Parent News

Dear Parents and Carers

 

As it is nearing Christmas, the rooms will be having Christmas parties, please see your child’s room, further down in the blog to see the date of your child’s party. You are all welcome to attend the party, even if this is not your child’s usual day at the setting, however you will be asked to stay with them. Please see a member of staff within your child’s room if you would like to attend. The parties are from 3pm until 5pm.

 

I would like to inform you of the closures over the Christmas period. We are open as usual until Wednesday 24^th December when the nursery will close at 4pm. Please inform a member of staff within your child’s room if they will be attending. We are then closed until Monday 5^th January when we reopen as usual. This means the nursery will be closed an extra day over the Christmas period, however, we do hope this is not too much of an inconvenience for you and your childcare requirements but hopefully, by informing you now plans can be made.

 

Week commencing 8^th December is NSPCC charity week; therefore we are holding two events in aid of the charity. On Wednesday 10^th December is ‘bobble hat day’, whereby the children wear their favourite bobble hat during the day at nursery and on Friday 12^th December we will be having a Christmas jumper day. Please help us enjoy this day by dressing your child in a Christmas jumper. If you wish to take part in the NSPCC charity week we would kindly ask for a donation which will be sent to the NSPCC.

 

Please can parents also see their child’s key worker to book in a review around your child’s development. These meetings will be placed during the working day, preferably before you pick your child up in the evening or afternoon.

 

Policies

Please find attached our no smoking policy.

Snails

The focus in the snails this week is Christmas. The children will have the opportunity to play with soft books, exploring the sounds of rattles, singing Christmas songs, exploring with ice and treasure basket play. Outdoor activities this week include sensory balls, mirror play, puppets and supporting individual children’s physical development, walking and crawling. The snails will also additionally be focusing on Christmas activities. This week the children will be able to look through their family books.

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.

 

Christmas party – Thursday 18^th December.

 

Amy – Day off Monday. 

 

Caterpillars

This week the Caterpillars team will be continuing to focus on positive play in the role play area. To do this the practitioners will be modelling positive behaviour, turn taking and experimenting with equipment. The children will have the opportunity to explore different activities such as, heuristic play, pull along toys, painting, ICT toys, exploring playdough, happyland village and custards music class. The caterpillars will also be focusing on carrying out Christmas activities and creating a Christmas display. The story of the week is ‘choo choo clickety clack’.

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 – Monday, annual leave Wednesday, Thursday and Friday

Alisha – Tuesday

 

Christmas party – Thursday 18^th December.

 

Ladybirds

The current interest in the Ladybirds this week is filling and emptying containers. The children will explore water play whereby they can fill and empty containers, exploring shapes by posting them through shape sorter puzzles, cornflour play with different types of tools, creating Christmas stocking, sand play using different types of containers and creating calendars using sand hand prints. The story of the week is ‘muffin hide and seek’.

 

The ladybirds team will be asking parents if they can take a photograph of their children wearing a winter outfit, hats, gloves and scarfs so this can be displayed within the room.

 

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.

Christmas party – Thursday 18^th December

Days off  

Abi – Monday

Naomi – Tuesday, annual leave Thursday and Friday

Kim – annual leave Wednesday, Thursday and Friday

 

Bumblebees

This week the children will be focusing on Christmas, winter, cooking and painting. The children will be encouraged to develop their mathematical skills by counting on the abacus, completing insert puzzles, sewing for Christmas and identifying the primary colours by separating them into different colours. To help the children develop their understanding of the world, the role play will be turned into a hairdressers and later on in the week the children will be making ‘real’ tea using water, cups and a teapot. In the garden the children will be encouraged to take part in running games, pretending to be different animals. Activities to support creative development include making snowflakes, bin bag painting, pasta painting, decorating Christmas trees, gluing and sticking using tissue paper, making salt dough and making reindeer hand and foot prints. Literacy development shall be supported, this week by reading the story of the week ‘here we go round the mulberry bush’ and practicing the alphabet, looking at letters of the alphabet and looking at our family books and talking about our families.

This week the children will be making biscuits.

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.

Christmas party – Tuesday 16^th December.

 

Days off     

Jani – Friday

Jenni – Thursday

Hannah – annual leave Tuesday

 

Butterflies     

This week the butterflies will be focusing on their Christmas display. The activities will include discussing what happens at Christmas and what traditionally is eaten. The children will be creating Christmas decorations for the display within the room, the children will be encouraged to write a letter to father Christmas and writing labels for the Christmas board. The children will also be cooking, this week they are making bruschetta. The children will be encouraged to mix together different colours and explain what happens. The children will also be making Italian flags. The children will be focusing on the letter of the week, which is, ‘D’ and the number of the week, which is number 13.

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.

Christmas party – Wednesday 17^th December.

 

Days off   

Stani – Friday                 

Lee – Thursday Afternoon                 

Tara – Thursday

Juan - Wednesday

 

Michelle is day off Monday and training Friday.

 

 

No Smoking policy

 

Aim of policy

 

To highlight the nursery stance on Smoking.

 

Points to consider

 

Castle Daycare & Preschool accept that smoking and passive inhalation of smoke is harmful to health.  The Company also adopts the position that this is particularly so for children in the early stages of their physical development.  Accordingly we have a strict no smoking policy for all areas of the Nursery and external play areas including staff room and adult space. 

 

Procedures relating to the no smoking policy

 

By Law No one shall smoke in any part of the Nursery or the external play areas

 

·               If a member of staff is found smoking in any part of the Nursery or external play areas they will be subject to disciplinary action

 

·               If a parent or visitor to the Nursery is found smoking in any part of the Nursery or external play areas their attention will be drawn to the no smoking policy and they will be asked to extinguish the cigarette

 

Staff will be permitted to smoke:

 

·               During recognised breaks.

 

·               In a location away from the Nursery and external play areas and car park.

 

·               Provided that debris arising from smoking is disposed of appropriately.

 

·               Provided that they wear cover over their uniform, wash their hands (and freshen their breath if necessary), before returning to work with the children.

Parent News

Dear Parents and Carers

 

As it is nearing Christmas, the rooms will be having Christmas parties, please see your child’s room, further down in the blog to see the date of your child’s party. You are all welcome to attend the party, even if this is not your child’s usual day at the setting, however you will be asked to stay with them. Please see a member of staff within your child’s room if you would like to attend. The parties are from 3pm until 5pm.

 

I would like to inform you of the closures over the Christmas period. We are open as usual until Wednesday 24^th December when the nursery will close at 4pm. Please inform a member of staff within your child’s room if they will be attending. We are then closed until Monday 5^th January when we reopen as usual. This means the nursery will be closed an extra day over the Christmas period, however, we do hope this is not too much of an inconvenience for you and your childcare requirements but hopefully, by informing you now plans can be made.

 

On Friday 12^th December we will be having a Christmas jumper day. Please help us enjoy this day by dressing your child in a Christmas jumper.

 

Please can parents also see their child’s key worker to book in a review around your child’s development. These meetings will be placed during the working day, preferably before you pick your child up in the evening or afternoon.

 

Policies

Please find attached our equality and diversity policy.

 

Snails

The focus in the snails this week is physical development. The children will have the opportunity to play with pop up toys, sensory bottles, the activity table, treasure baskets, stacking cups and knocking them down and to explore the texture of cornflour play. Outdoor activities include, exploring puzzles, having cuddles with key people and explore the hide away cubes. The snails will also additionally be focusing on Christmas activities. The story of the week is ‘family books’.

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.

 

Christmas party – Thursday 18^th December.

 

Amy – Day off Monday. 

 

 

Caterpillars

This week the Caterpillars team will be focusing on positive play in the role play area. To do this the practitioners will be modelling positive behaviour, turn taking and experimenting with equipment. The children will have the opportunity to explore different activities such as, heuristic play, painting, exploring shape sorters, gluing and sticking activities, play dough and stacking cups. The caterpillars will also be focusing on carrying out Christmas activities. The story of the week is ‘little reindeer wants to play’.

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 – Wednesday

Alisha – Friday

 

Christmas party – Thursday 18^th December.

 

Ladybirds

The current interest in the Ladybirds this week is role play. The children will explore real life experiences, making tea and dressing up babies. Activities this week include puddle splashing, bathing dollies, decorating a snow man, foot painting, creating clay hand prints, soft play and playing with cars in flour and water. The story of the week is ‘I’m a new big sister’.

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.

Christmas party – Thursday 18^th December.

 

Days off  

Abi – Thursday

Naomi – Friday

Kim – Training Tuesday

 

Bumblebees

This week the children will be focusing on winter, cooking and Christmas activities. The children will be encouraged to develop their mathematical skills by weighing different equipment in the weighing scales and begin to understand mathematical language, such as, more and a lot. A matching game activity will also be set out to encourage the children to learn about different sizes, small, big. To help the children develop their understanding of the world, the children shall use interstars to make different shapes and create a zoo by using wooden blocks and zoo animals. Activities to support creative development include gluing and sticking with tissue paper, creating and decorating Christmas decorations, hand painting, experiments with water and food colouring, making and playing with playdough and making snowflakes and decorating them. Literacy development shall be supported, this week by reading the story of the week ‘whoosh around the mulberry bush’ and practicing the alphabet, also filling in the missing words to familiar stories, talking about events that we have experienced or will be experiencing and discussing winter using open ended questions.

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.

Christmas party – Tuesday 16^th December.

 

Days off     

Jani – Friday

Jenni – Thursday and training Wednesday, in the office on Friday

 

Butterflies     

This week the butterflies will be focusing on animals who hibernate. The activities will include discussing which animals hibernate by showing the children pictures, creating animal masks of animals who hibernate and reading stories about hibernation. The children will also take part in cooking club in which the children will be making scones. The children will be encouraged to talk about living things and how we can care for them, talk about events that have happened or will be happening and to discuss different textures, what they feel like etc. The children will be focusing on the letter of the week, which is, ‘M’ and the number of the week, which is number 19.

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.

Christmas party – Wednesday 17^th December.

 

Days off   

Stani – Friday                 

Lee – Thursday Afternoon                 

Tara – Tuesday

Juan - Wednesday

 

Michelle is day off Monday and training Friday.

 

 

Equality and diversity policy

 

Aim of policy

 

Castle Daycare & Preschool equality & diversity policy recognises that all people have a right to their distinctive and diverse identities and that all people are different and must be treated as individuals. 

 

Points to consider

 

We provide a supportive, open environment where all children and employees have the opportunity to reach their full potential.  Castle Daycare & Preschool will manage the provision of and access to - high quality affordable childcare.  We will promote equality and diversity through our relationships with children, parents, families and carers.

 

Castle Daycare and Preschool aim to achieve this by:

 

• Following the Disability Act 2006, the Equality Act 2010 and the Early Years Foundation Stage 2012.

 

·               Ensuring all children can be included.

        

·               Providing children with activities and learning opportunities to acknowledge promote and respect diversity in local communities.

 

·               Providing positive images and role models which illustrate non-stereotypical roles, racial, cultural and religious diversity and disability in a way that has real meaning to the children and their families.

 

·               Encouraging an understanding of spiritual development by reflecting all faiths and encouraging the tolerance of all faiths including the promotion and celebration of religious festivals and their meaning.  Each individual Castle Daycare & Preschool will aim to enjoy and celebrate religious events personal/relevant to the community they serve.

 

·               Having in place policy and/or procedures to deal with inappropriate practices and attitudes, action to be taken should discrimination occur.

 

·               Inviting parents in the reviewing of our policies.

 

·               Ensuring all our publicity will demonstrate an understanding of equality and diversity.

 

·               Using language which is easily understood.

 

·               Wherever there is a widely shared specific need or where individuals have common needs, Castle Daycare & Preschool will address these through a specific strategy.

 

·               Recognising the need to monitor and review our policies and welcome challenges from, and the involvement of, our employees and customers in this process.

 

·               Actively consulting with different individuals and communities to ensure that the services which are provided are responsive and reflect the diversity of needs.

 

·               Valuing the diversity of all communities, and making our services, facilities and resources accessible and useful to every individual.

 

·               Recognising that our ability to meet these diverse needs is improved by having a diverse workforce which generally reflects local populations and which has the skill and understanding to achieve our service objectives.

 

·               Committing to valuing diversity in our workforce and to developing and training our employees to improve their ability to meet our goals; within an overall framework of equality.

 

 

Castle Daycare & Preschool:

 

·               Believe that our employees have an important part to play in making this happen.

 

·               Require every employee to recognise and discharge their own responsibility.

 

·               Undertake to listen to our customers and to involve them in the development of services which recognise and value their diversity.

 

 

To ensure that we meet this policy at all times each nursery has dedicated Equality Officers who support all members of staff by:

 

•  Ensuring their team, room and garden area are promoting equal opportunities in their practice and environment.
• Ensuring cultures and festivals are equally celebrated and promoted.
• Ensuring the team has a good understanding of cultures and festivals and therefore can promote them correctly.
• Attending training on equal opportunities, promoting inclusion, and cascade this back to the rest of the team.
• Working together with the other Equality Officers and manager to create:

o   A nursery that ensures every child is given the same opportunities regardless of their abilities.

o   A nursery that positively promotes equality through the genders and cultures.

o   A nursery that gives every child an open and accepting knowledge of the world around them. 

 

The Equality Officers for this nursery are:

 

 

___Amy Pickering, Alisha Beswick, Stani Zidekova and Naomi Shotter_

 

Parent News

Dear Parents and Carers

 

Thank you to everyone who attended the bonfire night. We hope you had an enjoyable time!

 

As it is nearing Christmas, the rooms will be having Christmas parties, please see your child’s room, further down in the blog to see the date of your child’s party. You are all welcome to attend the party, even if this is not your child’s usual day at the setting, however you will be asked to stay with them. Please see a member of staff within your child’s room if you would like to attend. The parties are from 3pm until 5pm.

 

We would like to welcome Amy Ellis to Castle nursery, Markenfield. Amy is NVQ Level 3 qualified and will be working within our bumblebee room. Amy is working Monday to Friday.

 

We would also like to congratulate Stani on becoming pre-schools room leader. Stani has wonderful ideas that she will be implementing into the room.

 

Please can parents also see their child’s key worker to book in a review around your child’s development. These meetings will be placed during the working day, preferably before you pick your child up in the evening or afternoon.

 

Policies

Please find attached our late/non collection of child policy.

Snails

The focus in the snails this week is treasure baskets. The children will have the opportunity to play with the new treasure baskets, exploring metal, wooden and plastic objects. Activities this week include exploring the soft toys, pop up toys, musical instruments, playing in the pop up tent and exploring the bead mazes. Outdoor activities include, playing in the tunnels and tents, exploring the sensory balls, and looking through soft books. The snails will also additionally be focusing on Christmas activities. The story of the week is ‘wibbly pig’.

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.

 

Christmas party – Thursday 18^th December.

 

Amy – Day off Monday. 

Caterpillars

This week the Caterpillars team will continue to focus on the book corner by encouraging the children to use the book area appropriately by singing, using puppets and exploring musical instruments. The children will have the opportunity to explore different activities such as, painting, exploring and learning how to use shape sorters, heuristic play, gluing and sticking, creating poppy pictures, exploring insert puzzles, playing with puppets in group time and chalking in the garden. The caterpillars will also be focusing on carrying out Christmas activities. The story of the week is ‘the 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 – Friday

Alisha – Monday

Christmas party – Thursday 18^th December.

 

Ladybirds

The current interest in the Ladybirds this week is music and musical instruments. Activities this week include soft play, roller painting on card, gluing and sticking for poppy day, painting animal footprints, exploring wiggly worms in cornflour. The ladybirds will also be focusing on role play and using the equipment effectively. The story of the week is ‘my counting wheel’.

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.

Christmas party – Thursday 18^th December.

Days off  

Abi – Monday

Naomi – Monday Annual leave and Wednesday day off

Bumblebees

This week the children will be focusing on winter and Christmas activities. The children will be encouraged to develop their mathematical skills by building towers using small blocks and counting, to encourage the children to count each step as we walk up and down the stairs, to complete a simple puzzle and to explore different colours by separating them into different pots. To help the children develop their understanding of the world, the children shall continue the car park and construction site from last week as they really enjoyed these activities. The children will also build a race track with an adult, to make crowns using interstars and wear them on our head and to play with dinosaurs using leaves and sand in the garden. Activities to support creative development include hand painting using bright colours, to see what different marks can be made in cornflour, completing an experiment using food colouring and to explore painting with our bodies. Literacy development shall be supported, this week by reading the story of the week ‘ABC Zoo’ and practicing the alphabet, playing with and talking about textures, decorating hats and scarves for our winter display and mark making using pencils, focusing on our pencil grip.

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.

Christmas party – Tuesday 16^th December.

Days off     

Jani – Wednesday

Jenni – Thursday and training Friday

Alba – Tuesday

 

Butterflies     

This week the butterflies will be focusing on music. The activities will include exploring different instruments and their sounds, creating England flags. The children will be encouraged to discuss special times and events that they have shared with their family and friends. The children will be able to explore spaghetti play, making this a sensory experience. The children will also be focusing on cooking. The children will take part in Tara’s cooking club, in which this week, the children will be making pizza wheels or scones. During group time the children will listen to music that their peers have bought in. A junk modelling activity will be set out for the children so they can make musical instruments. The children will be focusing on the letter of the week, which is, ‘R’ and the number of the week, which is number 12.

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.

Christmas party – Wednesday 17^th December.

Days off   

Stani – Friday                 

Lee – Tuesday, Thursday Afternoon and Friday                 

Tara – Tuesday

Juan - Wednesday

 

Michelle is day off Monday

 

 

Late/non collection of child

 

Aim of policy

To give clear guidance to practitioners and Parents of what will occur should late or non collection of a child occur.

 

Points to consider

 

Castle Daycare & Preschool work in close partnership with parents and recognise the importance of sensitivity and empathy should this procedure need to be implemented.

 

In the event that a child is not collected by an authorised adult at the end of the day, to cause as little distress as possible, we will ensure the child is cared for safely by an experienced and qualified practitioner who is known to the child.  Two staff members will stay with the child until the parent arrives. One member of staff will be ideally their key person the other will be a senior team member.

 

We will inform parents/carers of our procedures so that, if they are unavoidably delayed, they will be reassured that their child will be properly cared for.

 

Procedure to follow

 

If parent/guardian/carer is repeatedly late collecting their child it is the responsibility of the Nursery Manager/Deputy to discuss this with them.

 

In those instances where a parent is over 15 minutes late and has not made contact with the nursery the following procedure must be followed:

 

1.            Person in charge to attempt to make contact with parent / carer.

 

2.            Person in charge to notify the area manager who in turn will contact other management team members if needed.

 

3.            Person in charge to attempt to contact parent’s employer (if they work)

 

4.            Person in charge to attempt to make contact with those authorised to collect the child.

 

5.            If after all reasonable attempts to contact parent carers and emergency contacts have failed then the nursery manager will evaluate the situation, i.e. length of time the child has been left, whether it’s a reoccurring problem, or if contact numbers are disconnected. Upon which she will contact a member of the operations team before contacting Social Services.

 

 

6.            The last two team members on duty are required to stay with the child until collected.

 

Social services contact number: 03456 009 009

Emergency out of hours team: 01483 517898

 

Ofsted contact number: 0300 123 1231

 

7. Person in charge to keep Area Manager up to date at each stage. A full written report of the incident must be recorded by the person in charge.

 

8. Depending on circumstances, Castle Daycare & Preschool reserve the right to charge parents for the additional hours worked by our staff.

 

It is imperative that throughout the implementation of the procedure the child is not distressed.  The situation must be explained to all contacts calmly and clearly.