Our Policies and Procedures
We have a range of essential policies and procedure that are in place to ensure your child remains safe in our care. Policies and procedures help to provide a good quality provision that is compliant with the ‘Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage.’
There are printed copies of all policies within the nurseries and the managers are happy to email any policy to you. Policies and procedures can also be found on the parent communication system once you have signed up.
Safeguarding and Child Protection Procedures
Safeguarding children is a statutory requirement and is a fundamental part of our practice that is embedded throughout everything we do.
Safeguarding covers many topics such as recruitment of staff, first aid, risk assessments, children’s health and behaviours and child/adult ratios. It also covers child protection and spotting signs of abuse.
There are four main types of abuse to be aware of but wider child protection concerns can include radicalisation and FGM.
If you are worried about a child, or want more information, you can click the links below to find out how to keep children safe.
Special Educational Needs Procedures
High quality early care and education is important for all children but particularly powerful for children from disadvantaged backgrounds and for children with delayed learning and development. We acknowledge and respect that parents are the experts on their children and promote a shared dialogue and some continuity between home and the nursery.
Children who are at earlier stages of development than would be expected are observed during play to assess where their challenges lie. Meaningful opportunities are then planned to support children to fulfil their learning potential.
Professional judgements are made about the plans for the appropriate next steps in the child’s learning and any additional support that is necessary in a timely manner. For some children it may be enough to implement next steps and some differentiated interventions to secure their development. For others the pathway may be more challenging, in these cases we act promptly as early intervention is key to ensuring all children are supported to fulfil their learning potential.
Our Food
Snack and mealtimes are an important part of our day. Eating represents a social time for children and adults and is a time to promote healthy eating and nutritious food.
We find out about children's dietary needs, including allergies when children start at the nursery, and we display information about individual children's dietary needs so that all staff and volunteers are fully informed about them.
We plan menus in advance and inform the parents/carers of the allergens that may be present. We provide nutritious food for all meals and snacks, avoiding large quantities of saturated fat, sugar and salt and artificial additives, preservatives, and colourings. We include a variety of foods from different cultures, providing children with familiar foods and introducing them to new ones.
Meal and snack times are organised so that children develop independence through making choices, serving food and drink, and feeding themselves. We provide children with utensils that are appropriate for their ages and stages of development and that take account of the eating practices in their cultures.
We have fresh drinking water constantly available for the children and we provide whole pasteurised milk for children under two and semi skimmed milk for our toddlers and pre-schoolers.
Oral Health in the EYFS
Oral health is now included in the EYFS framework because good oral health habits need to be formed from the earliest age.
Tooth decay is largely preventable, but it’s still a serious problem among young children. Nearly a quarter of 5 year olds in England have tooth decay, with 3 or 4 teeth affected on average. Tooth extraction is one of the most common procedures for children under 6 in hospital.
Children who have toothache, or need treatment, may have pain or infections. This can have a wider effect and lead to problems eating, sleeping, socialising and learning.
At nursery, we plan activities to encourage self care and have visits from health professionals such as from dentists and we have shared a link so you can find out a little more about how to care for little teeth and gums...right from birth.
Online Safety
Very young children are using technology to access games and videos online. It can be worrying as we don't want children to view content that is inappropriate.
At nursery, we use the internet to find information, or play an interactive game and we do this with the children so they are not left unsupervised. We also have very secure internet settings which block inappropriate content.