Welcome to Rainbows Nursery and thank you for registering your child with us.
We know how important your child is and aim to deliver the highest quality of education and care to help them to achieve their best.
This document aims to provide you with an introduction to Rainbows Nursery , our routines, our approach to supporting your child’s learning and development and how we aim to work together with you to best meet your child’s individual needs. This should be read alongside our Childcare and Early Education Terms and Conditions for a full description of our services.
Our setting aims to:
Parents/carers
You are regarded as members of our setting who have full participatory rights. These include a right to be:
Children’s development and learning
We aim to ensure that each child:
The Early Years Foundation Stage
Provision for the development and learning of children from birth to five years is guided by the Early Years Foundation Stage. Our provision reflects the four overarching principles of the Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage:
Every child is a unique child who is constantly learning and can be resilient, capable, confident and self-assured.
Children learn to be strong and independent through positive relationships.
Children learn and develop well in enabling environments with teaching and support from adults, who respond to their individual interests and needs and help them to build their learning over time. Children benefit from a strong partnership between educators, parents and/or carers.
How we provide for learning and development
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 the children with interesting activities that are appropriate for their age and stage of development.
The Areas of Learning and Development comprise:
For each area, the level of progress that children are expected to have attained by the end of the Early Years Foundation Stage is defined by 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.
We refer to non-statutory curriculum guidance to support our professional judgment as we assess each child’s progress and level of development as they progress towards the Early Learning Goals. We haveregard to these when we assess children and plan for their learning by creating a curriculum that is ambitious and meets every child’s needs. Our educational programmes support children to develop the knowledge, skills and understanding they need for:
Personal, social and emotional development
Physical development
Communication and language
Literacy
Mathematics
Understanding the world
Expressive arts and design
Our approach to learning and development and assessment
Learning through play
Being active and playing supports young children’s learning and development through doing and talking. This is how children learn to think about and understand the world around them. We use the EYFS education programmes to plan and provide opportunities which will help children to make progress in all areas of learning. This programme is made up of a mixture of activities that children plan and organise for themselves, and activities planned and led by educators.
Characteristics of effective learning
We understand that all children engage with other people and their environment through the characteristicsof effective learning that are described in the Early Years Foundation Stage as:
We aim to provide for the characteristics of effective learning by observing how a child engages with learning and being clear about what we can do and provide to support each child to remain an effective and motivated learner.
Assessment
We assess how young children are learning and developing by observing them. We use information that we gain from observations of the children, to understand their progress and where this may be leading them. We believe that parents know their children best, and we will ask you to contribute to assessment by sharing information about what your child likes to do at home and how you, as parents/carers, are supporting development.
We may make periodic assessment summaries of children’s achievement based on our on-going observations. These help us to build a picture of a child’s progress during their time with us and form part of children’s records of achievement/learning journeys. We undertake these assessment summaries at regular intervals, as well as at times of transition, such as when a child moves into a different group or when they go on to school.
The progress check at age two
The Early Years Foundation Stage requires that we supply parents and carers with a short-written summary of their child’s development in the three prime areas of learning and development – personal, social and emotional development; physical development; and communication and language – when a child is aged between 24 – 36 months. Your child’s key person is responsible for completing the check using information from on-going observations carried out as part of our everyday practice, taking account of the views and contributions of parents and other professionals.
Learning journeys
We keep a learning journey for each child. Your child’s learning journey helps us to celebrate together her/his achievements and to work together to provide what your child needs for her/his well-being and to make progress.
Your child’s key person will work in partnership with you to keep this record. To do this you and they will collect information about your child’s needs, activities, interests and achievements. This information will enable the key person to identify your child’s progress. Together, we will then decide on how to further support your child’s learning and development.
Working together for your children
We maintain the ratio of adults to children in the setting that is set by the Safeguarding and Welfare Requirements. This helps us to:
How parents/carers take part in the setting
Our setting recognises parents/carers as the first and most important educators of their children. All our staff see themselves as partners with parents/carers in providing care and education for their children. There are many ways in which parents/carers take part in making our setting a welcoming and stimulating place for children and parents/carers, such as:
Key person and your child
Our setting uses a key person approach. This means that each member of staff has a group of children for whom she/he is particularly responsible. Your child’s key person will be the person who works with you to make sure that the childcare and early education that we provide is right for your child’s particular needs and interests. When your child first starts at the setting, they will help your child to settle and throughout your child’s time at the setting, they will help your child to benefit from our activities.
The setting’s timetable and routines
Our setting believes that care and education are equally important in the experience which we offer children. The routines and activities that make up the day in our setting are provided in ways that:
The day
We organise the day so that children can take part in a variety of child-chosen and adult-led activities. These take account of children’s changing energy levels throughout the day. We cater for children’s individual needs for rest and quiet activities during the day. Outdoor activities contribute to all areas of children’s learning and development including their health, their physical development and their knowledge of the world around them.
Snacks and meals
We make snacks and meals a social time at which children and adults eat together. We plan the menus for snacks and meals so that they provide the children with healthy and nutritious food. Please tell us about your child’s dietary needs, particularly any known allergies or food intolerance and we will plan accordingly.
Clothing
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.
Policies
Our staff can explain our policies and procedures to you.
Our policies help us to make sure that the service we provide is of high quality and that being a member of the setting is an enjoyable and beneficial experience for each child and her/his parents.
Our staff and parents/carers work together to adopt the policies, and they all can take part in the annual review of the policies. This review helps us to make sure that the policies are enabling our setting to provide a quality service for its members and the local community.
Information we hold about you and your child
We have procedures in place for the recording and sharing of information [data] about you and your child that is compliant with the principles of the General Data Protection Regulations (2018) as follows:
The data is we collect is:
When you register your child with us, we will provide you with a privacy notice that gives you further details of how we fulfil our obligations regarding your data.
Safeguarding children
Our setting has a duty under the law to help safeguard children against suspected or actual ‘significant harm’. Our employment practices ensure that people looking after children are suitable to fulfil the requirements of their role and help to protect children against the likelihood of abuse in our setting and we have a procedure for managing complaints or allegations against a member of staff.
Our way of working with children and their parents/carers ensures that we are aware of any problems that may emerge and can offer support, including referral to appropriate agencies, when necessary, to help families in difficulty.
Special educational needs
To make sure that our provision meets the needs of each individual child, we take account of any special educational needs a child may have. We work to the requirements of the Special Educational Needs and Disability Code of Practice: 0 to 25 years (2015).
Our Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator is Caroline Pickens
Fees
The fees are payable monthly in advance. Fees must still be paid if children are absent without notice for a brief period. If your child must be absent over an extended period, talk to a member of the management team.
For your child to keep her/his place at Rainbows, you must pay the fees.
Starting at our setting
The first days
We want your child to feel happy and safe with us. To make sure that this is the case, our staff will work with you to decide on how to help your child to settle into the setting.
We hope that you and your child enjoy being members of our setting and that you both find taking part in our activities interesting and stimulating. Our staff are always ready and willing to talk with you about your ideas, views or to respond to any questions.