Special Steps

Communication can mean a sign, a symbol or a switch at Special Steps. This specialist nursery in Stourport-on-Severn builds its day around children with additional and complex needs, with sensory experiences and individual communication methods woven into play, meals and routines. The practical emphasis is on helping children express a choice, understand what happens next and participate at their own developmental pace.

At its September 2024 inspection, Ofsted rated Special Steps Good, judged safeguarding effective and found that children with SEND progressed against their individual targets and capabilities. That is the central quality judgement here: progress assessed against the child’s own starting point. During that visit, children were aged 1 to 4.

Word Well, an in-house communication curriculum using repeated core words, gives the learning a clear identity. Alongside it, Cherry Garden helps staff assess development in small steps rather than treating children’s learning as a single uniform sequence. Funded attendance follows two term-time patterns, with additional paid hours and non-funded days also offered.

Learning and Activities

The early years foundation stage sets the framework for children’s learning, development and care: play, communication and everyday routines all contribute to learning. Special Steps adds a communication-led approach in which spoken language is one option among several. Signalong supplies a signing method, while visual cues, objects associated with activities and communication switches give children other ways to understand and respond. This makes the choice of communication method part of the activity itself.

Word Well concentrates on one core word each week. Staff pair it with a sign and symbol, sometimes adding a buzzer, then explore its meaning through stories, songs, games and sensory activities. The words return each half term. For a child who needs repetition and familiar cues, that structure creates repeated opportunities to engage with the same idea rather than moving straight to something new.

Cherry Garden is the developmental tracking framework. Observations inform next steps, and progress is shared with families and professionals through the digital platform. Its practical purpose is to keep planning connected to what the individual child can do and what comes next. The nursery’s curriculum and approach brings these communication and assessment methods together.

Spaces and Daily Routines

On Minster Road, the learning spaces include a sensory room, an intervention room, a creative room and a calm area for play, together with outdoor access. Different spaces allow activities to carry different sensory demands. In September 2024, the sensory room contained bubble tubes and a dark tent; staff also used a hammock for gentle swinging and read quietly beneath soft lights. These were concrete alternatives to a busy shared play space.

Predictable cues matter more here than a rigid timetable. The morning begins with sensory regulation, which may involve movement games, massage or deep-pressure squeezes. Daily sensory circuits can include balancing, crawling, jumping and heavier physical activity. The sequence adapts to the children, so the routine provides recognisable moments while allowing staff to respond to how a child is feeling.

The Hello Song uses a mirror and an emotions board to connect a child’s reflection with feelings and symbols. At Song Time, props and visual strips help children choose a song. Breakfast and lunch use familiar songs as cues, and children select food through objects or symbols. Communication therefore has a purpose beyond a separate teaching session: it helps children influence ordinary parts of their day.

Outdoor and Community Life

In September 2024, children used outdoor equipment for climbing, sliding and crawling through tunnels. The equipment had been chosen to allow participation by children with mobility difficulties, including wheelchair users. That detail matters more than a general promise of outdoor play: access to the activity was part of its design.

Weekly Community Song Time takes a small group to a local community singing group once a week. Music and shared attention provide a structured setting for spending time alongside neurotypical peers. Inclusion also works in the other direction, with small groups from other early years settings joining song sessions, sensory experiences and short play activities at Special Steps. Children can meet peers while remaining in familiar surroundings.

Monthly Stay & Play runs on the last Saturday of each month, from 1.30pm to 3pm, and welcomes families beyond those attending the nursery. It extends the setting’s community activity outside the weekday routine.

Relationships and Communication

Parents receive detailed daily diaries, photographs throughout the day and live updates through the Baby’s Days app. Meals, care, activities and incidents are included. For families whose child cannot give a spoken account of the day, those updates supply useful detail and help connect nursery experiences with home.

Speech and Language Therapists (SALT) work with the nursery on communication and therapy targets. In September 2024, staff and other professionals developed individual plans together, and staff used photographs and daily information to help parents continue children’s next steps at home. The combination gives communication work a shared context across the adults involved with a child.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

Food is treated as another learning opportunity. Eating as Learning supports exploration through repetition, choice and communication, including for children with restricted diets or sensory sensitivities. Children can smell, touch and explore foods before tasting them at their own pace. The approach gives families a concrete picture of how mealtimes are handled, rather than assuming that every child will readily accept unfamiliar food.

In September 2024, staff used quiet spaces and sensory experiences when children needed help managing their responses. Special toothbrushes and flavourless toothpaste were also being used to support children who found toothbrushing difficult. Personal care had a clear improvement point: at the September 2024 inspection, Ofsted asked the nursery to reorganise nappy changing further so that children’s privacy and dignity were consistently protected.

Sessions and Attendance

Special Steps is based at Cornerstone Family Church, 66 Minster Road, Stourport-on-Severn, DY13 8AS. Opening hours are 9am to 4pm from Monday to Thursday and 9am to 3pm on Friday. The nursery opens for 42 weeks annually, including four weeks of the summer holidays. Those opening hours are separate from the funded attendance patterns.

For eligible children using 15-hour funding, attendance is three days a week from 9am to 2pm. The 30-hour pattern is five days a week from 9am to 3pm. Funding is used during term time only. Additional hours on funded days are charged separately, and non-funded days use a daily rate; that daily rate also applies to attendance during the four summer-holiday weeks.

The contact form and email provide an enquiry route. Current prices come in the nursery’s written quotation. The important distinction for planning is between the hours covered by the funded pattern and any additional attendance a family chooses.

Funding and Paid Extras

The nursery offers 15 and 30 hour funding to eligible children. On funded hours, it requests a voluntary contribution towards consumables and activities, covering breakfast, an afternoon snack, nappies, wipes, sun cream and barrier creams, alongside learning resources and experiences. These items sit outside the funded hours themselves; the contribution is voluntary.

On non-funded days, breakfast, the afternoon snack, personal-care items and enrichment activities are included in the daily fee. The position therefore differs by attendance type. Families comparing arrangements need to distinguish the inclusive private-day fee from the voluntary contribution requested alongside funded hours. The childcare funding and charges page sets out that structure.

Special Steps also applies for Worcestershire County Council’s Early Years Inclusion Supplement Funding where a child’s assessed needs meet the council’s criteria. It can support targeted interventions, additional staffing, specialist resources, assessment and work with families and professionals. The council decides eligibility, and funding is not guaranteed. This is separate from a family’s funded childcare entitlement.

• Nappy-changing privacy. September 2024 brought a specific improvement request about dignity during changing. At a visit, ask how the present arrangement protects privacy while meeting your child’s support needs.
• Term-time funding and summer attendance. Funded hours are term-time only, while the nursery opens for four summer-holiday weeks charged as non-funded days. Assess the whole-year arrangement, including the voluntary contribution alongside funded hours.
• Communication and sensory fit. Word Well, communication switches and sensory circuits are concrete parts of the approach. A visit is the opportunity to discuss how these would be adapted to your child’s communication, movement and food-related needs.

Special Steps suits families seeking specialist early years provision in which communication, sensory regulation and individual developmental steps shape the day. Its weekly core-word work, supported peer experiences and detailed parent updates give that approach practical substance. The September 2024 Good judgement supports the choice, while the nappy-changing improvement remains a relevant discussion point.

The attendance offer serves both the three-day, 15-hour funded pattern and the five-day, 30-hour pattern, with paid additional hours and non-funded days extending those arrangements. For families weighing specialist support alongside childcare planning, the clearest decision is whether this communication-led model and its term-time funding structure match their child’s needs and their own schedule.