Safety

As a parent, the most important thing is to be able to leave your child in a safe environment. At Cradley, all of our staff, volunteers, students and management team have had DBS checks. All staff are at least Group 3 trained in Safeguarding and Child Protection. All paid staff are paediatric first aiders. Our indoor and outdoor areas are risk-assessed on opening up and staff are fully aware of all risks to all areas and how to minimise them. All daily planned activities are risk assessed and evaluated. Our accident/incident book forms the basis of all risk assessments and is evaluated once a month to inform staff of any new risks. Our Nursery foyer has a CCTV entry system and doors to the outside are fitted with finger guards. Harry and Sally, our Persona Dolls, frequent our Circle Times to talk to the children about how to stay safe and keep our friends safe and sometimes the children invite them if they have something they wish to talk about.

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Happiness

Happiness comes a close second to safety. Staff at Cradley Nursery are happy staff and therefore the children who spend time with us are also happy. We want our parents to also feel happy when they leave their child in our care. For this reason, we have no set period of time for settling in and parents can stay and play before, during and after admission if the need arises. Staff here are highly trained and have a sound theoretical knowledge of how children learn and develop. They are excellent role-models, imaginative, calm and caring. Our staff are our best resource in Nursery. Kindness matters here at Cradley. Kindness breeds happiness and happy children make effective learners. Good manners and behaviour is rewarded with praise and encouragement, stickers and Star of the Week.

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Fun

Learning from something you love doing is the best way to learn and we love doing lovely things! We put great effort into making our environment and activities as stimulating and as sociable as they can be. We learn to play and we play to learn. Daily planned activities are led by a different member of staff each day and they are differentiated to allow 2- 5 year olds take part and learn from them. The messier it is, the more fun we have!

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Learning and Development

Children at Cradley make good progress in the seven areas of Learning and Development. Whilst all staff get to know all children really well, we operate a Key Person system, whereby one member of staff is responsible for communicating with parents through writing daily Home Liaison entries on the Tapestry website. Your child’s Key Person will observe and plan for the particular needs of your child and will summarise their development each term, taking into account their weekly observations recorded for their Learning Journey on Tapestry. Each half term our learning is loosely based on a theme to encourage new concepts and ideas and our display boards and learning tables reflect this theme, as well as current interests. The room layout allows your child to take the lead in their own learning through choice and personal interests. The room layout changes according to needs and planning is flexible, to allow for maximizing unexpected opportunities, such as snow for example. We have a team approach to planning, a good understanding of how children learn and excellent resources which we use on a daily basis to support teaching and learning. Our routine has grown organically to suit our day and access to our outdoor area at all times promotes the feeling of well-being and allows for a healthy development. We encourage the children to be as independent as possible in the environment and to always have a go. Even our toilets are used to maximise learning experiences.

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Feedback

It is really important to us that we work in partnership with our parents. No-one knows your child better than you, but we will try very hard to be almost as knowledgeable! We aim to give you as much information as possible in various ways. We will let you know what sort of a day he/she has had at pick-up times. We will write in their Home Liaison book each day they are with us and send it home at the end of the week for you to read, comment and respond. Your child’s Learning Journey is always available for you to look at whenever you want. You will receive the school’s weekly Newsletter via e-mail to inform you of what we have done in Nursery each week. Our half-termly curriculum letter will share ideas for learning at home and our termly Development Summaries and Parents Evenings will give you specific feedback on your child. The Parent Notice Board and school website will keep you up-to-date with what’s going on and what you need to know. Annual parent questionnaires also give you an opportunity to feed back on your child’s year at Nursery.

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