Honley Day Care & Pre-Prep School

Physical play and growing independence give Honley Day Care & Pre-Prep School its clearest character: balancing, ball games and children learning to serve their own lunch featured in August 2023. Small, everyday tasks mattered alongside organised activities.

At its 25 August 2023 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good, judged safeguarding effective and found that children with SEND received strong support. The nursery accepts children aged 3 to 60 months, at Queens Square, Huddersfield Road, Honley.

The early years foundation stage is the framework for children's learning, development and care here. It brings together experiences such as language, movement and number play, rather than treating preparation for school as writing practice alone.

In August 2023, babies practised rolling and crawling, while older children tested their balance on a beam and aimed balls at numbered cans. Connecting cubes also gave children practice using their fingers. These were different ways to build control of both larger movements and smaller hand movements.

Books and songs provided another strand of the day that August. Adults discussed illustrations and introduced vocabulary, while children chose stories to share. Number activities included counting, naming shapes and working out how many more objects were needed to reach a target.

In August 2023, staff gathered information about babies' familiar routines and preferences before they started. Key persons helped newer children separate from parents, giving settling a personal starting point.

Support for additional needs that August involved the SEND coordinator, parents and external agencies working together, with individual targets guiding staff's work. Communication included daily updates, online learning journals and newsletters, giving families several ways to follow their child's experiences.

Lunch also offered practical learning in August 2023: younger children practised serving food and using a spoon, while older children managed cutlery more independently. Circle time gave older children opportunities to discuss feelings and listen to one another.

The address is Queens Square, Huddersfield Road, Honley, Holmfirth, HD9 6QZ. Opening hours are 7.30am to 6.30pm, Monday to Friday, throughout the year, with bank holidays closed.

In August 2023, the nursery provided funded early education for children aged two, three and four. This is a dated participation statement rather than a promise of a funded place today.

• Quieter children's participation. The August 2023 inspection identified occasions when confident children dominated conversation and quieter children received insufficient encouragement, alongside imprecise teaching of letter sounds that children then repeated. These are relevant considerations for families weighing language and early literacy support.
• Settling and attendance. The August 2023 approach began with babies' home routines and preferences. At a visit, how would that settling approach fit your child's proposed attendance pattern?

Honley suits families seeking care across the working day who value physical play and practical independence. Its August 2023 experiences give that proposition substance: movement, stories, number games and self-service at lunch. Families placing particular weight on quieter children's communication or accurate early letter sounds should give the dated improvement findings equal attention.