Parent Information Sheet

Welcome to Early Buds Nursery. We’ve put together some useful information below that will help you best prepare and transition both your child and yourselves into our setting.

Settling in

We will support you to transition your child into to our nursery. We offer two days of settling in sessions, this is what to expect:

Day one (2 hours):

We ask that you attend along side your child, you will be given a robust settling in document to complete along side the child in the classroom, surrounded by activities and a member of the team for support. We encourage your child to come and play whilst you’re still present – to ensure they still feel the safety net. We slowly ask that they come and play, and always encourage that they go back to parent for a cuddle – or wave from across the room. At this point in your settling pack, please feel free to tell us every last detail about your child. How they eat, how they sleep, any dietary requirement or any comforting information we should know about.

Day two (2 hours):

During the second settling in session, we ask that you drop your child – should they be happy to, and after 5 or 10 minuets try to leave the classroom. You can take as long as you or your child needs, there is no rush, but we would like to start building bonds and trusts with your child and begin to transfer comfort from you to your child’s key person. Stay near by – we will definitely give you a call if your child becomes too distressed. We have a big focus on early childhood anxiety and want to minimize it as much as we can, therefore – if we feel a child is reaching a point where they begin getting too upset – we will always let you know so that we can comfort your child together.

The settling in time varies for each child. Some can start the very next day, and some need more time to work out the new routine and environment – and that Is totally fine with us. Our administrators will always try their best to work out a structured plan for your first week. We ask parents to be flexible for the first two weeks.

Communication

During the settling in period, children usually form a bond with one or more of the practitioners. One of the practitioners will become his/her key person. The key person will:

  • Ask how your child is every morning and give you feedback at the beginning and end of your child’s day. If the key person is not available, another member of staff will greet you and your child and give you feedback on their day. This also gives you an opportunity to share with us of any developments at home or anything you may like to share – for the younger children you will receive a daily diary, which you can take home and read and bring back.
  • A key person will also be planning activities for your child, based on their need and next step. We use a curriculum called the EYFS you can find a little more information on the EYFS here > https://www.foundationyears.org.uk/files/2014/08/EYFS_Parents_Guide-amended.pdf

We use the EYFS in our daily set up in the class, for our activities, our ideas and even our displays – at times, we will also do EYFS training for parents – so stay tuned.

  • We also hold review meetings with parents on a regular basis during the year where you will have the opportunity to talk about your child’s development in more detail with your child’s key person and agree next steps.
  • We will communicate with you via a newsletter and the parent’s noticeboard at our entrance. At times we will also write to parents or put notices on doors to the rooms, please look out for these!
  • It’s important that you call us if your child is unable to attend or if you are coming in or collecting late. You can reach us on 0203 795 8425. There is a late collection fee of £1 per minute for every late collection. Persistent late collections may result in your child’s place being withdrawn and/or a welfare referral made.
  • Please keep us up to date of any changes to your contact details so that we can update our records in case we need to contact you.
  • If you wish to speak to the nursery manager, please make an appointment at the front office.

Parent Partnership

  • We want you to be part our nursery, our culture and your child’s learning. Firstly, please let us know if your occupation or hobbies can be included into our activities, we can arrange for you to come in and show your skills to our children on a selected day. This is great cultural capital learning for the children, understanding occupations and others’ ways of life.
  • Through our EYFS and learning app, which you will be asked to download on your child’s first day with us – we ask that you take note of our weekly next steps for your child, and work on them too at home. If you see your child achieving the next steps – that’s great! Please upload a picture of it at home, and we can link it to the EYFS and tick it off your child’s learning journals.
  • This is a great way of collectively supporting your child’s development. We may also set you parent homework through the app – so stay tuned! We hand out how-to guides for the app and an information pack once you start, to help you with that, but we are always around to support you if you need it.
  • If you are unable to access the internet at home, you are more than welcome into our office to make use of our  resources, just book an appointment with our admin team!

Health & Well-being

  • When your child starts with us, we ask that you fill in the robust settling in form. Including in this is a health and wellbeing form – which will give you the opportunity to tell us all about your child’s health, mental wellbeing and anything else that we may need to know to support your child whilst in our care.
  • If your child has a high temperature, please keep your child at home for 24 hours. If your child develops a high temperature whilst in our care we will ask you to collect your child. They will need to remain at home for 24 hours in case they are harbouring any illness.
  • If your child is vomiting and/or has diarrhoea it is our policy that your child does not attend for 48 hours. This is to ensure the wellbeing of all children and staff. If your child has two consecutive bouts of diarrhoea and/or is being sick in our care, we will ask you to collect your child.
  • If your child sustains a head injury we will inform you immediately by phone. If you are not available, we will contact the emergency contact person. And we will monitor your child.
  • Our medication policy specifies that we do not administer any medication unless prescribed by a GP. We do not under any circumstances administer Calpol or similar medication. If your child is prescribed antibiotics they will need to be kept at home for the first 48 hours.

Safety

  • Please ensure your child wears no jewellery when attending the nursery except small stud earrings.
  • When you bring your child to the nursery, please ensure you speak to a member of staff so we can correctly register your child in their room.
  • Please close nursery doors as you leave after bring in/collecting your child. Please do not allow anyone else to follow you in the nursery as you walk in or out.
  • We will only allow children to leave with parents or an emergency contact person who is in the child’s registration form. We need you to provide us with a photo of the emergency contact person and a confidential password. In the event of your child being collected by the emergency contact person, we will match their appearance with the photo we have in the child’s file and ask them for the password. Without these, we will not release the child.

What you need to provide for your child

  • Comfortable, appropriate clothing as these may get soiled when
  • Three changes of clothes labelled with your child’s name. These will be kept in your child’s bag on their peg.
  • Please bring wellington boots/shoes labelled with your child’s name. We do go outside in all weathers.
  • If your child has a comforter please bring this in every dayhowever, your key person will discuss this with you.
  • You will need to supply wipes, nappies and any nappy cream for your child. Please label these with your child’s name and put it in their bag. We will also require you to sign a permission slip enabling us to use both wipes and cream.
  • Please bring Formula Milk – in a new, unused package along with Milk bottles and beakers if used.
  • For pre-school aged children, please bring a spare water bottle that we can leave at nursery.
  • Please bring bibs if/when used. We will always have spare ones if needed.