ALL ABOUT US
Kiddywinks is situated in Halifax town Centre and we are 5 minutes away from the main bus station in Halifax, directly across the road from the Broad Street Plaza.
Kiddywinks provides care and early education for children from birth to fourteen years old, working within the required guidelines for the revised 2014 EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage) curriculum. The nursery is registered with Ofsted, for 33 children at any one session, up to 10 of whom may be under two years old, and up to 22 of whom may be over 2 years old, at any one time. We operate on a staff to child ratio of 1:3 for under twos, 1:4 for two year olds and 1:8 for over three’s.
The care we offer at Kiddywinks is based on caring adults responding to the children’s needs in a homely atmosphere. We offer full day care, before/after school care and a collection service and holiday club.
At Kiddywinks we are a small dedicated team of one owner, a manager and five members of staff, we employ fully qualified staff and update our training regularly, we also currently employ a level 2 qualified apprentice working towards the level 3.
Owner, Sarb Wilkhu, took over at the end of 2014 whilst pregnant with her first baby. Whilst having no previous experience of the childcare sector has now redecorated and improved the nursery. In August 2016 Ofsted rated us ‘Good’, this was a huge achievement for all the hard work the staff has put in over the last 2 years.
Kiddywinks has successfully passed Steps 1 of the Quality Assurance scheme run by the council. Kiddywinks all worked together as a team to achieve this and are planning to start Steps 2 in September 2016.
Kiddywinks is a day nursery, and also an out of school/holiday club and therefore is on both the Early Years Register and the Compulsory part of the Childcare register provided by Ofsted our governing body.
We aim to nurture the children’s deep desire to learn, to experiment, to socialise and to gain independence. The curriculum we follow is the revised 2014 Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) which is designed to cover 3 prime areas of learning which are: Personal, Social and Emotional Development, Communication & Language and Physical Development, and four specific areas of Learning and Development which are: Literacy, Mathematics, Understanding the world and Expressive Arts and Design. We also plan for the EYFS’s 3 Characteristics of Effective Learning which are: Playing and Exploring, Active Learning and Creating & Thinking Critically.
The wide and varied range of activities we offer provides the children with not only a basic grounding in numbers and letters, but a wealth of learning experiences, allowing them to progress to their next stage of education with a sense of achievement and confidence.
All our activities are designed to cover more than just one area of the curriculum at any one time and ensure that every child gets a chance to achieve in every area. All activities are planned to follow children’s interests as by doing so we have found children to want to be more involved in their learning and achieve their potential. Emphasis is placed on the development of every child’s self-esteem and independence, and they are strongly encouraged to be kind and caring to one another in a positive and nurturing environment. Children work and play together in a happy, relaxed and positive atmosphere in which encouragement abounds and the surroundings are colourful, attractive and adaptable.
The experiences provided for each child are stimulating, challenging, absorbing and satisfying, allowing for every aspect of development and progression through the different stages of the pre-school years.
The children are taught by dedicated, enthusiastic and well qualified staff in one of three rooms. This all combines to help us provide care of the highest standard.