Parent News

Dear Parents and Carers

Thank you for all that attended the Summer BBQ we were very lucky with the weather and we hope you all enjoyed yourself, congratulations if you were a lucky winner of one of the prizes.

We are very excited that the Bumblebees room refurbishment will take place on the 21^st and 22^nd August. We will have more information nearer the time but the 2-3’s will use the other rooms in the nursery during this quiet period.

Forest school has now finished for the summer holidays, we hope all the children that had a chance to take part enjoyed themselves and it will resume again in September. Please remember to label your child’s car seat if they are taking part and to ensure that they are dressed appropriately.

Michelle will be taking annual leave from the 24^th July and will be back in the office on the 11^th August. Also Leanne will be leaving for her maternity leave on the 22^nd August.

 

 

Policies

Please find attached our Risk Assessment policy.

Snails

The focus in the snails this week will be transport. The children will be encouraged to explore the cars in the water, play with the happy land village and sing songs about transport, for example ‘The wheels on the bus’. Creative activities, this week, include painting with cars, making marks in corn flour using vehicles and collaging trucks.  The children will also be encouraged to experiment with the ict toys and the musical instruments.

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   Thursday                   Leanne – Annual leave Tuesday

 

Caterpillars

This week the Caterpillars team will continue to focus on sensory play and explore bubbles, ice and water.   The children will investigating puzzles, pop up toys, parts of the body and rolling of balls.  Creative activities this week include, mark making with chunky pencils and chalks, cling film painting and table painting.

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          Tara  - Wednesday

Ladybirds

The current interest in the Ladybirds is small world and ict toys.  This week the children will be exploring simple concepts e.g big and little, changing the sounds of a musical instruments and soft play. The book of the week is ‘Baa moo, what will we do’.   Creative activities this week include, painting with stampers, collaging with tissue paper and smelly play dough.

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 – Monday   

Bumblebees

This week the children will develop their mathematic skills using their number line to count 10, recognising numbers by connecting the dots to reveal a number, using the numbered bean bags and exploring clocks. To help the children develop their understanding of the world, the children will be making dens for themselves and exploring with torches, making a den for the farm animals and exploring the ict ladybirds.   Activities to support creative development include collage activities, mixing colours and body painting.  Literacy development shall be supported, this week, through painting using a variety of media and chalks. The story of the week will be ‘Aliens love underpants’ which links in with the display the children have been working on.

The team would like to let you know that the children’s coat pegs have been rearranged and are now in alphabetical order. Also just to remind you to check your child’s tray so you don’t miss their latest masterpiece and please remember that it is important to label your children’s clothes.

 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 – Tuesday, Wednesday (Annual leave), Thursday (Day off)    Jade – Annual Leave

 

Butterflies                       

 This week the children’s interest is holidays as they see some of their friends leave for school or for the summer holidays.  The children will be making their own postcards, taking part in a sand castle challenge in the garden, making a map to show where they have been on holiday and making their own sun hat/visor. The children’s fine motor skills will be encouraged through the use of play dough and transporting small objects using tweezers, they will use story cards to sequence stories and come up with an alternative ending.

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 – Friday   Tracy – Monday (day off), Tuesday & Wednesday (annual leave)

 

Risk Assessment policy

Aim of policy

 

To give guidance on how and when to complete risk assessments.

 

Points to consider

Risk assessments are to assess hazards to anyone on the nursery premises, or in case of external trips to the children, staff and parents in our care.

 

The Heath and Safety Executive (HSE) considers risk assessment to be:

“a careful examination of what, in your work, could cause harm to people to enable you to decide whether you have taken enough precautions or you should do more. It should identify and take into account all significant factors that can affect the chance and extent of harm and reach a conclusion on whether and how the management of such factors needs to be improved to eliminate or lessen that chance”.

 

There are five points to consider when carrying out a risk assessment:

Identify the hazard

Decide who may be harmed and how

Evaluate the risks and decide on precautions

Record your findings and implement them

Review your assessment and update if necessary

 

See the current Nursery Risk assessments

 

Castle Daycare and Preschool aim to achieve this by:

 

Carrying out thorough and regular risk assessments on all aspects and areas of the nursery.

The person responsible for carrying out risk assessments in this nursery is

Kim Elliott

 

Daily Health and Safety checks should also be made to ensure no hazards arise between risk assessments.

 

The person/people responsible for carrying out these daily checks are

Jenni Smyth, Jamie Corking, Alisha Beswick, Tracy Cox, Abi Shorter

 

More information on how to complete risk assessments can be found at:

www.hse.gov

Castle Daycare & Preschool will actively monitor the performance of its nurseries in the management of risks under their control and the implementation of nursery risk assessments and health and safety action plans.

Whilst the company accepts the main responsibility for implementation of this policy, individuals have an important role in co-operating with those responsible to ensure a healthy and safe working environment. Individuals are required to abide by rules and requirements made under the authority of this policy.

The Nursery’s Manager is responsible for the implementation of the risk assessments and health and safety action plans and referring any actions required or concerns to the Director.