Parents are regarded as members of our setting who have full participatory rights. These include a right to be:

• Valued and respected
• Kept informed
• Consulted
• Involved 
• Included at all levels

We depend on the good will of parents and their involvement to keep going. Membership of the setting carries expectations on parents for their support and commitment.

How parents can take part in the setting

Our setting recognises parents as the first and most important educators of their children.  All staff see themselves as partners with parents in providing care and education for your child. There are many ways in which parents take part in making the setting a welcoming and stimulating place for children and parents, such as:

• Exchanging knowledge about their children’s needs, activities, interests and progress with the staff.
• Helping at sessions of the setting.
• Sharing their own special interests with the children.
• Helping to provide, make and look after the equipment and materials used in the children’s play activities.
• Being part of the management of the setting.
• Taking part in events and informal discussions about the activities and curriculum provided by the setting.
• Joining in activities in which the setting takes part.
• Building friendships with other parents in the setting.
• Becoming a member of our PFA and taking part in fundraising and special events.

The setting organises the day, so that children can take part in a variety of child-initiated and adult-led activities. These take account of children’s changing energy levels throughout the day. The setting caters for children’s individual needs for rest and quiet activities during the day. Outdoor activities contribute to children’s health, their physical development and their knowledge of the world around them. There is a balance of continuous provision in both indoor and outdoor areas to support the development of the whole child. The curriculum is balanced to help the ‘whole child’ develop using topics, which the children are interested in, such as: minibeasts, my family, under the sea, transport and many more.

Children are encouraged to join in daily circle time activities to promote speech and language and listening and attention development. Activities include singing and talking about the children’s likes and dislikes or discussing the topic being explored. Children are encouraged to play collaboratively; this is modelled by adults. Adults also model behaviour and activities so children are able to mimic them.

There are many areas in the setting created to support play such as: mark making, block play, sand and water play, arts and crafts, small world, role-play and sensory – these are part of the continuous provision and are changed to suit the children’s interests and topics.

Reception children will begin their journey to learn to read and understand number in more formal learning sessions led by our QTS teacher. They will work in short daily activities, in small groups, learning phonics through our Little Wandle reading programme. They will take part in the Mastering Number programme to gain a firm foundation in understanding numbers and the number system.

Our setting uses the key person approach, a statutory requirement of the EYFS. This means that each member of staff has a group of children for whom they are particularly responsible. Your child’s key person will be the person who works with you to make sure that our provision is right for your child’s particular needs and interests. When your child first starts at the setting, your child’s key person will help your child to settle in and throughout your child’s time at the setting, they will help your child to benefit from the setting’s activities and plan their next steps.

As well as gaining qualifications in Early Years Care and Education, the setting staff take part in further training to help them to keep up-to-date with the latest thinking and practice in Early Years education. From time to time the setting holds learning events for parents. These usually look at how adults can help children to learn and develop in their early years. Courses on similar topics are held at the school.

Children start to learn about the world around them from the moment they are born. The care and education offered by our setting helps children to continue to do this by providing all children with interesting activities that are appropriate for their age and stage of development.

Prime areas

• Personal, social and emotional development
• Communication and language
• Physical development

Specific areas

• Mathematics
• Literacy
• Understanding the world
• Expressive art and design

For each area, the practice guidance sets out the Early Learning Goals. These goals state what it is expected that children will know and be able to do by the end of the reception year of their education. The practice guidance also sets out in Development Matters, (DfE, 2017) the likely stages of progress a child makes along their learning journey towards the early learning goals. Our setting follows this guidance when we observe children and plan for their learning.

Our curriculum supports children to develop the following:

Personal, social and emotional development

• Positive approaches to learning and finding out about the world around them.
• Confidence in themselves and their ability to do things, and valuing their own achievements.
• Their ability to get on, work and make friendships with other people, both children and adults.
• Their awareness of, and being able to keep to, the rules which we all need to help us to look after ourselves, other people and our environment.
• Their ability to dress and undress themselves, and look after their personal hygiene needs.
• Their ability to expect to have their ways of doing things respected and to respect other people’s ways of doing things.

Communication and language

• Conversational skills with one other person, in small groups and in large groups to talk with and listen to others.
• Their vocabulary by learning the meaning of – and being able to use – new words.
• Their ability to use words to describe their experiences.
• Express feeling with words in play etc.

Physical development

• Increasing control over the large movements that they can make with their arms, legs and bodies, so that they can run, jump, hop, skip, roll, climb, balance and lift;
• Increasing control over the small movements they can make with their arms, wrists and hands, so that they can pick up and use objects, tools and materials; and their understanding about the importance of, and how to look after, their bodies.

Mathematics:

• Understanding and ideas about how many, how much, how far and how big.
• Understanding and ideas about patterns, the shape of objects and parts of objects, and the amount of space taken up by objects.
• Understanding that numbers help us to answer questions about how many, how much, how far and how big.
• Understanding and ideas about how to use counting to find out how many.
• Early ideas about the result of adding more or taking away from the amount we already have.

Literacy:

• Their knowledge of sound and letters that make words and use.
• Their ability to listen and talk about a story.
• Knowledge of the purposes for which we use writing.
• Make their own attempts at writing. 

Expressive art and design:

• The use of paint, materials, music, dance, words, stories and role-play to express their ideas and feelings; and their interest in the way that paint, materials, music, dance, words, stories and role-play can be used to express ideas and feelings.

Understanding of the world

• Knowledge about the natural world and how it works.
• Knowledge about the made world and how it works.
• Their learning about how to choose, and use, the right tool for a task.
• Their learning about computers, how to use them and what they can help us to do.
• Their skills on how to put together ideas about past and present and the links between them.
• Their learning about their locality and its special features.
• Their learning about their own and other cultures.

Play helps young children to learn and develop through doing and talking, which research shows to be the best means by which young children learn to think.  Our setting uses the Early Years Foundation Stage to plan and provide a range of play activities, which helps children to make progress in each of their areas of learning and development. In some of these activities children decide how they will use the activity and, in others, an adult takes the lead in helping the children to take part. In all activities information from the practice guidance to the Early Years Foundation Stage has been used to decide what equipment to provide and how to provide it.

We assess how young children are learning and developing by observing them frequently. We use information that we gain from observations, as well as from photographs of the children, to document their progress and where this may be leading them. We believe that parents know their children best and we ask them to contribute to assessment by sharing information about what their children like to do at home and how they as parents are supporting development. You can access your child’s learning journey on Tapestry and share events and activities with your child’s key person.

We make periodic assessment summaries of children’s achievement based on our ongoing development records. These form part of children’s records of achievement. We undertake these assessment summaries at regular intervals as well as times of transition, such as when a child moves into a different group or when they go on to school. We are also obliged to carry out the statutory Two-Year Check between your child’s 2nd and 3rd birthday.

The setting keeps a record of your child’s learning and development for each child. Staff and parents working together on their children’s journey is one of the ways in which the key person and parents work in partnership. Your child’s journey helps us to celebrate together their achievements and to work together to provide what your child needs for their well-being and to make progress.

Your child’s key person will work with you to keep this record. To do this you and she will collect information about your child’s needs, activities, interests and achievements. This information will enable the key person to identify your child’s stage of progress, using Birth to 5 Matters.

We welcome children into nursery from 8am (by arrangement into breakfast club). We ask that parents adhere to opening and closing times. The nursery reserves the right to charge for late collections – please see our charging policy. It is important to adhere to the timings of sessions to help maintain established routines for the children to feel safe and part of their nursery community.

Only named, authorised collectors on a child’s registration form will be permitted to collect that child. Permission to Collect Forms are available for advance notice that someone else will collect a child. In unexpected circumstances, parents can notify us by telephone, giving the password and description of unfamiliar collectors or emailing a photograph. If this has not been prearranged, then the child will not be permitted to leave our care until we have had confirmation by a parent/carer.

Staff prepare snacks with the children, meals are a social time at which children and adults eat together during the morning and afternoon sessions. We plan the menu for snacks so that they provide the children with healthy and nutritious food. Do tell us about your child’s dietary needs and we will make sure that these are met. We prefer children to drink water and will supply them with this throughout the day in cups. If your child has a preferred cup or prefers juice speak to your child’s key person to decide how best to support them.

We work with parents for consistency and support positive behaviour. Strategies are age and stage appropriate as well as taking into consideration individual children’s understanding and needs. Through activities, circle times and good adult examples, our children learn to be caring, thoughtful and accepting of others. Children are involved in decision and rulemaking processes, giving them a sense of self-worth, ownership and inclusion. We set high expectations for behaviour which complement the school’s behaviour policy.

Copies of the setting’s policies and procedures are available for you to see at the setting and on our website; we can also email a copy to parents on request. The setting’s policies help us to make sure that service we provide is of a high quality and that being a member of the setting is an enjoyable and beneficial experience for each child and their parents/carers.

Children and adults learn in different ways. At Reedham Nursery and Primary School we use teaching strategies which allow all our pupils to succeed in their own way, in their own time and often ‘child-led’. Our teachers tailor provision for pupils on the school’s SEND, Gifted and Talented and EAL (English as an Additional Language) registers. Pupil progress is monitored closely; staff work closely with parents to support this.

As part of the setting’s policy to make sure that its provision meets the needs of each individual child, we take account of any special needs a child may have. The setting works to the requirements of the 2011 Education Act and The Special Educational Needs Code of Practice (2014).

Our SENDCo is Miss Beth Spaul, she works in partnership with our Early Years SENCo, Mrs Yellowisha Pluckrose, practitioners and parents to support all children.

We want your child to feel happy and safe with us. To make sure that this is the case, the staff will work with you to decide how to help your child to settle into the setting. Please see ‘Your child’s first day’ information sheet for more details, included with this prospectus.

We are eligible to receive Local Authority funding for two, three and four year olds; where funding is not received, then fees must be paid by parents/carers. All 3 and 4 year-old children are entitled to 15 hours of funded sessions a week and access to Early Years provision for 38 weeks a year. At Reedham Nursery, parents can use their free entitlement of 15 hours per week. This can be used between our nursery and another setting. Funding is available from the September following a child’s third birthday. Government funding is intended to cover the cost to deliver 15 hours a week of free, high quality, flexible childcare. It is not intended to cover the cost of meals, consumables, additional hours or additional services. The free entitlements will be delivered consistently so that all children accessing any of the free entitlement will receive the same quality and access to provision. In order to claim the funding at the Nursery, the parent/carer is required to complete a parent/carer claim form once a term. This will be organised by the school.

Fees are payable monthly or termly in advance. Fees must still be paid if children are absent without notice for a short period of time – please see our charging policy for full details. If your child has to be absent over a long period of time, talk to Mrs Ruth Harris or Mrs Kirstin Saunders. For your child to keep her/his place at the setting, you must pay the fees.

With the changes in Squirrel class, we would like to invite ALL EYFS children to wear uniform. THIS IS OPTIONAL for preschool children, but compulsory for reception children.

We provide protective clothing for the children when they play with messy activities.

We encourage children to gain the skills that help them to be independent and look after themselves. These include taking themselves to the toilet and taking off, and putting on, outdoor clothes. Clothing that is easy for them to manage will help them to do this. Please do not send your child in ‘best’ clothes as through outdoor and messy play they may become dirty or damaged.

We endeavour to provide our children with experiences to enhance their learning and knowledge of the world. As well as arranged and trusted visitors, such as owners of unusual pets or the police, we take the children out into the local environment, for example, we may visit our local shops, community centre or walk to the river.

We aim to minimise the spread of illness or infection. In the case of diarrhoea or vomiting, children (or staff) are not permitted to return to nursery until 48 hours after the last episode. In-line with our sickness policy, we reserve the right to send home a child who is considered to be unwell, or with a high temperature of 38°C+ or a contagious disease – this is in the interests of the sick child as well as those they come into contact with. Children are required to be on a course of antibiotics for a minimum of 24 hours before returning to nursery, no medicine will be administered to a child in our care unless it is prescribed by a doctor, for a current condition, with a dispensing label containing the child’s name and dosage details – you will need to fill in a form at the office for a member of staff to administer this. Calpol and teething gels will not be given to children unless prescribed by a doctor. Parents are asked to give signed consent for all short or long-term medication. Emergency care will be sought in the event of not being able to contact a child’s parent or legal guardian or if deemed immediately necessary. Please see our First Aid and Administration of Medicines Policies for further information.