Daisy Chain Day Nursery Newsletter January 2005

We would like to thank everyone for coming to our Christmas party and for your support over the last year. We hope that you had an enjoyable Christmas break and we wish you all a very happy New Year.

Room Changes
In order to promote staff development, several members of staff have transferred between the baby and toddler room. Every staff member within these areas is trained to work to the 'Birth to Three' Framework, which is overseen by Emma. For each child whose key worker has changed, there will be a full handover and the new key workers will also be taking time to discuss this with parents. We trust that you will support staff in their new roles. Although from time to time staff will continue to assist in other rooms, the new organisation is as follows:

A new cook, Jane Taylor, is starting in the New Year. Jane has been working as a cook Welland House Residential Home, catering for 60 residents, and is experienced in catering for special dietary requirements. She has qualifications in food hygiene, first aid, fire and safety. She also has full Local Authority and police clearance and holds a child minding certificate.

OFSTED Combined Inspection
We were very pleased with the findings of the OFSTED inspector and I am sure you will want to congratulate the staff on the well-deserved judgement. There are several recommendations that we are in the process of addressing and we will be producing an action plan for OFSTED, which will be made available to parents.

To summarise, the inspector found that we provide a good standard of day care and particularly praised the following areas:

• Key worker system ensures that all children are given individual attention;
• Wide range of activities planned for all age groups;
• Variety and accessibility of resources;
• Interesting and stimulating environment;
• Patient and calm handling of disruptive behaviour;
• Parental involvement and very good relationships between staff and parents;
• Effective use of the 'Birth to Three' framework;
• Healthy and nutritious meals;

Staff follow detailed policies and procedures, and work well together to meet the children's needs.

The standard of education was found to be of good quality overall and very good in the following areas:

• Personal, social and emotional development;
• Knowledge and understanding of the world;
• Physical development;
• Creative development.

The full report is on the notice board outside the office and we plan to discuss it at the next Parents Nursery Association meeting.

Nursery Themes
The planned themes for year 2005 have been sent to all parents. Our theme for January is 'Healthy Living', for which we will be exploring the importance of food, drink and exercise. We would gratefully welcome any ideas or items that you can contribute for reference or for the interest table.

Collection of Children
In order for staff to have enough time to give a thorough account of your child's day, please could you arrive five to ten minutes before the nursery closing time of 6pm . Our staff has other commitments, buses to catch etc. and they should not be expected to work after this time. In cases of pick up after 6pm we reserve the right to make a late collection charge, payment of which must be made in cash on the following session and will be used to reimburse staff for their time and inconvenience. If you are unavoidably late we would appreciate a telephone call to warn us.

Monday 31 st January
Tuesday 1 st February
Monday 7 th February
Tuesday 8 th February

The Parent Nursery Association is a valuable and extremely influential part of the nursery and needs the support of all parents.