Working with Parents and Carers

At Toad Hall we believe that children benefit most from early year’s care and education when parents/carers and practitioners work together in partnership.

Methods

We are committed to an on-going dialogue with the child’s family to share information about their current needs and interests; we will aim to provide opportunities within the nursery to meet these.
We inform parents/carers about upcoming events by emails, newsletters and posters.
We inform parents/carers on a regular basis about their children’s progress and development, informally and formally.
Parents/carers have access to their child’s learning record through the ‘Learning Journals’ website. Parents/carers are given their own login details to access this. They can view observations, next steps, photographs, achievements and reports, as well as being able to upload observations from home to share with their child’s key person.
We send out a children’s interest letter three times a year for parents/ carers to share with the child’s key person their current interests and other relevant information.
We hold two parents’ evenings a year where parents/carers can meet with their child’s key person to discuss their child’s learning and development. This is also a valuable time for parents/carers and staff to build upon relationships.
We provide opportunities for parents/carers to contribute their own skills, knowledge and interests by inviting them into the nursery.
Every six months parents/carers are given a parent questionnaire form to complete asking for their views on the childcare and education the nursery provides.
We provide opportunities for parents/carers to be involved within the nursery where English is an additional language; please see the nursery’s equality and diversity policy.
We value the contributions of parents/carers.

Health, Safety and Security

Toad Hall Day Nursery is registered under The Children Act 1989, 2004 and the Childcare Act 2006. There is no compromise in the health, welfare, safety and security of our children.

With the safety and security of your child in mind, the nursery doors are restricted at all times, external entrance doors into the nursery and direct entry doors to the children’s rooms are secured with access control equipment.

For reasons of security, your child will not be released to any unauthorised adult without prior consent of the parent/carer.

Safeguarding children

Toad Hall Day Nursery are committed to ensuring the safety and welfare of the children in our care. We all believe that children have the right to learn and play in a caring, supportive, and safe environment which includes the right to protection from all types of abuse.

All our staff have early years generalist safeguarding training and our room leaders and members of management hold the designated safeguarding lead certificate, we ensure all mandatory training is completed and refreshed on a continuous basis to support staff understanding and their professional development.

At Toad Hall Day Nursery we are confident that all staff understand our reporting procedures for child protection and staff allegation alongside the Local Authority procedures.

Staff are vigilant for signs of any child in distress and are confident in applying our safeguarding processes to avert and alleviate any such problem, to achieve this we will:

Ensure that we keep our knowledge up to date with policies, procedures, and legal framework changes/updates.
By providing an effective key person approach this ensures that we pick up on any changes to the children’s behaviour and respond quickly to any concerns we have.
Prevent unsuitable people working with the children through safer recruitment training.
Listen to the children and always take seriously what they say to us.
Ensure that we have effective policies and procedures in place and that every member of staff is confident with our Child Protection and Safeguarding Policy and their role to safeguard children.
Identify instances in which there are grounds for concern about a child’s welfare and initiate appropriate action to keep them safe.
Contribute to effective partnership working with all agencies providing services for the children in our care.
Provide contact details for outside agencies in our policies and we have displays in several places for the staff, so they are aware of where to find external support to make referrals/ seek named advice and the phone numbers needed.
We record, store, and use information professionally and securely, in line with data protection legislation and guidance.

For further information please see our Child Protection and Safeguarding policy.

Equality and Diversity

We promote quality and diversity to ensure that every child is included and not disadvantaged because of their or their parents, ethnicity, culture or religion, home language, family background, SEND, sexuality, gender and ability.

Illness

The nursery has an infectious illnesses exclusion policy that must be adhered to by all parents/carers of children attending Toad Hall. This includes policies on antibiotics (oral and creams) Calpol, ibuprofen and sickness and diarrhoea. Staff reserve the right to assess your child/ren on entry into nursery premises, to ensure they are well enough for nursery sessions and can refuse entry in such cases.

It is the parents/carers responsibility to ensure the nursery is aware of any medical condition (either long or short term) that affects their child.

Children’s own belongings

Whilst we try to discourage children bringing toys from home, we welcome comforters that children have. We would appreciate it if parents/carers would ensure that their children have the following items brought and left at nursery if possible: