First Step

First Step is specialist sessional early-years provision for babies and young children with special needs and disabilities, paired with unusually practical support for their families. The registered setting at Tangmere Crescent has 12 places.

The character is much more specific than a conventional pre-school offer. Children can move between independent pre-school play, a highly structured communication group and sensory or therapeutic experiences, while parents can access family sessions and resources to use at home.

Learning and Named Experiences

Pre-school sessions are designed for young children with additional needs to attend independently. They follow the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS): play and care develop early learning through a programme shaped around each child's achievements and interests.

PACC, short for Promoting Attention, Communication and Co-operation, is the standout programme. It is for pre-school children with social communication difficulties or autism and uses the TEACCH structured system. The published model is specific: six children with five staff, working on attention, cooperation and individual ways to communicate. At snack time, PECS symbols turn an everyday routine into practice in making choices and communicating.

The bubble tube and other cause-and-effect activities add a different route into learning, with the aim of sharpening awareness, reactions and concentration while also offering a calmer experience. Family and child music therapy is available during family sessions, so a parent or carer can take part alongside their child.

Outdoor and Community Life

Outdoor provision is deliberately accessible. The play areas are intended to support movement, social contact and sensory awareness, while the gardens use planting, wind chimes and water features to create a calmer sensory experience.

Relationships and Communication

Family support is part of the core model, not an occasional add-on. Family sessions bring parents or carers, babies and pre-school children together: adults can meet others in a similar position while children encounter developmental play. A dedicated Parents' Room provides space to share experiences and meet visiting professionals, with the community dentist given as one example.

Support can continue beyond the session itself. The small toy and book library lends sensory and educational toys for home use free of charge, alongside books about special needs and disabilities for adults and children. First Step also says it can provide key working and facilitate transition and multi-agency meetings.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

This is provision built expressly around additional needs. The communication programme, sensory spaces and family participation give staff several ways to engage a child who does not readily join conventional group play. Published policy categories cover safeguarding, equality and inclusion, settling-in, curriculum, family-working and health and safety.

First Step is at Tangmere Crescent, Hornchurch, RM12 5PP. The register identifies it as sessional day care on non-domestic premises, with 12 registered places, rather than a full-day nursery. Its two clearly described formats are independent pre-school sessions and parent-attended family sessions. Entry arrangements and the current timetable vary by programme.

Driving to Tangmere Crescent needs planning because the address sits within a term-time School Street Zone.

Funding, meals and consumables are provider-specific.

• Session pattern. The two service formats differ: children attend pre-school independently, while family sessions include a parent or carer. Ask for the current timetable and entry route.
• Specialist fit and travel. PACC has a defined communication focus, while Tangmere Crescent has a term-time School Street restriction. Discuss the best programme and how the restriction affects the journey.

First Step is most compelling for families who want specialist early-years development and coordinated family support in the same place. PACC's communication structure, bubble-tube sensory work and borrow-at-home resources make the offer concrete. It may suit a child attending independent pre-school play as well as a family wanting parent-and-child sessions, across two genuinely different attendance formats.