Sky High Achievers Denton

Tiny pumpkins, home-grown herbs and a nursery library give the October 2022 account of Sky High Achievers Denton its character: sensory exploration, practical tasks and books threaded through the day. Ofsted rated the nursery Good at its October 2022 inspection. That is a dated judgement, rather than a description of today's daily practice.

The nursery is at 132a Ashton Road, Denton, Manchester, M34 3HR, and accepts children aged three to 60 months. Its opening hours are 7.30am to 6pm, Monday to Friday.

In October 2022, babies explored pumpkins and oats through touch and taste, while older children grew vegetables and herbs. These activities brought textures and plant care into children's learning through direct experience. The growing work involved taking responsibility for plants and learning how they develop, linking a practical task to an understanding of living things.

Children's interests helped shape the October 2022 curriculum. Free play sat alongside staff attention to what each child needed to learn, giving children opportunities to pursue their curiosity while practitioners kept learning intentions in view. The sensory activities and growing tasks illustrate that combination: children could explore materials themselves and take an active part in caring for their produce.

The early years foundation stage sets the requirements for children's learning, development and care. In everyday terms, this brings learning into play and routines, rather than treating care and education as separate parts of the day. Here, the October 2022 activities illustrate how play could bring together language, physical skills and exploration.

Fox's Socks was a favourite story whose words babies repeated in October 2022. Toddlers read independently, turning pages and returning to familiar words and phrases. The nursery library also gave children a choice of books and story sacks. Books featured throughout the routine, creating repeated opportunities to hear and use vocabulary. The emphasis was on children participating in stories and choosing reading materials.

Preschool children also practised everyday independence in October 2022. Handling pencils and pouring pretend drinks from a teapot gave them opportunities to practise hand control alongside self-care skills useful for starting school. These were practical examples of school preparation through nursery play: using a pencil involved managing a tool, while the pretend drinks gave pouring a purpose within an activity. The emphasis combined doing things for themselves with developing the small movements needed to handle everyday equipment. For families approaching the move to school, this is a more concrete picture of preparation than a general promise of readiness.

At the October 2022 inspection, Ofsted found safeguarding effective, children making good progress, and support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) responsive to their individual needs, including help for children who preferred solitary play to become comfortable alongside others. In October 2022, staff worked with the special educational needs coordinator on support strategies, met regularly with parents and made timely referrals to outside agencies. The coordinator helped staff put clear strategies into practice. This combined support within the nursery with contact between families and outside services, rather than making an external referral the only response to a child's needs.

Moves between rooms received attention in October 2022: babies had time to establish relationships with their next key person. That made a room change a period of settling and relationship-building, rather than simply a change of space. The same account identified two weaknesses. Toddlers sometimes became upset during poorly organised moves between indoor and outdoor play, interrupting their learning; staff also needed fuller information from parents about behaviours such as biting or climbing so support could be planned earlier.

At the start of a child's attendance in October 2022, staff gathered information from parents about development to help plan individual learning. The weakness concerned the behavioural detail needed alongside that developmental picture. A child's learning needs and their tendencies to climb or bite called for different information, and the latter was not always collected soon enough to plan the right support. Parents also received ideas for continuing learning at home, giving nursery activities a connection with family life.

The nursery operates across the year, closing on bank holidays and for one week at Christmas. The weekday opening window supports families arranging care around working hours.

In October 2022, the nursery provided funded early education for two-, three- and four-year-old children. This is a historical funding position.

• Toddler transitions. Indoor-to-outdoor changes disrupted some children's learning in October 2022. Ask how these moves are organised now.
• Sharing behaviour information. October 2022 procedures did not consistently capture children's behavioural tendencies. Discuss how your child's habits and support needs will be recorded before they start.

Sky High Achievers Denton suits families seeking care for babies through to older nursery children, with a weekday opening window extending into the early evening. Its October 2022 account offers concrete examples of sensory play, books and growing produce. The two practical questions are how toddler transitions now work and how staff gather detailed information about a child before care begins.