Category: Nursery News

NURSERY NEWS JANUARY 2016

A very happy and healthy 2016 to all of our children, parents and carers!

January has been a fun and busy month for Meadows Nursery with Forest Schools and Care Home visits and much, much more.

Outdoor Learning

We have had a great start to Forest Schools in 2016. The children have been using the small woodland area opposite Sciennes School and have really enjoyed their first session. They have loved exploring the woods, playing hide and seek and learning the rules and boundaries of being outside. Next week the children have chosen to hunt for bugs and make a den.

This session of Care Home visits now includes two younger children. Everyone really enjoyed their visit to Glencairn Care Home and the residents made us some great playdough for us when we arrived. Unfortunately, the high winds resulted in cancellation of last week’s trip, but we look forward to returning next week.

Weather permitting, we aim to go out with a group of children every day. This may be to the park, Summerhall, the museum, George IV Library for story time and Clambers. We plan to visit Clambers on a monthly basis.

Continuing Professional Development

All staff at Meadows Nursery have regular opportunities to improve their skills and have recently taken part in First Aid training and Fire Safety training. Since we are a partnership nursery (with CEC), we can also make use of the courses on offer at the Council.

Samantha has recently updated her Child Protection Level 4 and will continue to be the Child Protection officer for the nursery. Katie also completed her level 2 Child Protection.

All of the middle floor staff have recently had GIRFEC and pre-birth to three training and this will help them to improve the children’s learning and developing opportunities.

Also, the ground floor staff have all received inhouse training on the Curriculum for Excellence and planning which has helped staff to look further into the learning opportunities for the children.

Other training courses arranged for staff include The Magic of Music, Additional Support for Learners, Up, Up and Away and Language Boost. All of these courses will ensure that we are up to date on current best practice and can ensure that we are giving the children the best possible care that we can.

Diary Dates

Diary dates for 2016 are displayed in the main foyer. We hope that you can make them.

Nursery Improvements

We were delighted to come back after Christmas to our newly painted Busy Bug play room and downstairs toilet. We are now looking forward to our Garden room being painted in the next couple of weeks.

We have been going through all of our resources and replacing them where necessary. We have also looked at our room routines and layouts and are making improvements in these areas too. We really hope that you can see all of the hard work that is going on!

Children and parents

We had our first Meadows breakfast in January with several families attending. This was a lovely opportunity for staff, parents and families to spend time with their children on what is normally such a busy time of day. Thank you to all that attended.

We have also been asking some of the older children each day if they would like to go upstairs for an hour or so each day to ‘help’ with the babies. This is a great learning experience for all children involved so look out for this in the coming weeks!

In February we will welcome some new children, with Leo, Sophia and Matilda all joining our Hedgehog room.

Activities

The children on the ground floor have been very excited learning about foods, Scotland and of course Haggis! We will continue this for a few more weeks before we move on to the next topic.

The younger children have been really enjoying our new kitchen apparatus and playing with the new foods. They have also shown a great interest in the messy play that is always available. The messy play room is such a hit and we are really enjoying seeing what the staff come up with each week!

Staffing

We would like to welcome Claire Kennedy. Claire has over 10 years childcare experience and is settling into her role as preschool leader very well. A very big welcome to Claire!

 

We bade a fond farewell to Bianca last week and wish her all the best in her new role out in East Lothian. Samantha, our new manager, is settling in well and getting to know children, parents, staff and all our routines and procedures. It’s good to have a “fresh pair of eyes” and hear about other ways of doing things!

Now that the colder weather is approaching, we’re keen to still use our garden as much as possible so please provide your child with a named hat, scarf, gloves etc. It’s very important that they’re labeled as it helps us keep a track of what belongs to who! We have a light in our back garden so our younger children can still use the garden at the end of the day when it’s darker.

STAFFING

We have a new member of staff, Irene Baeza, who started with us on Monday 26^th October. Irene has helped us out before through the Supermums agency so she already knows the children and staff. Please introduce yourself to Irene if you haven’t already met her. During her induction period, Irene will be working with all age groups.

Annie started her maternity leave a few weeks ago and is due back next year.

Lizzie is back doing Piano time with the older children on Monday and Thursday mornings.

We are pleased to let you know that Steph is now the Team Leader on the ground floor. This will allow Alison, who previously had this role, to support and deputise for Samantha. We wish Steph all the best in her new role.

Our current staffing comprises:

First Floor:

Louise – Team Leader

Kathleen, Carrie, Katie, Amy H, Carrie, Garazi,

Ground Floor:

Steph – Team Leader

Carolann, Chantelle, Sam, Amy M (possibly Irene, after induction)

Alison – Deputy Manager

Samantha – Manager

Staff work either a 4 day week 8am to 6pm or 5 days from 8.30am to 5.30pm, with the exception of Sam who works 7.30 to 5.30 and Amy M who works 9.30am to 4.30pm.

HANDOVERS

We are trialling handover slips on the first floor and will be asking for your feedback on these shortly. We are generally keen that staff time is spent with the children and not spent writing about them, however, we also want to report back key information to you at the end of the day. Thoughts and ideas are welcome!

CPD

Staff at Meadows Nursery have regular opportunities to improve their skills and have recently taken part in First Aid training and Fire Safety training. Since we are a partnership nursery (with CEC) we can also make use of the courses on offer at the council.

Steph recently attended a 3 day Forest School course run by the Forestry Commission which has benefitted our Forest School trips.

MEDICATION

When bringing medication in to the nursery please give it to a senior member of staff ie Samantha, Louise or Alison so that the necessary forms can be completed. All other staff will be busy with the children and won’t be able to process the medication request.

NURSERY TIDY UP

You may have noticed some movement around resources & activity boxes over the last couple of weeks! We are having a clear-out and tidy up of all the rooms which hopefully should be complete before putting up our Christmas decorations!

The next room to be decorated at the nursery is the kitchen on the ground floor. Children do not use this room so easier from a logistics point of view to decorate.

We are very pleased with the newly decorated Animal & Flower Rooms and our new policy is to only use designated boards for display thereby preserving the lovely paint work.

SUGGESTION BOX

It was suggested that wherever possible we should use organic produce and we try to do this. The milk we use in the nursery is organic and children have access to their water bottles throughout the day. Our Suggestion Box is located in the hall if you have a good idea for the nursery. Please also be assured that Samantha, Alison and Jen are available at any time should you wish to discuss any nursery issue.

 

Date	Event
26th Jan	Parent Topic session (Pre-Birth to three) (4.30-5.30)
10th Feb	Parent Forum (6.30-8pm)
27th Feb	Tea Party (2.30 to 4.30pm)
18th Mar	Parent Topic session (CFE and transitions) (4.30-5.30)
24th Mar	Parents evening (6.30-8.30pm)
23rd Apr	Eco-Committee meeting (4.30)
12th May	Parent Topic session (GIRFEC & Children’s rights) (4.30-5.30)
25th May	Parent Forum (6.30-8pm)
26th Jun	Graduation & Summer Show 10am to 11.30am
24th Jul	Tea Party 2.30 to 4.30pm
7th Aug	Sports day for Rabbits (10.30am)
25th Aug	Eco-Committee Meeting (4.30)
10th Sep	Parent Forum 6.30 to 8pm
22nd Oct	Parents Evening 6.30 to 8.30pm
30th Oct	Tea Party/ Halloween Party (2.30-4.30)
19th Nov	Parent Topical session (topic tbc) (4.30-5.30)
4th/ 11th Dec	Christmas Panto trip for Rabbits
15th Dec	Hedgehogs and Squirrels Christmas Party and Carols (2.30-4.30) – Parents welcome
18th Dec	Nativity & Christmas Party for Rabbits and Foxes (afternoon)
22nd Dec	Nursery closes at 6pm
4th Jan 2016	Nursery reopens

 

We hope you like our new logo and website, and enjoy reading about what our different groups have been up to – Rabbits, Foxes, Hedgehogs and Squirrels. We also have our first news for our new nursery, Meadows at Pilrig. Your feedback is very welcome

Everyone has worked really hard these last few months in the lead up to the opening. Our new staff are settling in well, as indeed are the new children at Pilrig!

All staff get a chance to meet up together this Saturday at our Infection Control training day which is being held at Meadows at Pilrig. We are all looking forward to the next few months at both nurseries where we will maintain strong links in order to share ideas and good practice.