Happy Hands Pre-School and Childcare

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children thrive in the stimulating home-from-home nursery. Staff skilfully plan opportunities to inspire children's imagination and curiosity and build on their interests and experiences. Children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), learn to explore the world around them and think and act together. They learn to apply themselves to solve problems. For example, children work as a team to paint the garden shed with water and make sure they reach the higher parts and do not leave any gaps.

Children are safe and secure. They enjoy every moment of the time spent in the company of the caring and experienced staff. Children behave extremely well, both individually and as part of a group. They learn to understand and appreciate their own emotions and how these can change. For instance, children identify the colours and create musical sounds that help them to feel calm and soothed, or excited and enthused. Staff have high expectations for every child to make excellent progress. Children love the many songs, stories and rhymes that staff fill their days with and which contribute to the rich vocabulary they acquire.

The nursery remained open throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and provided strong support to the local community. Staff kept in close touch with all children, particularly the most vulnerable, with many suggestions for learning activities at home and general childcare guidance.

What does the early years setting do well and what does it need to do better?

• Staff provide highly effective support to children with SEND. They have a very wide knowledge of children's learning needs. Staff identify gaps in development at an early stage and act promptly to address them. They plan very precisely to help children achieve key steps. Staff work closely with other professionals in education and medical fields to ensure children achieve their potential.
• The well-qualified manager inspires her tight-knit team of staff to constantly deepen and develop their understanding of how children learn. She encourages them to research and reflect on their experiences to develop the rich and challenging curriculum children benefit from. For instance, staff have taken lead roles in developing transition programmes with other local early years providers and provide training for parents, to support continuity for children.
• Staff nurture children's communication skills extremely well. They have thorough planning to support staff in the ways they talk, question and read to children to promote language development. For instance, children at an early stage of talking learn to listen carefully, repeat key words and use them appropriately. Children are consistently introduced to exciting and memorable words, such as 'germination' and 'creation'.
• Children's love of books and stories is strongly promoted. Staff make excellent use of different strategies to make books memorable. For example, children enthusiastically chant the words and coordinate their actions as they 'go on a bear hunt' and anticipate the next page. They create their own muddy fields, snow and tall grass from chocolate powder, ice and other materials they suggest. Staff carefully choose books that build on and broaden children's interests. They make very good use of video and other media to bring stories to life.
• Staff help children make excellent progress in their counting and mathematical knowledge. For example, they help children to count forwards and backwards and work out 'more' or 'less' as they sing and make up their own counting songs. Exciting touch-and-feel or lift-the-flap books help children to understand that numbers have a constant value. Children learn to repeat patterns in their sensory play or with peg boards and construction toys.
• Children's physical development and appreciation of healthy lifestyles are strong. Children are physically very active. Staff help children to develop their small-muscle skills by, for example, encouraging them to make 'slim'' or' enormous' shapes with their self-made glitter play dough. Children learn about oral hygiene, for example through brushing their teeth together after their main meal.
• Staff support children's personal development very effectively. They develop social skills and learn to appreciate the world beyond their own community. For instance, staff provide opportunities for children to regularly meet different people, such as local clergy, musicians and dentists. Children learn about different faiths and ask thoughtful questions, such as 'What is a spirit?'
• Parents highly recommend the playgroup. They feel that it is at the heart of the local community. Parents appreciate staff's extensive knowledge of their children and the support they offer for their children's learning at home.