We are happy to announce that Melissa Feltham, Happy Days Nurseries & Pre-Schools is our Rising Star Overall Winner

Melissa Feltham works at the Happy Days Bradley Stoke Nursery as the named SENCO. Mel holds a crucial role in our nursery and goes above and beyond each and every day in supporting the early identification and intervention for children with special educational needs.

Although Mel has allocated time within her working week to undertake her roles and responsibilities Mel is often observed sitting in the staff room in the morning of her day off to go that extra mile to support an individual child. This could involve completing a Transition Fund application to support a child’s positive transition to school when their EHCP application was declined or continuing with her recent project of creating a sensory room to support on one to one targeted support for individual children. The impact of this room has been significant for individual children.

Mel has always had a passion for ensuring that children are offered high-quality, inclusive, and safe care and education from supporting her older sister from a young age who has additional needs. Her interest in SEND in the early years was ignited when she was appointed as a one to one for a little boy in foster care with a diagnosis of autism. Whilst attending the nursery Mel worked with him providing 1:1 support with the attention bucket, supporting communication using Makaton and visual aids and providing time in a quite space when needed. As a result this child made significant progress enabling him to transition to mainstream school with him now in the process of transition to Year 1.

Supporting SEND

Mel remains in contact with the child and their foster family, being invited to tea on a regular basis. Mel was appointed as the setting SENCO in July 2021 and since that time she has shown a willingness and ability to develop specialist knowledge and keep up to date with local and national policy and developments with her recently commencing her Level 3 Award for SENCOs in early years settings.

These skills allow her to effectively communicate with parents, colleagues and external agencies to ensure that the needs of individual children are effectively met. She has recently supported a parent within the nursery, whose child has complex needs, to secure a place in a specialist provision that had previously been declined. The school have already visited the nursery and Mel will be supporting transition visits in person.

Melissa Feltham works at the Happy Days Bradley Stoke Nursery as the named SENCO. Mel holds a crucial role in our nursery and goes above and beyond each and every day in supporting the early identification and intervention for children with special educational needs. Although Mel has allocated time within her working week to undertake her roles and responsibilities Mel is often observed sitting in the staff room in the morning of her day off to go that extra mile to support an individual child.

This could involve completing a Transition Fund application to support a child’s positive transition to school when their EHCP application was declined or continuing with her recent project of creating a sensory room to support on one to one targeted support for individual children. The impact of this room has been significant for individual children.

Mel has always had a passion for ensuring that children are offered high-quality, inclusive, and safe care and education from supporting her older sister from a young age who has additional needs. Her interest in SEND in the early years was ignited when she was appointed as a one to one for a little boy in foster care with a diagnosis of autism. Whilst attending the nursery Mel worked with him providing 1:1 support with the attention bucket, supporting communication using Makaton and visual aids and providing time in a quite space when needed. As a result this child made significant progress enabling him to transition to mainstream school with him now in the process of transition to Year 1. Mel remains in contact with the child and their foster family, being invited to tea on a regular basis.

Career progression

Mel was appointed as the setting SENCO in July 2021 and since that time she has shown a willingness and ability to develop specialist knowledge and keep up to date with local and national policy and developments with her recently commencing her Level 3 Award for SENCOs in early years settings. These skills allow her to effectively communicate with parents, colleagues and external agencies to ensure that the needs of individual children are effectively met. She has recently supported a parent within the nursery, whose child has complex needs, to secure a place in a specialist provision that had previously been declined. The school have already visited the nursery and Mel will be supporting transition visits in person.