Nursery News

We would like to congratulate Abi on the safe arrival of baby Amelia Karin. Amelia was born on Sunday weighing 7lb 11oz, both mum and baby are doing well and we look forward to a visit from them soon.

The Queen celebrates 60 years as the monarch this year! To mark the occasion, we’re hosting a garden party at the Teepee Nursery.  The children and team are looking forward to celebrating on the 1st June and everyone is welcome. The theme will be “Kings and Queens”. Don’t worry if your child doesn’t have a costume, they can come in “Red, White or Blue” too. There’s no need for you to feel left out either, we would like everyone to dress in patriotic colours – the team definitely will be!

We’ve organised lots of fun games and activities for the children and I’m sure you’ll enjoy taking part. It’s a great opportunity for you to see your child interacting at the nursery, playing with their friends and also to meet the parents of your child’s friends. You can also get to know the team better. We’ll be providing a picnic tea for everyone, but would just ask that you let your key person know if you and your family are coming, so that the kitchen knows how many people to cater for.

It’s sure to be a fantastic day, so put the date in your diary now – Friday 1st June from 3:00pm. We hope to see as many of you as possible!

Hi

Just a reminder that we will have Sugar free photos in the nursery on the 16th May for the whole day.

If your child attends a Wednesday they will have their picture taken, but if Wednesday is not your day at the nursery please feel free to bring your children in between 9:30am and 12pm for photos.

Sugar FreePhoto are an award winning photography company who shoot only natural images. All images are shot on a white background so bright colours  are a must.

Sugar FreePhoto have  a modern approach to photography so please feel free to bring along props for your children’s photos, some examples of props used in images before are; hats, scarfs, sunglasses, and bags.

If you wish to be in the photo with your child please feel free to come along and bring siblings too.

For more information on the day or photographs please speak to your child’s key person.

Emma

In order to provide the best possible childcare for your little ones, we think it is essential that everyone is well trained and that’s not just a one off, we provide ongoing refresher training for the whole team.  With hectic lives and so many important things to remember, it’s easy to forget the details of training you took months or even years ago, which is why we provide ongoing refresher courses for everyone, including the bank team.

We have training separated into courses that are necessary for the whole nursery, job specific and site specific training. We train on policies, procedures, risk assessments and nationally recommended training such as first aid. We also have our own in-house training that goes over and above the minimum recommended nationally, but that we feel is hugely beneficial, so do make it compulsory for  everybody. You might have seen the news item about Behavioural Health and Safety Training. This is an example of where we all gave up our Saturday to undergo important training. We will keep you posted on how the activities from this training day have helped reduce the number of accidents in the nursery.

All our training is recorded so we can ensure everyone is up-to-date. The team sign to say they have undertaken the training and understand how it’s relevant to their role. We also invest in individuals at the nursery, sponsoring members of the team in their professional and further education. This approach means that everyone is constantly up-to-date with the best practice and can be confident in their ability to provide the best possible care for your children.

If you have any questions please talk to your room leader.

As part of our continual bid to be the best childcare provider around, we conduct ongoing accident analysis. Our new analysis process was introduced a year ago and has been a huge success. We record and analyse all the accidents at the nursery then discuss the results amongst the team to find out how we can make changes and improvements.

The process is quite simple. We record all the accidents in our accident book, and this information is transferred onto a spreadsheet. We use this data to produce graphs that highlight any issues that need to be addressed. The manager discusses the results in team meetings and room leader meetings. We discuss the most common time, place and type of injury and identify the 5 children who have been involved in the most accidents across the nursery each month. This helps us to identify any patterns, or if there is any action that can be taken to prevent recurrence of any accidents.

This information trickles down to the teams in their room meetings. Each room gets together and discusses their accidents and plans how they can support their children in not having similar accidents in the future. This may include adapting the room to suit the children’s needs or working in smaller groups or even one-to-one on some activities.

The Bears and Pups are a great example of this process in action. They used to have the most number of accidents every month, so they analysed as a team why this was and decided to zone the rooms into areas of development. They have a home corner, construction area, creative table, messy tray and so on. There are always plenty of activities for the children to do and it’s clearly set out for them. For the last 2 months, the Bears and Pups have had the least number of accidents in the Nursery – well done!

If you’d like to find out more, or have any comments or suggestions, please talk to your key worker.

What a fantastic day! All the children were really excited by the prospect of an outing.  The fun started straight away at the bus stop to catch the bus. All the children had a brilliant time, asking lots of questions.

When we arrived at the Look Out Discovery Centre we explored the water play area first. The children had great fun splashing with the water and playing with the boats. Each child chose where they wanted to explore next. The children had the opportunity to experiment with sound, light and problem solving activities. The activity that let them project their voice was really popular as was the “build a pyramid”. The children adventured into the light and sound room where they were amazed by the “shadow photos”. There were lots of levers and buttons for the children to press.

To make the day really special, we chose souvenirs from the gift shop, which they chose individually. We  ate our lunch on the picnic benches outside, which we all loved. We couldn’t resist visiting the park on the way back to the bus stop, making for a thoroughly fun packed day! All the children were very well behaved and listened well to instructions, showing a good awareness of safety.

We would like to welcome Ivana Zrunova to our reserve team, Ivana has previously worked as an au-pair. We hope that she enjoys working with us at The Teepee.

As the evening are becoming lighter and the weather slightly warmer the team and children have been staying out in the garden until the end of the day. This is a fantastic opportunity for the children as they love to be outside exploring and engaging in activities with their friends, but it also poses some potential risks.

At the nursery security is extremely important to us hence the alarm on the front door and side gate, and a double gate system on the side entrance. Throughout the day these gates are regularly checked by the team to ensure they are locked and that children cannot get through them unsupervised.

The end of the day is a busy time with parents coming in and out of the nursery quite frequently. During this time the team are often busy handing over to parents and ensuring the children are safe, to help us keep the children safe at this time of day we please ask that you ensure the gates are closed behind you. We would also like to ask for you to be aware of children who are not with an adult but are near the exits or heading out of them. If you are unsure at any point please stop the child and ask a practitioner to help. Our team will do the best to monitor the gates but any co-operation from parents to ensure the safety of the children at the nursery would be greatly appreciated.

Emma

We would like to welcome Emma Richmond to the team, Emma has been a student with us since before Christmas and is now going to work for us as a Modern Apprentice.

Emma will be based in the Cheeky Chipmunks, she will work 4 days a week and will attend college on a Wednesday. We are really pleased Emma is joining us at The Teepee and look forward to working with her.

This Friday we’re raising money for Sports Relief. All the staff will be dressing up in different sports gear to get the children thinking and talking about sport. We’ll be setting up an obstacle course in the garden, so lets hope this great weather continues.

So what can you do? Please send your child into nursery in fancy dress and bring a donation!

All the money raised by Sports Relief is used by Comic Relief to help change lives here in the UK, and in some of the poorest countries across the world.