Parent Information - Sunny Socks Nursery School

Introductory Sessions

Before your child’s start date we would recommend that you and your child visits for two 60 minute prestart sessions. These visits should ensure that both you and your child are relaxed and comfortable in the nursery setting. During your child’s settling-in sessions you will meet with your staff that will be working with your child and we will gather all the key information from you about your child such as dietary requirements and preferences, sleep patterns, play and general behaviour. This ensures that we can work together to follow your child’s routine and make him/her as comfortable as possible. No charge is made for the introductory sessions.

What do I Bring?

Depending on your child’s age and stage of development you will need to provide: formula or breast milk, nappies, wipes, soft indoor shoes. All children will need suitable outdoor clothing including sun hat/winter hat, gloves, wellies, waterproof coat, sun cream and a change of clothes. Please ensure everything is named clearly.

Sunny Socks Nursery’s Partnership with Parents

At Sunny Socks we believe that you, as parents, are the prime educators of your children in their earliest years. We therefore actively welcome and encourage parent’s involvement in the nursery. We encourage parents to contribute to children’s learning through sharing observations, interests and experiences from home. Information can be sharing uploading videos and notes to Tapestry, or verbally though meetings with the team or sharing photographs etc.

Other ways for parents to get involved are as follows:

We would love you to share with us your talents and interests or even your job, please chat to us about this.
Children will often bring an idea home with them for you to do together or a list of resources to collect with your children.
We hold social events e.g. sports day, Christmas play, den days, garden parties which you are welcome to join in with.
Contribute to themed weeks activities e.g. Recipes for a healthy eating week or bringing in a story book linked to the activities
Attending parents evenings and discussions
Suggesting activities, contributing to planning and sharing your child’s interests.

You will be kept informed of nursery events and activities through our notice board, newsletters, via our website, tapestry and facebook page.

We would appreciate if you could inform nursery staff of any circumstances, either temporary or permanent which may affect your child’s emotional or physical wellbeing to ensure your child receives additional support if necessary.

The Curriculum

At Sunny Socks we consider the individual needs, interests, and stage of development of each child in our care, and use this information to plan a challenging and enjoyable experience for each child.

We also focus on the Early Years Foundation Stage 7 areas of learning. Through these areas the children learn the skills needed to become strong, confident individuals who are capable of learning and achieving through positive relationships, enabling environments and an understanding that every child is unique.

1) Personal, Social & Emotional

Helping children to develop a positive sense of themselves and others to form positive relationships and respect for others;
Developing social skills and learning how to manage their feelings;
Understanding appropriate behaviour in groups;
Have confidence in their own abilities.

2) Physical Development

Providing opportunities for children to be active and interactive;
To develop their co-ordination, control and movement;
Help children understand the importance of physical activity and making healthy choices in relation to food.

3) Communication & Language Development

Giving children the opportunity to experience a rich language environment;
To develop confidence and skills in expressing themselves;
Developing their speaking, listening, attention and understanding.

4) Literacy Development

Giving children access to a wide range of materials including books, poems, etc to ignite their interest;
Encourage children to link sounds and letters and to begin to read and write.

5) Mathematics

Providing children with opportunities to develop and improve their skills in counting,
Further understanding of and use of numbers, measuring, shapes, spaces, simple addition and subtraction

6) Understanding the World

Guiding children to make sense of their physical world and community,
Providing opportunities to explore, observe and find out about people, places, technology and the environment

7) Expressive Arts and Design

Enabling children to explore and play with a wide range of media and materials;
Provide opportunities and encouragement for sharing their thoughts, ideas and feeling's through a variety of art, music, movement, dance, roleplay and design and technology.

Learning experiences and interests the children have outside nursery are very important, especially those they share with parents and carers. These experiences promote deep learning and hold great value for the children. To help your child we really encourage partnership work. Please tell us what your child enjoys doing, and any new learning moments they have so we can build on this in nursery. Likewise we aim to share with you the developments your child makes as they progress.

Tapestry online Journals

We use Tapestry, a secure online journal to record, track and celebrate each child's progress. Tapestry provides each individual child with their own Learning Journal held online enabling us to capture children's experiences as well as monitor development and learning in line with the Early Years Foundation Stages Curriculum.

Parents and carers are given their own log-in using their email and password. Staff upload observations, photos or videos; recording children’s achievements and assessing their learning, allowing us to work with parents and carers to share information and record the children’s play and learning in and outside of the setting.

Outside Play

We are very proud of our outside nursery environments. We know that for children being outside is a very effective way of learning and at Sunny Socks we take every opportunity to be outside. We are extremely fortunate to have a large nursery garden mainly laid to grass with a bark area, tyres and logs for climbing on, story seating in the shade under the large tree, a mud kitchen, a bug hotel and many other toys and games. In addition to this we make the most of our location on a farm. The children will collect the eggs daily, pick fruit from the trees in the orchard and use them to cook with, visit the cows, help to feed the lambs and watch chicks hatch. All age groups go on nature walks around the fields sometimes taking a picnic. We provide waterproof puddle suits to ensure all children can make the most of the muddy puddles! Most recently we have created a Forest School area on the grounds of the Farm where we run sessions for our pre-schoolers, here they learn how to use a saw and whittling knife as well as peelers and palm drills.

Healthy Eating

Sunny Socks will provide a high standard of healthy meals using quality ingredients sourced locally where possible. Your child will receive a morning snack, a two course lunch and a light tea prepared by our cook using fresh ingredients on a daily basis. Please ensure you let us know of your child’s dietary requirements.

Illness

For the health and wellbeing of all children attending Sunny Socks, your child should not come to nursery if they are suffering from an infectious illness. For cases of vomiting or diarrhoea please do not bring your child into nursery for 48 hours after their last symptoms. If your child suffers from a non-infectious illness or an allergy we will endeavour to accommodate any special requirements they may have. We do have to follow the NHS guidelines for infections and dieses this information is available on the NHS website for a full list of exclusion periods.

Promoting Positive Behaviour

Positive behaviour is promoted at Sunny Socks through praise and encouragement from the nursery staff. Children receive little attention for negative behaviour, therefore they quickly realise that the positive behaviour will be rewarded.

Our staff will keep you fully informed if your child requires support in this area at any time. If a pattern of behaviour causing more concern develops, we will discuss this with you and agree steps to move forward in the best interests of your child and the nursery.

Security

A security entry system is placed at the entrance to ensure access by authorised persons only. We require notification of who is authorised to collect your child from nursery. Under no circumstances will a child be allowed to leave the premises unless with a previously identified, authorised person.

Additional Needs

If your child requires extra support for any reason, either on a temporary or permanent basis, we will make every effort to provide this support. The nursery staff are experienced at working closely with parents and other professionals such as Health Visitors, Speech and Language Therapists and Paediatricians to help your child reach their full potential.

Clothing and Personal Property

Your child will be involved in messy activities at nursery and although the staff will encourage them to wear aprons whenever possible, we would advise that your child does not wear their ‘best’ clothes to nursery as accidents can happen. We also ask that items or clothing are labelled so they can be returned if they are missing.

We would also recommend that they do not bring toys from home as they do become upset if items become mislaid or broken.

Mobile Phones

Sunny Socks is a mobile phone free zone in line with our Child Protection Policy. All parents are asked to please refrain from using mobile phones or taking photos whilst within the nursery and garden.

Transition to Primary School

Our nursery staff are aware of the important step a child takes when beginning Primary School therefore we ensure that each child is supported in this transition.

A transitional document is completed by our staff for your child’s Primary School teacher. You will be given a copy of the report to read and comment on prior to your child’s school receiving it.

Nursery Events

Parents Evenings

Parent Evenings are held once a year for all children. Although the nursery staff are available on a daily basis, this gives you the opportunity to discuss your child’s progress in more detail in a relaxed atmosphere on an individual basis.

Sports Day

Each summer the older children will take part in our annual Sports Day. This has become a much loved event with parents, grandparents and siblings all coming to watch and take part and enjoy the delicious refreshments.

Den Day

At the end of the summer the children who will be shortly leaving us to go to school take part in our den day where parents are invited to join in and help make some spectacular den creations.

Christmas Play

Each Christmas the Pre-school children will be encouraged to perform a nativity play for their families. Christmas is always an exciting time for children and they enjoy the opportunity to sing some songs, dress up and perform in front of their families.