Hillside House Day Nursery

An activity room for paint, modelling, sand and water, plus a planting area for vegetables, gives Hillside House Day Nursery a practical, hands-on character. This family-run setting in Scissett combines four children's rooms with outdoor play and a school-preparation programme that puts everyday independence alongside early literacy. There is plenty here beyond a timetable of care.

Children are accepted from four months to five years, with capacity for 62 children overall. At its December 2023 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good, found safeguarding effective and judged that children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), were making good progress. The strongest learning examples involved older children; activities for the youngest children, involvement of their parents and staff coaching all needed further attention.

Attendance includes full days and morning or afternoon sessions, with both year-round and term-time contracts. That choice has practical value, but the funding arrangements and contract conditions deserve close attention before a family settles on its pattern.

Rooms and Ages

Baby Room, Red Group, Yellow Group and Blue Group organise the nursery day, with routines flexible enough to extend an absorbing activity.

Baby Room includes activity-room use, outdoor play, a post-lunch nap and messy-tray activities. Red Group combines outdoor time, stories, music and singing, with sleep or free play after lunch.

Yellow Group introduces early phonics, while Blue Group adds explicit preparation for school through dressing, following instructions, trying foods and using the toilet independently. The emphasis is practical: preparation for Reception includes managing ordinary tasks, rather than concentrating solely on reading.

Learning and Activities

The EYFS provides the framework for learning through play, covering language, physical and social development alongside literacy, mathematics, understanding the world and creative expression. At Hillside House, adult-guided activities sit alongside children's own choices, indoors and outside. Staff use observations to plan activities around children's interests and the skills they need to practise.

Letters and Sounds introduces how letters work in reading and spelling, starting in Yellow Group and continuing in Blue Group. Phase 1 games include bug in the rug and silly soup.

Yellow Group and Blue Group balance shared activities with choices between the groups and outdoor play. Their routines also include stories, toothbrushing, phonics, yoga and dancing.

In December 2023, older children built structures using marshmallows and dried spaghetti, with staff questions encouraging them to think through their ideas. Another activity recreated milking a cow with milk-filled rubber gloves and a model made from craft materials. These examples show how a familiar topic can become a problem to solve with hands and materials.

The same December 2023 findings were less consistent for under-twos: their surroundings and planned activities did not always match their interests and developmental stage closely enough to sustain engagement. That is a meaningful distinction between the age groups, and a reason for baby parents to look closely at the present day-to-day offer.

Outdoor and Community Life

Outdoor play resources and a planting area for plants and vegetables give children space for movement and growing things. The activity room accommodates painting, sticking, modelling, sand and water.

In December 2023, community experiences included a trip to a dental practice and visits by fire and ambulance personnel. Children also brushed their teeth at nursery. Those experiences connected daily habits and safety discussions with people and services beyond the setting.

Relationships and Communication

Each child's key person shapes learning and the environment around their needs. Parents can arrange keyworker discussions about progress or concerns, giving communication a clear role within the team.

ParentZone shares children's activities; Q-Bell handles collection notifications. Families receive an invitation to the free Q-Bell app before their child starts.

In December 2023, staff shared achievements electronically and verbally, inviting photographs, videos and examples from home. However, involvement in home learning needed improvement for the youngest children's parents.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

The deputy manager is SENCO lead, and another group leader has SENCO training. Liaison with families and agencies supports discussion of individual needs; resources and displays represent families' cultures and languages.

First-aid arrangements provide at least one trained staff member in each room. Staff also have access to training programmes during the year. In December 2023, monitoring, coaching and training were not sufficiently precise to improve practice consistently across the nursery; access to training alone did not settle that concern.

Toilet learning is coordinated with home: Red Group and Yellow Group ask parents to begin the process at home, bring spare clothing and exchange information about how it is going. Blue Group's school preparation continues that emphasis on managing personal care. Reception teachers usually visit during the term before September, with families informed when a visit has been arranged.

A nursery cook makes meals from fresh ingredients, adapts them to children's age or needs and works with an 11-day menu rotation; the setting holds a Kirklees Healthy Choice Gold Award and accommodates vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free and dairy-free diets. Its food arrangements include procedures for dietary requirements, while its birthday-cake policy requires shop-bought cakes to be in date and to carry neither contains-nuts nor may-contain-nuts labelling.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is Lower Common Lane, Scissett, Huddersfield, HD8 9HL. Opening hours are 7.30am to 6pm, Monday to Friday. Full-day sessions use that window; morning sessions run from 7.30am to 1pm and afternoon sessions from 1pm to 6pm.

Year-round contracts exclude bank holidays and the Christmas-to-New-Year closure. Term-time contracts cover 39 weeks and follow Kirklees term dates, but do not take inset days. This matters for families expecting their childcare calendar to match school attendance exactly.

Bookings normally repeat the same sessions each week unless a different pattern has been agreed. Reducing sessions requires four full weeks' notice, and ending the agreement requires four weeks' written notice. Registration is completed with a signed form and an agreed, non-refundable holding fee covering the reservation and associated administration.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funding includes provision from the term after a child's third birthday, eligible two-year-old funding and working-parent funding from the term after nine months. Working parents must apply and supply funding documentation before their claim can be considered.

The working-parent options are 30 hours over 38 weeks or a 20-hour stretched allocation over 51 weeks. Stretched funding is capped in the final term before school; children starting during a Kirklees school holiday with funding already in place begin funding the following term, with earlier booked days charged at the full daily rate. These arrangements use full-day blocks: the term-time option allocates funding across three days, while the stretched option allocates it across two year-round days. The terms also describe allocating 15-hour funding to a full day and a following morning.

Lunch and tea are included in paid daily or half-daily prices; funded attendance carries separate charges for food and other consumables, grouped under Meals on the invoice. Current prices should come in the nursery's written quotation, read alongside its sessions and fees information.

A term-time contract covers 39 weeks, but funding covers 38, leaving one chargeable week, generally before the Christmas closure. On funded days, the food-and-consumables charge is waived for absence only when four full weeks' written notice has been emailed. Those conditions affect the total bill as much as the choice of funded arrangement.

• The youngest children's day. December 2023 findings called for closer matching of activities and surroundings to babies' interests, better involvement of their parents and more precise staff coaching. During a visit, ask how those changes work together in Baby Room now.
• The term-time bill. A 39-week contract and 38 weeks of funding leave a chargeable week. Ask for a written quotation showing that week, funded-day extras and any privately paid sessions within your intended pattern.
• Changing attendance. Sessions normally repeat weekly, reductions need four full weeks' notice and a year-round booking cannot necessarily be switched to term-time. Consider how well that structure matches changing work commitments.
• Dietary requirements. The cook accommodates several specialist diets, and birthday cakes have specific labelling rules. Families managing allergies should confirm current preparation and serving arrangements for their child.

Hillside House suits families seeking year-round full days, shorter morning or afternoon sessions, or term-time attendance. Its activity room, planting area, Letters and Sounds activities and practical preparation for school give the offer substance. ParentZone and a key-person arrangement provide clear routes for sharing a child's experience.

The December 2023 Good judgement is balanced by specific weaknesses affecting the youngest children's learning and the consistency of staff development. For older children, the hands-on learning examples and emphasis on independence make a persuasive combination. For baby families, the present response to those improvement points should carry substantial weight, alongside the detail of the booking and funded-hours contract.