Deployment of staff
Staff stay within the same group to ensure continuity for the children. Staff work on a rota basis to cover the ten hour day. This ensures that there is always someone from a child’s room for parents to talk to at any time. When staff are moved from a room on a permanent basis parents are informed. Occasionally staff may have to move rooms to ensure safety and secure staff/children ratios.
- Baby Room : 3/4 full time staff
- Toddler Room : 3 full time staff
- Big Toddler Room : 3 full time staff
- Pre-School Room : 2/3 full time staff
Other staff move from room to room to cover cooking, lunch breaks, holidays, sickness.
Baby Room/Dragonflies
Our Baby room is for children from 8 weeks to 18 – 20 months. All children are encouraged to develop at their own pace. Each baby has a key person who is responsible for their journey while in the Baby room. We allocate a key person from the start, however this can change if the child shows a connection with another member of staff in the room. The key person is the first port of call for the parents and is also the person who oversees your child’s observations and shares any other information that needs sharing with the families.
Toddler Room/Caterpillars
Our Toddler room is for children aged between 18 – 20 months and 2 ½ years. During the transition time, we will allocate a new key person to your child. This is child-led, and we try to connect the child with the person that they seem most drawn to; this is to build a strong key worker system where the child feels safe and secure. We follow our curriculum to help each child reach the various milestones before they move into the Big Toddler room / Butterflies. We have daily morning circle times where the children are encouraged, for example, in counting, talking about the weather, and learning the days of the week. We have indoor and outdoor times during the day, and we work after a planned theme with weekly activities. We carry out observations on our key children where we can see what the Next Steps are, so we can support their development.
Big Toddler Room/Butterflies
The Big Toddler room is for children that are aged 2 ½ to 3 ½ years old, or whenever they are ready to move into our Pre-school room, Grasshoppers. In the Big Toddler room, we work with the children and their personal, social, and emotional development. This is to help the child to build on their confidence before they move into our Pre-school room. We do encourage child-led planning in this room so that the children can be part of the curriculum in the room. All children have their own key worker who will help the child with the various areas of their development and with implementing the Next Steps.
Pre-School Room/Grasshoppers
This is where the children who will be going to school attend. In this room the children have more structured activities and planning. All rooms have a weekly planning sheet, where the parents can see what the Theme is for the term and what the weekly planning is. We monitor our key children with observations and give each child their Next Steps to help them in areas where they might struggle or need extra support. We work with the children to help them become ready for their transition to School. We prepare the children to be more independent with their personal needs, i.e. using the toilet and understanding the need to wash their hands, to be able to dress and undress, trace their names and in some cases write their own name. We have our daily registration time when we do the days of the week, date of the day (counting), talk about the weather and what season we are in. All children have their own key person who will support and encourage the children in all areas and work with the children to reach their full potential.
Outdoors
The main building has a big garden to the rear of the building. This garden is shared between the Caterpillar and Butterfly rooms. The Dragonflies have their own little garden that is fenced off from the main garden. We have a literacy hut, pirate ship climbing frame, a mud kitchen, and a sand pit in the garden. The Baby room / Dragonflies have a sand pit, slide and water play in their garden.
The Grasshoppers have a small garden to the front of the building. This is used in the morning at drop off and in the afternoon/evening at pick up (weather permitting). The Grasshoppers also use the main building garden for lunchtime garden time, and the whole nursery also have access to the Bat & Ball Multi court that we use frequently for ball games and to use the bikes and scooters.
We also use the garden at the Bat & Ball Centre to look at the world around us, going on bug hunts and having Teddy bears pick nicks. We do encourage outdoor play as much as we can.
Mealtimes and sleep
All children have their breakfast, lunch, and afternoon tea in their own room. Sometimes we might bring the toddler rooms together for a garden lunch (summertime only).
We merge the toddler rooms together at sleep time and the babies sleep in their own named cots in the Baby room.
