similar disabilities.

Children, who have identified additional needs, will be supported closely by their Key Worker, our SENCO’s, and any relevant information will be shared with the Senior Practitioner in the room. The Key Worker will take the lead for liaising with all other Nursery Practitioner and outside agencies. The Nursery Manager will have access to all documents & reports concerning any child. If concerns are raised regarding a child we will introduce Provision Mapping which will show parents the whole range of inclusive resources & staff expertise available in our setting, our ‘Wave’ monitoring system which we will be completed by the child’s Key Worker, and overseen by the SENCO, & Nursery Manager in three monthly supervision meetings with Nursery Practitioners. The wave system will be informed by the child’s Targeted Learning Plan which will enable us to access targeted support for the child & will be completed by the Key Worker.

All visits and reports are shared with parents to enable the planned strategies & goals are ‘uniform’ between ourselves and the child’s home setting. This will be done via sharing any reports amongst the relevant people such as the child’s Key Worker, who will know the child the best in the setting, our SENCO who will have the most knowledge around Special Educational Needs & Disabilities & our PICO (Parental Information Co-ordinator) & the Nursery Manager. Implementing any strategies will be led by us & always shared with parents.

We regularly offer to all parents, ‘Stay & Play’ sessions which can be ‘themed’, eg offering malleable ideas to stimulate hand movements, senses etc; workshops which may be themed also, eg Behaviour Management etc. We can seek out any relevant training courses for our practitioners via LCC & other training agencies; and seek advice from Children’s Centres for help for parents.

We regularly seek the opinions of our children, not only by observing them which informs our planning, but by ‘Talking Boxes’ which use resources to prompt the children to discuss various themes & topics; Circle times; children’s questionnaires & by listening to their voices at all times.

As a setting, we would access funding as required, some of which is allocated to our setting as part of the Free Early Years Entitlement funding; this would be determined by the Key Worker, SENCO & Nursery management & parents. If we request additional inclusion support, the additional funding could be used to access resources or additional funding for support staff as necessary.

We use Inclusion funding, EYPP funding, DAF funding if a child received DLA disability living allowance and can apply for EHCP funding should your child have an EHCP Education Health Care Plan. The setting can implement additional supervision along with 1:1 supervision if funding allows.

We are also mindful of each Key Worker having responsibility for a number of children, and as such we will strive to ensure the other children in the key group will not be affected by the Key Worker having to spend large amounts of time away from their key group. As a setting we share resources across all our rooms that are age appropriate for the individual child, & consider ourselves to be a well-resourced setting. We use aids such as British Sign language prompts, Now & Next prompts, visual timetables, and have access to a wide range of aids should we require them. We have access to cover staff should a child’s Key Worker be required to attend meetings, conferences etc, which can also be held in our Training Room on site.

We have an excellent relationship with our inclusion teacher from IDSS and can access the knowledge of their team with ease, along with access to other professionals such as from Family Wellbeing Centres & other Health Care Professionals. As we are a large, busy setting with a large staff team, we have built a variety of skill sets from practitioners & are able to revisit skills & strategies used previously.

Most Nursery Practitioners are trained to a minimum Level 3; we also have practitioners trained up to Level 6, with an Early Years Teacher. Again, as we are a large, busy setting & are able to source extra cover staff, in some circumstances to enable targeted support for the child within a group setting with a child where necessary via funding allocated to us. This additional funding is allocated to us on a termly basis via LCC, and is limited.

When planning outings, we seek parental permission as good practice. Parents may attend our outings if they wish, or if we think it is necessary for the wellbeing of the child. We always exceed staff:children ratio’s, and can use support staff & setting staff as necessary, if funding allows. Prior to the visit, our staff would carry out a risk assessment; we would discuss with the children where we are going & what will be taking place, using various prompts, such as visual timetables if necessary. Any dietary requirements will be adhered to. The setting has various ‘buggies’ if needed to transport the children.

We speak to parents/carers on a daily visit at drop-off & collection times; we can use an online app called Famly. This has a communication section, records Learning Journeys, observations and next steps. We complete formal checks at two years old which are shared with the child’s Health Visitor & parents; we complete supplementary reports; we use ‘trackers’ to inform our planning which show our practitioner what stage of progress would be typical for a child at any given age; we use provision mapping as an additional tool to enable us to complete the TLP’s. Key Worker are available daily & can easily plan a meeting to discuss on a more formal basis, any issues.

We inform parents/carers of what we have been doing in the setting by displays in the children’s rooms & in our main corridor which includes a parents notice board giving information on, eg menu’s; diets; how to play; malleable resources; behaviour management etc. We use various methods of how parents can share info from home by, eg daily diaries (electronically); Lower & Upper Buckshaw use ‘News from Home’ pockets where parents can fill in ‘post-it notes’ to share information; we have display/photo books outside each room, we have a generic book at Nursery Reception; each room has a ‘Home Bear’ which accompanies the child home at weekends & returns to Nursery with his diary from the weekend.

We offer parents to sit down formally to review their child’s progress at formal Parents evenings which are held twice yearly. Our PICO regularly liaises with parents offering experiences to seek opinions, both on an informal basis (eg quiz nights, stay & play sessions, workshops etc) and on a formal basis (questionnaires etc) to seek opinions which then inform how we offer experiences to our children.

As a setting we have a clear focus & vision of where we are currently, and where we intend to go next, both as a whole, and for each child individually, we understand the outcomes we need to achieve & set these as attainable outcomes, and understand the methods & strategies we need to use to gain the outcomes.

We also understand that we do not have to wait for formal review times & that concerns can be raised at any time, both by our practitioners & by parents/carers.

We offer shorter days to help with transitions and meet needs of SEND children. We offer parents evenings and SEND parents evenings throughout the year.

We offer settling-in sessions to a parent & child before any child starts with us which enable us to start the journey of the Key Worker, child & parent/carer getting to know each other & understand the needs & likes & dislikes of each individual child. We use our settings ‘all about me’ by means of the parents sharing information with us about the child, and our ‘all about our room’ booklets. We can carry out home visits if necessary. If a child attends a setting as well as ours, we use communication books to travel between the settings to inform each other what we have been doing, and why.

We can offer additional meetings and transitions visits before a child starts with us. If a child has significant needs a multiagency meeting or TAF meeting may be needed prior to starting with us . As risk assessments will need to be completed prior.

We use transition documents between rooms & at a time when the children are leaving us to attend school, or if they leave us to attend an alternative setting, offering access to any relevant action plans or TLP’s that may share more in depth information about the child’s stage of development & any necessary strategies etc. We liaise with schools, either by visiting them or inviting the school to visit us. We use a book with photographs of the schools the children will be attending, detailing things they will access such as uniforms, teachers etc. We change the use of our role play area’s to become ‘schools’ or school shops etc.

We can transfer any information we hold regarding the child to a Lancashire County Council ‘all about me’ to streamline strategies & goals for the child.

As stated previously, all our practitioners are working towards a minimum Level 2. We have two SENCO trained staff, who regularly attend training & updates which are then cascaded back to all practitioners. At staff meetings, practitioners revisit various recent training to enable the training to remain ‘fresh’, one of which being any SENCO training. Our Nursery Manager attends all managers cluster meetings which are an invaluable source of recent changes & updated information.

We have Buccolam epilepsy trained staff.

Staff trained in PEG tube feeding and are able to tube feed should a child need for medical or dietician needs.

We have some staff trained in Diabetes and are able to carry out and notice signs symptoms and administer medication when needed.

As we are a large setting who opened in August 2011, we have an ongoing recruitment policy to recruit staff with as much knowledge & training as possible. We have practitioners who are skilled in working with children with SEN and disabilities in previous settings, and have knowledge of other various disabilities from our sister setting also.

We have a language lead practitioner highly trained in providing high quality communications skilled which is shared across nursery.

All staff have Wellcomm training to early identify language communication and understanding concerns and implement strategies.

For further information, the Nursery Manager can be contacted for any new enquiries, who will then direct enquiries to the relevant practitioners. Existing parents should always discuss any requests or issues with their child’s key worker, who will then identify any other specialist staff or outside agencies that may be required for further skilled advice.

Our setting has an ‘open door’ policy whereby new parents can be invited to view our setting, And existing parents can speak to the child’s Key Worker and the Nursery manager, or person in charge at the time. The layout of our Nursery Office & Reception dictates that there is always a staff member available to speak to parents/carers, as this is required to grant access to our setting.

We have a ‘parents room’ that is available for confidential meetings, on on-site coffee bar for more informal discussions and access to OOSC meeting room should a private meeting be needed.

At drop-off & collection times, if the staffing ratio allows, there may be the opportunity for a discussion away from the children, if ratio’s do not allow, an appointment can always be made to allow us time to allocate cover staff. Our Key Workers operate a ‘buddy system’ whereby each Key Worker has another practitioner who knows their children in detail, should the original Key Worker not be available due to staff shifts or holidays/sickness etc.

At room to room transitions & when starting with ourselves initially, parents/carers are given a ‘room’ booklet that clearly states the role of each practitioner based in that room, and how those Staff are deployed.