Parent News

Dear Parents and Carers

We hope you have been enjoying the lovely weather and for those of you lucky enough to get away we hope you have had a lovely break.

Just a reminder that Michelle is on annual leave and will be back in the office on the 11^th August. Leanne will be in the office Monday to Thursday and Tracy will man the office on Fridays.

Bumblebees would like to remind parents to check the small white board on the door to see if your child needs more nappies, wipes or sun cream.

Policies

Please find attached our Supervision policy.

Snails

The focus in the snails this week will be creative and sensory exploration.  The children will encouraged to explore the sensory balls, wet sand, soft toys and their own reflections in the mirrors. Creative activities, this week, include body painting, painting with feathers, water play with paint and mark making with chalks. The children will also be exploring the ict toys, musical instruments and shape sorters.

Planned activities within the Snails surround each child’s current interest in conjunction with supporting and extending their development.  To find out what activities are planned for your child for this week, please see your child’s keyworker who will be happy to take you through the planning.

Alisha –  Day off Monday                       Leanne – Day off Friday

Caterpillars

This week the Caterpillars team will focus on garden time with the see-saw and walkers, they are also interested in water and ice play.   The children will investigate the musical instruments, shape sorters, soft play and heuristic play.   Creative activities this week include sensory corn flour and table painting. The book of the week is Muffin hide & seek.

Planned activities within the Caterpillars surround each child’s current interest in conjunction with supporting and extending their development.  To find out what activities are planned for your child for this week, please see your child’s keyworker who will be happy to take you through the planning.

Days off Jamie – Tuesday (Day off)    Tara  - Annual leave 

Ladybirds

The current interest in the Ladybirds is role play and small world.  This week the children will be bathing the babies, cooking in the role play area, exploring the transport and the happy land village.  The book of the week is ’Spot goes on holiday’.   Creative activities this week include transport and table painting, collaging vehicles and gloopy cars

Planned activities within the ladybirds surround each child’s current interest in conjunction with supporting and extending their development.  To find out what activities are planned for your child for this week, please see your child’s keyworker who will be happy to take you through the planning.

Days off   Abi – Thursday (Day off)        Kim – Annual leave

Bumblebees

This week the children’s interests are Food and Physical Developments, the children will be making muffin pizzas, pretending to go food shopping as well as pretending to cook for themselves and their friends. In the garden the children will be jumping in and out of hoops, playing with the bats and balls to improve their hand/eye coordination and running games. To help the children develop their understanding of the world the children will be talking about their families and looking at puzzles of people who help us. Activities to support creative development including big chalk drawings, exploring shaving foam and junk modelling.   Literacy supported, this week, through using a range of stationary, drawing around stencils and drawing ourselves. The books this week will be looking at cook books.

 Planned activities within the Bumblebees surround each child’s current interest in conjunction with supporting and extending their development.  To find out what activities are planned for your child for this week, please see your child’s keyworker who will be happy to take you through the planning which is now displayed on the large notice board outside the Bumblebees room.

Days off      

Jani – Wednesday            Jenni – Monday  (Day off)     Amy – Monday (Day off) 

 

Butterflies                       

This week the children’s interest is wildlife and focussing our attention on the birds that we see around nursery.  To help us focus our attention on looking for birds we will be making our own binoculars so that we can spot different birds. As we know that we can be a little bit noisy and this might scare the birds away, we shall be making a ‘hide’ to secretly watch the birds and also some bird feeders with the hope that this will encourage the birds into the garden. We shall make a chart to note down how many ‘big’ birds we see and how many ‘small’ birds we see, it will be up to the children to categorise them accordingly. After listening to the birds we shall try and re-create their bird song using our musical instruments or just our voices, we shall also recreate our own birds when we have a little bit of fun and decorate biscuits to look like them, hopefully they will turn out better than our last attempt when they looked more like snowmen!!

Planned activities within the Butterflies surround each child’s current interest in conjunction with supporting and extending their development.  To find out what activities are planned for your child for this week, please see your child’s keyworker who will be happy to take you through the planning.

Days off   Stani – (Annual Leave)        Tracy – Tuesday (Day off)    Lee – Annual Leave

 

Supervision policy

 

Aim of policy

 

The purpose of this policy is to outline the responsibilities of the team in regards to supervision of children and to keep children and team safe.

 

Points to consider

 

At all times:

 

•          There will always be at least two staff members on duty whilst children are in attendance.

 

•          When children are outside there will always be at least one staff member present who will remain outside at all times. If they need to go inside for any reason, they will need to request to swap with a team member to ensure there are no breaks in supervision.

 

•          In areas where children are inside there will always be at least one staff member present.

 

•          Students who are not employed by Castle are not permitted to be left alone at any time with a child or children.

 

•          Students not employed by Castle cannot be included in any adult/child ratios.

 

•          Castle will adhere to the staff child ratio guidelines as set by Ofsted, detailed below:

 

NATIONAL STANDARDS ADULT/CHILD RATIOS

 

Children under 2    1:3

Children aged 2 Years     1:4

Children aged 3-5 Years  1.8

Children aged 4 -5            1:13 with EYP or QTS

EYP/EYT = Early Years Professional status/ Early Years Teacher Status

QTS = Qualified Teacher Status

All adults working with children including; students, cover team members and volunteers must all be police checked with the Disclosure and Baring Service.

No one without a clear enhanced DBS obtained may be left alone with children for any period of time.