Kit list

Below is a breakdown of the items we require to have on site

ready for when your child starts with us at the setting.

 Policy Information

At JJ’s Kiddycare, we have agreed policies which are designed to meet the standards required by Ofsted, the EYFS framework and reflect the aims of ‘Every Child Matters’. Our policies aim to set high standards for achievement for each individual. We ensure they are all inclusive, provide equality of opportunity and that learning is based on the individualneeds and interests of each child.

Our policies are reviewed regularly and your comments and suggestions are welcome. Listed below is a summary of some of our policies and if you would like to see them in more detail, then ask at the office for the main copy.

Safeguarding

Our designated Child Protection Officers are June Wattam, Nina Hussey, Jenni Cheney and Christina Blockley. All issues related to safeguarding must be made known to any one of these persons.

The safety and welfare of all children is paramount. The staff are available at all times to listen to concerns about your child or any other child in the nursery.

From time to time, children will make a disclosure and under the Child Protection guidelines, we have to take seriously any such disclosure and seek advice.We follow the guidelines set out by Local Child Protection Unit, the NSPCC and Ofsted, notifying them if we feel any of the children in our care are subject to abuse.

Equal Opportunities

Our nursery is committed to taking positive and proactive steps to ensure that we provide a safe and caring environment, free from discrimination for everyone in our community.

We have resources in the nursery that encourage children to learn about different values and cultural diversity.

Activities and experiences reflect a wide range of cultures and beliefs. As books play a big part in all activities at the nursery, we carefully check them to ensure that the images and illustrations are accurate and convey positive messages to the children.

Confidentiality

The work carried out by JJ’s Kiddycare will sometimes bring us into contact with confidential information.  We will always respect this confidentiality.  Parents/carers have access to the files and records of their own children but not to any others.

Staff will not discuss children with anyone other than the parents/carers, except in some cases when we meet other agencies working with the child such as a speech therapist, Health Visitor, Area Special Educational Needs Coordinator etc.

Information given to staff by parents/carers will not be passed onto to any other person without permission.  Students on work experience will be advised of this policy and all other relevant policies too.

Inclusion

We are aware that some children have special educational needs and/or physical disabilities that require particular support and assistance. We are committed to take appropriate action to make sure that all children are able to access our services, are made to feel welcome and that our activities promote their welfare and development.

Our Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCo)/Inclusion Managers are Jenni Cheney and Nina Hussey. Our aim is for each child to reach his/her full potential in a happy and stimulating environment. In order to achieve this, we work closely in partnership with parents/carers by observing and recording the child’s progress and development in order to meet their individual needs, enabling us to recognise at an early stage if key milestones are not being met.

All information is treated in the strictest of confidence.

Behaviour management

JJ’s recognises the importance of positive and effective behaviour management strategies in promoting children’s welfare, learning and enjoyment.

Our aims are to:-

*Develop a sense of caring and respect for one another

*Build caring and co-operative relationships with other children and adults

*Develop a range of social skills and help them learn what constitutes acceptable behaviour.

*Develop confidence, self-discipline and self esteem in an atmosphere of mutual respect and encouragement.

*Staff are good role-models for expected behaviour. They are consistent in applying nursery rules which concern safety, care and respect each other.

*We will make every effort to avoid giving a child attention in return for undesirable behaviour.

*When a child is disruptive or unkind, we will always make it clear that it is the behaviour that is unwelcome, not the child.

Complaints procedure

We are always open to complaints and comments from any source and will do our best to resolve them. We would hope that your concern could be resolved amicably by discussing it with a member of staff first or the management team.

In the event that there is a more serious complaint that you feel requires more formal attention, please write to Jenni Cheney – Manager/Owner, Hemploe Road, Welford, Northamptonshire, NN66HF or admin@jjs-kiddycare.co.uk.

If you wish to make a complaint to Ofsted, their address is The National Business Unit,

Ofsted, Piccadilly Gate, Store Street, Manchester, M1 2WD. 0300 123 1231

Illness and medication

JJ’s is committed to encouraging and promoting good health. We deal with both efficiently and effectively with illnesses or emergencies that may arise while children are in our care.

Therefore, as a general rule, children who are ill should not attend nursery. A common early sign of an illness is a raised temperature and we would not allow children to attend with a temperature above 38 degrees.

Please note that medication can only be administered by staff if prescribed by a Doctor and it must have been started 24 hours prior to your child returning to nursery, unless it is an antibiotic, in which case, it needs to have been started 48 hours prior to them returning.  A consent form will need to be filled out via the Eylog app before the medication is administered by a member of staff.

If your child becomes unwell whilst in our care, we will make every effort to contact you. We will advise you of the circumstances and in most cases, ask for the collection of your child to be arranged. We may administer Calpol (once only) if a child has a temperature (only, if a declaration has been signed by the parent/carer on the registration form and following a phone call to you beforehand), however, you will then be asked to collect your child. They can then return to nursery once they are fit and well and have been clear of a temperature (unmedicated) for 24 hours.

If we cannot contact your child’s main carers, we will contact the emergency contacts as provided on the registration form and under no circumstances, will we administer medication on their say so.

If you feel your child needs Calpol/Nurofen every 4 hours, they are deemed too ill to attend nursery and should not return until well enough.  Our policy is to only administer one dose of Calpol in an emergency, such as high temperature, not throughout the day to ‘keep them going’.

JJ’s has exclusion periods for some illnesses. Please see our ‘Illness exclusion chart’ for more details. If you do not have one, then please ask at the main office and they will happily provide you with one to keep at home. We ask that you follow these guidelines which will help prevent the spread of infection within JJ’s.

Children that have had a case of diarrhoea and/or vomiting, should not attend JJ’s until at least 48 hours after the last episode in order to reduce the spread of infection.

 Healthy child

Being healthy is a top priority at JJ’s.  We serve breakfast, a hot lunch and hot tea every day.  We also offer a drink of water or milk alongside snacks of fresh fruit and vegetables during the morning and afternoon sessions.  Water is also available to the children throughout the day for them to access as and when needed.

All food is cooked on site.  We cook traditional home made meals with international options by using recipes with different tastes.  Children are encouraged to eat vegetables and fresh fruit every day.

Children eat in their home rooms in small groups which enable them to gain those valuable social and interpersonal skills at an early age.

All children are encouraged to use cutlery and show good table manners whilst eating.  Bibs, facecloths, plates and bowls etc, are all provided by the nursery. Children are encouraged to wash their hands before each meal or snack and show respect for others, demonstrating polite responses like “Please” and “Thank you”.

We provide meals to the preschool children in serving dishes with spoons, giving them the opportunity to develop their independence and make choices.  The pre-school children and the older toddlers are also encouraged to scrape their own plates/bowls into the bins and put their crockery/cutlery into the plastic container, developing their independence.

Throughout the day, children use a station that has a mirror, wipes and tissues on it for them to use when needed.  This is used after each mealtime too for the children to wipe the food off their own faces.

We cater for all dietary requirements which are discussed with each individual family upon registration.

At breakfast, we run a breakfast bar system where children choose which cereal they would like, followed by toast or crumpets.  Water or milk is also served during this time.

Breakfast is served between 7.30-8.10am

Hot lunch is served at 11.45am 

Hot tea is served at 4.40pm

Babies individual home meal routines are followed at all times. (eg, purees, milk, times of day different to the above, etc).  Please speak to a member of staff for any more information.

Learning and curriculum

We follow the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum through a combination of adult-led and child-initiated activities. The children are actively encouraged to access their own resources during ‘free play’ times and are encouraged to join in with more structured one to one or group adult-led activities.

Evidence of the children’s experiences and achievements are recorded in their individual ‘learning journeys’ on the Eylog app.  They consist of staff observations that link to the EYFS curriculum and photographs. The learning journey is a great keepsake of your child’s time with us (can be downloaded or purchased in paper form from Eylog) and an opportunity for you to include your own photos/observations as part of your child’s journey at this time.

We encourage you to add your comments about things that your child does at home, their interest and changes to their routine or development to the app. (As mentioned previously). This is a very important tool to use as everything that is written in it can help with planning for your child’s individual needs and also support them during times when things have happened or changed at home such as a bereavement in the family.  An online daily diary is also completed by the staff in your child’s room, showing what they have been experiencing during their time with us and if there has been any problems that need addressing.  In the Hedgehogs room, the daily diary is also used to inform you of when your child’s nappies were changed, time of sleeps and what they have eaten.

We provide opportunities to extend children’s rapidly expanding language skills through role play, small world activities, songs/rhymes, ring games and active story times using story sacks/puppets.  We also do sing and sign with the children to help their language skills as sign language is a powerful part of their growing language skills.

The children are given lots of opportunities to explore numbers and number problems throughout the day in ‘real’ situations, such as ‘How many plates will we need at dinner time?’ or ‘How many boys/girls are there’?. We also have numbers around the rooms and outside, eg, foam numbers in the water play or telephones in the role play area.  We feel that this is more meaningful to the children whilst enhancing their learning and education.

Our group circle times aim to build on the children’s emerging self confidence and self esteem, through sharing news or objects of interest from home, singing their favourite songs or listening to rhymes and stories, as well as sing and sign.

We provide a large range of creative materials to support the children’s preferences from painting, to model making, clay and dough, to jelly and corn flour play.  Children are able to freely express themselves and explore using all of their senses.

We ultimately want the children to feel excited, interested and motivated to learn through play which lays the foundations to becoming an independent learner.

We have regular visits from a a company called Sing and Sign.  They lead a group of children and staff with singing through signing.  They make it a really fun activity for the children whilst also teaching them the important sign language tool to help their communication skills.

Parents as partners

  At JJ’s, we acknowledge the importance of and pride ourselves on building outstanding relationships with our parents.  Keeping everyone up to date with those important milestones in a child’s development that might otherwise pass unnoticed.

It is essential that there is a good liaison between parents/carers and the staff.

We ensure all parents feel welcome and involved from the beginning by:

—Opportunities to read our most recent OFSTED Inspection report, which is available online, on the next tab in the website or a hard copy can be given upon request.

—Creating opportunities for the exchange of information, using, amongst other resources, a copy of the prospectus.

—Encouraging parents and their children to visit our setting during the weeks before the child  is due to start with us for settling in sessions.

—Encouraging continuity of children’s care through communication with all carers.

—Holding open days and evenings

—Parent Questionnaires

—Providing Daily Diaries (app based communication aid) – This online aid ensures effective communication between you the parents, your child’s carers, their Key Person and members of staff at JJ’s.  It is not a replacement for verbal communication so if you have any queries or would like to discuss  your child’s progress in more detail, please then feel free to speak to your child’s Key Person or Buddy.  The Daily Diaries offer consistency of care for the child, helps keep to the child’s routine and follows their interests, which is then included in planning.

—Completing a Learning Journey for each child (which is on our Eylog app) of observations and photos taken during your child’s time with us.  These observations are used to build up a picture of your child’s growing development and highlight any areas your child may need help with.  Parents are encouraged to add to these Learning Journey’s with observations from home too.  Learning Journey’s are available to view at any time and are regularly discussed with you at our parents evenings.

—Regular Parents Evenings where your child’s progress, next steps and routines can be discussed in more detail if needed.

—Ensuring high staff to child ratio at all times, which gives your child the individual care and attention they need and deserve

  These all enable you to feel confident in your decision to leave your child with us and help them to settle, feel happy, safe and comfortable whilst making new friends and learning new experiences.

Click to download