Policies

Parents as Partners
At Green Apple Nursery we believe that parents and staff need to work together in a close partnership in order for children to receive the quality of care and early learning to meet their individual needs. We welcome parents as partners and support a two-way sharing of information that helps establish trust and understanding. We are committed to supporting parents in an open and sensitive manner to be an integral part of the care and early learning team within the nursery. The key worker system supports engagement with all parents and uses strategies to ensure that all parents can contribute to their child’s learning and development. Parents contribute to initial assessments of children’s starting points on entry and they are kept well informed about their children’s progress. Parents are encouraged to support and share information about their children’s learning and development at home. The key worker system ensures all practitioners use effective, targeted strategies and interventions to support learning that match most children’s individual needs. Our policy is to:
  • Recognise and support parents as their child’s first and most important educators and to welcome them into the life of the nursery
  • Generate confidence and encourage parents to trust their own instincts and judgement regarding their own child
  • Welcome all parents into the nursery at any time and provide an area where parents can speak confidentially with us as required
  • Welcome nursing mothers. The nursery will make available a private area whenever needed to offer space and privacy to nursing mothers
  • Ensure nursery documentation and communications are provided in different formats to suit each parent’s needs, e.g. Braille, multi-lingual, electronic communications
  • Ensure that all parents are aware of the nursery’s policies and procedures. A detailed parent prospectus will be provided and our full policy documents will be available to parents at all times within the parents room and on the nursery website.
  • Maintain regular contact with parents to help us to build a secure and beneficial working relationship for their children
  • Support parents in their own continuing education and personal development including helping them to develop their parenting skills and inform them of relevant conferences, workshops and training
  • Create opportunities for parents to talk to other adults in a secure and supportive environment through such activities as open days, parents’ evenings and a parents’ forum
  • Inform parents about the range and type of activities and experiences provided for children, the daily routines of the setting, the types of food and drinks provided for children and events through monthly newsletters and website/social media updates.
  • Operate a key worker system to enable parents to establish a close working relationship with a named early learning and childcare practitioner and to support two-way information sharing about each child’s individual needs both in nursery and at home. Parents are given the name of the key worker of their child and their role when the child starts.
  • Inform parents on a regular basis about their child’s progress and involve them in shared record keeping. Parents’ evenings will be held at least twice a year. The nursery will consult with parents about the times of meetings to avoid excluding anyone
  • Actively encourage parents to contribute to children’s learning through sharing observations, interests and experiences from home. This may be verbally, sharing photographs or in written form
  • Agree the best communication method with parents e.g. email, face-to-face, telephone and share information about the child’s day, e.g. food eaten, activities, sleep times, etc.
  • Consider and discuss all suggestions from parents concerning the care and early learning of their child and nursery operation
  • Provide opportunities and support for all parents to contribute their own skills, knowledge and interests to the activities of the nursery
  • Inform all parents of the systems for registering queries, compliments, complaints or suggestions, and to check that these systems are understood by parents
  • Make sure all parents have access to our written complaints procedure
  • Share information about the Curriculum for Excellence, young children's learning in the nursery, how parents can further support learning at home and where they can access further information
  • Provide a written contract between the parent(s) and the nursery regarding conditions of acceptance and arrangements for payment
  • Respect the family’s religious and cultural backgrounds and beliefs and accommodate any special requirements wherever possible and practical to do so
  • Inform parents how the nursery supports children with additional needs for learning and disabilities
  • Find out the needs and expectations of parents. We will do this through regular feedback via questionnaires, suggestion system and encouraging parents to review working practices. We will evaluate any responses and use these to promote nursery practice, policy and staff development.

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Outdoor Play Policy

At Green Apple Nursery we are committed to the importance of daily outdoor play and physical development in all children regardless of their age and stage of development. All activities will be made accessible to children with learning difficulties and disabilities to ensure all children are able to freely and independently use the outdoor area and physical play opportunities to best effect.

Children need regular access to outdoor play in order to develop their large and small muscles, experience an environment that is different to the inside of the nursery and more importantly access sunlight in order to absorb vitamin D more effectively.

The outdoor areas, both within the nursery grounds and in the local community have a wealth of resources which help children to develop in a variety of ways, including independence, exploration and investigative skills, risk taking and self-esteem all of which support children to develop skills for now and the future.

The nursery will ensure all areas are safe and secure through close supervision and the use of robust risk assessments and safety checks. Staff are informed of the importance of these procedures and are trained appropriately to ensure these procedures are followed effectively.

Parents’ permission will be sought before any child leaves the nursery during the day, this includes short outings into the local community. Please refer to the visits and outings policy for further information on this process.

All outdoor play opportunities and outings will complement the indoor activities and provide children with both adult-led and child-initiated opportunities to enable children to learn and practice new skills, knowledge and behaviours.

The nursery will use this policy alongside the following policies to ensure the safety and welfare of children throughout their time outside.

  • Health and safety
  • Sun care
  • Babies and toddlers
  • Lost child policy
  • Parents and carers as partners
  • Supervision of children
  • Visits and outings.

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Settling In Proceedure

We aim for children to feel safe, stimulated and happy in the nursery and to feel secure and comfortable with all staff. We also want parents to have confidence in both their children’s well-being and their role as active partners, with the child being able to benefit from what the nursery has to offer.

We aim to support parents and other carers to help their children settle quickly and easily by giving consideration to the individual needs and circumstances of each child and their families.

The nursery staff will work in partnership with parents to settle their child into the nursery environment by:

  • Providing parents with relevant information regarding the policies and procedures of the nursery
  • Encouraging the parents and children to visit the nursery during the weeks before an admission is planned
  • Planning settling in visits and introductory sessions (lasting approximately 1-2 hours). These will be provided free of charge over a one or two week period dependent on individual needs, age and stage of development
  • Welcoming parents to stay with their child during the first few weeks until the child feels settled and the parents feel comfortable about leaving their child. Settling in visits and introductory sessions are key to a smooth transition and to ensure good communication and information sharing between staff and parents
  • Reassuring parents whose children seem to be taking a long time settling into the nursery
  • Encouraging parents, where appropriate, to separate themselves from their children for brief periods at first, gradually building up to longer absences
  • Allocating a key person to each child and his/her family, before he/she starts to attend. The key person welcomes and looks after the child ensuring that their care is tailored to meet their individual needs. He/she offers a settled relationship for the child and build a relationship with his/her parents during the settling in period, and throughout his/her time at the nursery, to ensure the family has a familiar contact person to assist with the settling in process
  • Reviewing the nominated key person if the child is bonding with another member of staff to ensure the child’s needs are supported
  • Respecting the circumstances of all families, including those who are unable to stay for long periods of time in the nursery and reassure them of their child’s progress towards settling in
  • Children will not be taken on an outing from the nursery until he/she is completely settled.
  • Parents will be asked to complete a settling in questionnaire when their child is fully settled.

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Sleeping Policy

At Green Apple Nursery we aim to ensure that all children have enough sleep to support their development and natural sleeping rhythms in a safe environment.

The safety of babies sleeping is paramount. We adopt a policy of practice recommended by The Cot Death Society to minimise the risk of Sudden Infant Death. This includes:

  • Babies are placed on their backs to sleep, but when babies can easily turn over from the back to the stomach, they can be allowed to adopt whatever position they prefer to sleep
  • Babies/toddlers will never be put down to sleep with a bottle to self-feed.
  • Babies/toddlers will be monitored visually when sleeping, checks are recorded every 10 minutes and babies will never be left in a separate sleep room without staff supervision at all times.
  • When monitoring the staff member will look for the rise and fall of the chest, and if the sleep position has changed.
  • A change in sleeping  positions will be documented on the safe sleep chart and initialled by the staff member.
  • We will increase the monitoring of a sleeping baby to every 5 minutes during the first six weeks the baby/toddler is in our nursery.

We provide a safe sleeping environment by:

  • Monitoring the room temperatures
  • Using clean light bedding/blankets and ensuring babies are appropriately dressed for sleep to avoid overheating.
  • Only having Safety  approved  cots  (or other suitable sleeping equipment, i.e. pods or mats) that are  compliant  with British  Standard  regulations,  and  mattress  covers  are  used  in  conjunction  with  a clean fitted sheet.
  • Not using cot bumpers or cluttering cots with soft toys, although comforters will be given where required.
  • Keeping all spaces around cots and beds clear from hanging objects i.e. hanging cords, blind cords, drawstring bags.
  • Ensuring each baby/toddler is provided with clean bedding.
  • Should  a  baby  fall  asleep  while  being  nursed  by  a  practitioner  they  will  be transferred to a safe sleeping surface to complete their rest.
  • Having a no smoking policy.

Routine sheets are filled out with the parent and key person when they are settling into the nursery and this is updated at timely periods to review. If a baby has an unusual sleeping routine or position that we would not use in the nursery i.e. babies sleeping on their tummies we will explain our policy to the parents and ask them to sign a form to say they have requested we carry out a different position or pattern on the sleeping babies form.

We recognise parents’ knowledge of their child in regards to sleep routines and will, where possible, work together to ensure each child’s individual sleep routines and well-being continues to be met. However staff will not force a child to sleep or keep them awake against his or her will. They will also not usually wake children from their sleep.

Staff will discuss any changes in sleep routines at the end of the day and share observations and information about children’s behaviour when they do not receive enough sleep.

Sleeping twins

We follow the advice from The Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths (FSID) regarding sleeping twins and will not put them together in the same cot to sleep. Further information can be found at:

http://fsid.org.uk/page.aspx?pid=426

http://www.healthychildcare.org/pdf/sidschildcaresafesleep.pdf

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