Hindley Nursery School Hindley Nursery School is a maintained nursery school in Wigan that can offer up to 48 places for 2yr old entitlement and 120 part time places for 3 & 4 yr old entitlement. The school operates 9am to 3.45pm, term time only. The school serves a predominantly white British community drawn from a disadvantaged area. The large majority of our children enter the school below or significantly below Age Related Expectations. Currently 68% of children on roll are accessing or have previously accessed free 2yr old entitlement. We have a mixture of parents many who don’t work and some who work part time or full time low paid work. Many of our children would be classed as vulnerable and we have high levels of Previously funded 2yr olds, Pupil Premium and SEND. A huge contextual issue for us is language and communication and Personal, social and emotional development.

Wigan Cluster Model Sits within existing Models in Wigan – Start Well and School to School Improvement model Based around the Maintained Nursery Schools to ensure the expertise in Early Education can also be a driver in the agenda. Once the allocation of 415 places was received from the DFE the originals plans were scaled back to the development of two early years clusters based within a 1.2 mile walking distance of the two nursery schools in Wigan. Settings within this reach were invited to an initial meeting to find out about the pilot and express an interest in being part of the process.

Hindley Nursery School is currently delivering 26 30hr places and children access this Monday to Friday 9am – 3pm, term-time only. The cluster works together to ensure that there is flexibility and response to the parents needs. All schools and settings taking part were asked to predict how many 30hr places they would need based on current parents who might be paying already or the circumstances of parents who were waiting to start. Hindley Nursery School currently have limited flexibility but within the cluster there is the opportunity for settings to respond to parents needs and requests. By working as a cluster we can ensure that we are providing a responsive service to parents and working to each settings strengths.

Cluster working….. An opportunity to come together to discuss implementation and share what has worked well. Identifying any issues and helping to learn from the pilot as we approach universal roll out. Develop partnership working, improve quality, provide support and training to the workforce. Sharing Case studies…

Key Challenges… Routines and planning Lunch club Flexibility SEND Finance Key challenges for us as a school were to ensure we are meeting the children’s needs who were now attending nursery for a full day, we have had to consider the routines and how we provide . Before the introduction of 30hrs we only had a few children staying for lunch so we have had to rearrange staff and the furniture to accommodate larger group. Flexibility – as a nursery school we do not currently have any flexibility beyond 9-3.45pm but this often suits our parents who work part time hours. By working as the cluster we can meet all the parents needs across the locality. SEND – For us as a nursery school and the cluster one of the challenges so far is meeting the needs of the children with SEND and also upskilling the staff. The ELCC have provided CPD training for schools and settings and the cluster has asked for on the job coaching when the SEND support staff come to visit the children in the setting. In our nursery we have asked for the support worker to work in a slightly different way and instead of working one-to one with the child they are visiting they have provided coaching to the nursery staff to help them to interact more effectively with the particular child. We are hoping to roll this out to the cluster. We have also arranged for the Educational Phycologist to deliver some cluster training in the early evening so it is more accessible to staff who cant be released from their setting. Lastly Finance – which is a constant challenge to us all at the moment. For maintained Nursery Schools this is a topical issue that is being raised with the government because although as a sector we want to see other sectors being better funded we need to ensure that nursery schools are funded appropriately to be able to continue their good work and deliver their statutory duties as a school.

Gracie…Nanna’s story…. Hi I’m June and I am Gracie’s full time carer. Gracie has been able to access the 30hrs free entitlement since September. Gracie has complex needs and her time in nursery is very important for her development. Being awarded the 30hrs means that Gracie can now be seen more easily at the nursery by her physio and OT which means she does not miss any valuable time in education. The professionals working with Gracie can assess her in a familiar environment and communicate with each other to best meet her needs. The extra hours in nursery have been invaluable to Gracie’s development and she has thrived on the extra time spent in nursery. The 30 hrs has been well received by parents and many of them have accessed it for their children. There has been a small number of families who did not want the full 30hrs due to their circumstances. This is an example of some of the case studies we have shared at our cluster meeting.

Being a full time carer for Gracie and also for her younger brother has changed our lives in many ways and at one point we were undecided as to whether we would be able to continue running our own business. The extra hours have meant that our business has been able to continue to run and we have also been able to spend quality time with Gracie’s brother that we may not have been able to do without the provision of extra hours in nursery for Gracie.

What the parents say…. https://youtu.be/IscF10cnJjY