Your Child

Healthy Eating

Our nurseries provide healthy, well balanced nutritious meals and snacks throughout the day to compliment the food children enjoy at home.

We follow nutritional guidance to produce menus for all seasons and include styles of cooking to embrace the cultures of the families associated with our nurseries. Many child and parent suggestions are included in our menus, with a vegetarian option available at all meal and snack times. We cater for all special diets, working closely with parents to ensure we meet their child’s individual needs.

All meals are prepared by experienced cooks who use locally sourced fresh ingredients and delicious recipes. Mealtimes see the children often sitting with their Key Person who encourages them to develop the social and personal skills associated with dining, whilst snacks are prepared with the children providing the chance for them to learn about food and healthy eating first hand.

Our commitment to the quality of the food we provide has been recognised through various awards at our nurseries. These include the Kirklees Healthy Choice Gold Award, the highest level that can be achieved, the Calderdale Cute Fruit Award and the Bradford Healthy Teeth Gold Award.

Outdoor Fun

Children’s Place Day Nurseries aim to provide a stimulating learning environment with opportunities for children to access a well-balanced educational curriculum based on play, both indoors and out, as promoted through the Early Years Foundation Stage. Our nurseries encourage free flow systems, where children have a choice of playing either indoors or out.

All of our nurseries have exciting gardens, which include resources such as sensory areas, planting and growing areas, sand pits, splash pools and so much more. Children are encouraged by our caring and enthusiastic staff to take appropriate risks and challenge themselves in safe and secure environments, laying the foundations for independence and confidence.

Parent Partnership

Children’s Place Day Nurseries work extremely closely with parents and families to make sure the experience given to children is happy one and each child gets tailored care specific to their needs. Encouraging parents to participate and contribute to their child’s nursery achievement portfolio helps promote positive attitudes and experiences, which in turn benefit the child.

Children’s Place wishes to ensure parents are part of the care and education team within the nursery. We want to work with parents as partners to ensure quality care and learning for all children. At Children’s Place:

• Parents have access to their child’s records and are consulted in respect of the care given.
• Parents are welcome to access or inspect all the policies of the nursery at any time; please speak to the Nursery Manager if you wish to do so.
• Nursing mothers are welcomed and a private area made available whenever needed.
• All suggestions from parents are given consideration and discussed fully.
• Parents Evenings are to be held at least twice a year.

It is important for us at Children s Place that we, as carers, are able to give advice and support, always showing sensitivity and understanding. We are always open to suggestions, questions and advice so please do not hesitate to contact any of the Nursery Managers for more information.

Inclusive Practice and Provision

Our approach

We ensure all practitioners treat all children as individuals.

We adapt and differentiate our planning/provision to ensure every child is included and can fully engage in all activities.

Our observation, assessment and planning cycle allows us to plan for every child’s individual interest and needs, and therefore encourage the child’s development through what they enjoy doing the most.

We follow the Early Years Foundation Stage and use Development Matters to support our practice. Some children require smaller steps to achieve their goal so they may have an Early Support Developmental Journal to show their learning progress, while working with their family and outside agencies ensuring the child is at the centre.

Adapting

Practitioners develop personal relationships with all children, and this enables us to understand our key children really well. This allows us to have the knowledge to adapt our practice to suit the needs of all children. We can do this in a variety of ways:

• By tailoring an activity for the individual child
• Encourage good role models in adults and older peers
• Developing each child’s self-confidence and self-esteem so they are comfortable to ask for help if they require it
• Changing the physical environment to ensure it is suitable for all children to fully access an activity
• Providing specialist resources for those children who may require them such as ‘Picture Exchange Communication System, Now and Next timetables, story boards, ICT, including specialist computer programmes, the IPAD and talking buttons, giraffe chairs, triton chairs and standing frames can also be provided if required.

Assessing and Reviewing Progress

We hold termly review meetings for children with SEND (Special Educational Needs/Disabilities) and all agencies involved with the family are invited. The parents are foremost in this process so it is essential they attend alongside specialist workers including Health Visitors, Portage workers, Paediatricians, Child Development Centre, Educational Psychologist, child’s Key Person/specialist worker, Nursery SENDCO and Speech and Language Therapist etc.

These review meetings aim to support the child and the family during their child’s learning journey. It is often a time to share any concerns the family or professionals may have but more importantly they are a great opportunity to celebrate successes.

All children who have SEND will have an Individual Support Plan (ISP). These are reviewed 6 weekly and a discussion takes place with parents to ensure their thoughts are included in the next goals being set. Often an IEP goal may be on the child’s IEP for some time. This is in recognition that children learn through repetition, and the opportunity to develop skills over a period of time.

Professionals come in to the nursery setting regularly to meet with the children and to assess their development. We often have visitors from the physiotherapy department or speech and language team, for example. The children are relaxed and happy whilst in nursery so it is a great time to see how they are progressing.

Accessibility

Our setting is fully accessible for all children. We have wide doorways and lots of space to move around the nursery rooms. We have free flow access to the gardens across all age groups. All our facilities are on the ground floor but we do have the use of a lift if a meeting was to take place upstairs.

Additional to the curriculum

We have a sensory room on the nursery site which we are able to book out for the children to use. This is a state of the art facility with a wide range of specialist lighting and projectors which are fully inclusive for the children.

The Children and Family Centre have a Portage group on a Friday afternoon which our children can access. They can often be seen enjoying this with their support workers having a fun afternoon of specialist activities.

Learn and Play sessions which take place at the local special school. These can be enjoyed with parents and Key Persons together supporting the child in this new and exciting environment.

Trips – We take the children out of setting as much as possible. We like to go and visit the ducks down by the canal or maybe a bit further afield we enjoy Northcliffe Park and all its fantastic facilities.

Early Bird – Early Language Specialist Programme designed to support  parents and practitioners in developing specialist techniques in supporting early language development. These take place at the local Medical Centre through the Speech and Language Department.

Expertise

Our whole team are trained to support children with SEND. We have undertaken a wide variety of training across our team of practitioners, some of which includes Early Support training, Portage Training, Safeguarding, Risk Assessment, Parent Partnership Working, Vulnerable Children and Families conference, etc. All practitioners are first aid trained. We are also able to access specialist training from a variety of agencies including the diabetic team, epilepsy nurses, community nurses and physiotherapists. Alongside this, we hold regular partnership meetings to ensure we are communicating effectively and sharing information appropriately.

Emotional and Social Development

All children are able to socialise with their peers whilst at nursery. For very young children for example, they can be a part of the baby room experience where they can learn and develop new skills together whilst being part of a homely, cosy environment sharing a room with a small group of other babies of a similar age.

Our Toddler room is airy, light and spacious and offers great space for the children to learn together and to observe each other in a safe but very exciting environment offering a wide variety of experiences for all children both indoors and outside. As children reach the age of around two, they are learning about sharing and taking turns, schemas can be observed and they are beginning to test rules and boundaries. This testing helps children to feel safe in the environment and with the adults around them.

The pre-school room allows children to prepare for school in a slightly more structured environment with places of play set up in areas such as construction, role play, sand and water, mark making and many more. The pre-school children learn from each other as well as from the experiences that they are interested in, they learn life skills which will stay with them in to adulthood. We are helping the children to manage their own feelings and to tell us how they feel and express this to us and to each other.

Health & Safety

Children’s Place Day Nurseries believe that our Health and Safety Policy Document is essential to providing a healthy, safe environment at all our settings.

This important document is reviewed regularly at our six weekly health and safety meetings where new legislation, current issues and health and safety advice are discussed by managers who then share this information with the staff team and others if necessary. These meetings and our document ensure Children’s Place recognises the importance of creating a health and safety culture for all children, parents and staff. We do this by:

• Teaching all children to consider their own health and safety in an age and stage appropriate way i.e. ensuring children know to wash their hands before eating. Children can quickly begin to risk assess for themselves by being asked, ‘is it safe?’ From the earliest moment our nursery practitioners are constantly striving to empower the child in this important part of their development.
• Inducting parents into our health and safety culture and giving easy access to our Health and Safety Document. We provide health and safety information in our Parent Induction Pack and actively involve parents in reviewing the document giving information via letters and at parent meetings and forums.
• Children’s Place employees are fully inducted and trained in all areas of health and safety and our induction process determines any health and safety training needs. Staff embark on a continual rolling training programme to ensure they become qualified and gain certificates in paediatric first aid, food safety, safeguarding children, manual handling, risk assessment and other relevant health and safety training.
• As a company we seek expert advice from Aviva Risk Management Solutions, Local Fire Officers, Police Officers, Road Safety Advisors and more. We hold regular fire and evacuation drills, complete weekly and quarterly health and safety quality reviews. Our company Health and Safety Manager conducts regular audits and checks at all our settings to ensure good practice and records and documentation are always fully up to date.

Emollients Safety Advice For Parents

Download Emollient safety information sheet here.