Parent News

Dear Parents and Carers

 

Forest School

Forest School is due to begin again this week! Preschool will be attending Wednesday 10^th September; this will be a morning session and with our Pre-school children. Thursday 11^th September, also a morning session will be with our Bumblebees children. Please return any forms of consent. If you have any queries please do not hesitate to speak to Lee or management in the office.

Policies

Please find attached our procedure for the key person policy.

Snails

The focus in the snails this week will be physical development and settling in with new children. The children will have the opportunity to play and balance using the standing beam, walkers and the musical piano. Creative activities, this week, include cornflour play with cars, creative activities in the garden.  The younger children will also be given the opportunity for tummy time whilst the older babies will be encouraged to pull themselves up to standing position. 

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.

 

Amy – Day off   Monday            

 

Caterpillars

This week the Caterpillars team will focus on looking at numbers, singing songs and pop up toys.  The children will have the opportunity to play and explore using the pebbles to build towers, emptying and filling containers, reading number books and singing number rhymes. Creative activities this week include, mark making with paint and sponges, gluing and sticking, and table painting. The book of the week is ‘Rhyme book’.

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 - Monday      Alisha – Monday

 

Ladybirds

The current interest in the Ladybirds is numbers and construction.  The children will be encouraged to build their own structures whilst counting. In the garden there will be an obstacle course and chalking on the pavement. The children will be able to choose their favourite song and sing it with the class. The book of the week is ‘Five Little Ducks’ and ‘my first lift the flap, 1, 2, 3’.   Creative activities this week include, decorating five little ducks, table painting, roller painting, box collage, play dough and heuristic play.

This week the children will also take part in a cooking activity, making rice krispie cakes with sprinkles.

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 – Wednesday                  Kopila – Annual leave all week 

 

Bumblebees

This week the children will be exploring the new room layout and settling in children. Activities this week will be on the children’s interests, therefore, playing with trains, building a track and connecting the pieces together. The children will be encouraged to use their senses to explore different textures, such as hard and soft, wet and dry sand. The children will be encouraged to develop their mathematic skills by building 3D structures, matching different sizes of compare bears, completing the shape puzzles.  To help the children develop their understanding of the world, the children shall engage in pretend play using the dinosaurs and happy land.  Activities to support creative development include exploring primary colours and mixing them together to see how they can be changed, and painting using paint brushes. Literacy development shall be supported, this week, through, using stencils to draw with and reading the book of the week which is ‘Hands are not for hitting’. This week we also have a song of the week, this is to welcome the children who have recently started with us, learning the children’s and key workers names. The song is called ‘Welcome Song’.

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         Alba – Thursday

 

Butterflies                       

 This week the butterflies will be practising the golden rules and welcoming the children back that were on half term. The children will explore how magnets work, connecting them to different parts of the room which may or may not be magnetic. The children will also be encouraged to build duplo models and practice their letters and sounds. Creative activities this week will include, drawing pictures of what the children did over the holiday period. The book of the week is ‘Tidy up!’

 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 – Tuesday    Lee – Thursday Afternoon

 

Key person policy

 

Aim of policy

To demonstrate how the key person role is used throughout the setting.

 

Points to consider

As part of the vision and values of our setting, we greatly value the strong positive relationships we build with the children in our care and their families. Children’s emotional wellbeing is an essential foundation for their health, happiness and ability to learn. This policy works with Every Child Matters (2003) and Early Years Foundation Stage (2012)

A key person:

• Welcomes parents and children and introduces them to other staff members, other parents and children.
• Works closely with the parents and child.
• Informs parents of their child’s time at nursery.
• Keeps parents informed of any setting events.
• Discusses and reassures fears, worries or problems from both parents and children.
• Supports the child’s transitions.
• Continually builds a close relationship with the parents and children during their time at nursery.
• Ensures that their key children’s needs and interests are met through appropriate activities.
• Keeps records on each of their key children and uses these to enhance their learning and development.

 

Castle Daycare and Preschool aims to do this by:

• Having a key person for each child before they come in to settle.
• The key person will do the settling in visits and will cascade information about the child to relevant team members.
• The key person will spend time with the child supporting their welfare, learning and emotional and physical development.
• Ongoing training will be provided for staff to enable them to carry out the key person role.
• Arrangements will be in place to balance out the number of children assigned to each key person and to accommodate shift patterns and Where possible a key person buddy maybe allocated to ensure the children are supported whilst their key person is absent from nursery
• Staff will be inducted into becoming a key person as part of their induction and will be supported throughout by the manager and room leaders.

Sufficient time will be given for key people to complete records, however these records will be designed to minimise any time away from the children