What information you can expect from nursery
The statutory framework for the early years foundation stage (EYFS) is a government document that all schools and Ofsted-registered early years providers in England must follow. It sets standards for the learning, development and care of your child from birth to five years old. The standards ensure your child will learn and develop well and are kept healthy and safe.
What will you notice as a parent?
• Children need lots of skills to be able to learn. At Scallywags we use ‘Development Matters’ and a typical skills list that is generated by age to teach your child. We plan in the moment as much as possible to allow us to meet the ever-changing interests and needs of every child, with a focus on developing field forest, music and dance, yoga, PE, and supporting our local community.
• Staff spend lots of time every day providing lots of play opportunities for your child to develop their skills to support their learning and development.
• Parents will receive daily hand over information and a written monthly update.
• Every three months parents will receive a copy of their child’s progress chart for ideas on what you can work on at home.
• Staff use their experience and knowledge to monitor your child’s learning and development to check if they are typically on track for their age or not. If staff have any concerns regarding your child’s development, they will catch you at handover time to discuss these and arrange a catch-up chat if you would like one.
• Staff will monitor your child on a daily and monthly basis and will have monthly chats with management regarding the progress of your child. Staff will also formally sit down as a team and discuss every child ‘s learning and development at the end of each half term.
• At Scallywags we work hard to improve children’s language and vocabulary through increasing opportunities for conversations, reading a wide range of books and holding discussions around activities in other areas of learning.
• Safeguarding and welfare of all children is a priority, with the added mention of teaching children about the importance of good oral health and how to keep teeth clean and healthy.
How could you help support your child’s learning and development at home?
• Read stories daily to your child and use them as an opportunity to talk about the characters and events in the story. You could also discuss some of the details children have spotted in the pictures, such as the character’s facial expressions. Please make use of our nursery library that offers a range of books that you can borrow for the night.
• Have lots of conversations with your child throughout the day. Try and increase their vocabulary by using a wide range of vocabulary and lots of WOW words. (WOW words are advanced adjectives, verbs and adverbs which are used to improve a sentence by making it vivid and interesting).
• Practise counting with your child and looking at small groups of items. Explore what happens to numbers when you put these small groups of items together, or split a larger group into two smaller groups.
• Support your child’s early reading by practising phonic skills, such as recognising letter sounds and blending them together to read words. Also, support your child with their writing by checking they are forming their letters in the correct way and holding a pencil properly.
• Encourage your child to make healthy food and drink choices, especially related to sugar content and how this can affect teeth. Also, support your child to properly brush their teeth at least twice a day at home.
• Plan activities that allow your child to be active and develop their strength through large body movements as well as smaller, more precise movements.
• Where possible encourage your child to be an independent learner.
What will my child be learning?
• The EYFS framework outlines seven areas of learning and development and educational programmes. There are three prime areas of learning, which are particularly important for your child’s development and future learning: communication and Language, Personal Social and Emotional Development, Physical Development.
• There are four specific areas of learning, through which the prime areas are strengthened and applied: Literacy, Mathematics, Understating the World, Expressive Arts and Design.
• Early years practitioners use your child’s needs and interests to plan challenging and enjoyable activities and experiences that promote the development of key skills and ultimately the development of your child’s learning and development.
• Additionally, to the 7 areas of learning, all children will be taking part in a weekly PE session, weekly forest field session, weekly acks of kindness discussions, daily yoga and mindfulness, and daily music and movement.
How will my child be learning?
• The EYFS framework identifies the essential role of play in your child’s development. It is through both child-led play and play guided by an adult that your child will develop confidence and relationships with others. Through play, practitioners will help your child to extend their vocabulary and develop their communication skills.
• The EYFS framework identifies three characteristics of effective teaching and learning: playing and exploring, active learning and creating and thinking critically. The characteristics of effective learning describe how your child learns best. Staff will refer to these areas and the characteristics when planning and preparing activities and also when observing your child.
How will I know how my child Is doing?
• Each child in the EYFS has a key person who will work in partnership with you, sharing information about your child.
• EYFS practitioners use their professional knowledge to understand your child’s level of development. If they have any concerns about your child's progress, they will discuss these with you.
• Three mandatory formal assessments will take place during the Early years:
- Two-Year Progress Check (this will happen between the ages of 2-3 years)
- Reception Baseline Assessment (at the start of the reception year 4-5 years)
- Early Years Foundation Stage Profile (at the end of the EYFS 4-5 years)
What information can you expect nursery to share with you about your child
At Scallywags we believe that every child has the right to a well-planned and meaningful curriculum that will provide them with the tools needed to succeed throughout their lives, regardless of culture, social class, gender, physical and cognitive capabilities and beliefs.
Regular monitoring and evaluations of children’s progress enables us to continually adjust our provision in response to any areas of under or over achievement that may be identified.
We follow a process of plan, do review for all individual children. Each day that your child attends nursery, we will work alongside them in play, making notes of new things they have achieved and making a note of any WOW moments (WOW moments are outstanding achievements that your child has made). These observations will then be used to plan for your child’s next steps and to guide staff with their activity and resource planning for the following week.
Daily:
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Outside White boards will be used in the older rooms (ones where daily diaries are not used) to record meals, and information about the day’s activities -please ask a member of staff if you are unsure where this is located.
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Daily handover – staff will meet with parents at the end of each day to give a brief overview of your child’s day – this will include sharing the daily diary and discussing any special notable events from the day. Parents will be asked to sign any medication / accident forms from the day too. Please let staff know if there are certain bits of information you would like to know at the end of each day, so we can ensure this is personalised to you and your requirements.
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Stickers, certificates and room mascot (varies dependent on room and child’s age) – these will be sent home on a regular basis as a reward to your child for progress on their own development.
If you have any questions regarding your child’s day, then please ensure you ask before you leave the site.
Monthly diaries:
This is a communication tool that reviews your child’s overall month at nursery, it is a written record to share with parents and for parents to share any information back. The diary will give you a general comment about the previous month, review targets and set new targets that will be worked on over the next month. If you would like your key person to focus on certain bits of information each month, please let them know.
For children that attend multiple settings each week, we suggest that the diary is shared with everyone that cares for your child to ensure we are all aware of your child’s next steps.
Development of skills
Staff will not allocate specific targets for your child as we will be using skills lists (located on the nursery web page). The skills lists are generated by what you would typically want a child to be able to do by a certain age. Staff will be working on the age-appropriate list with your child daily and if we feel they have achieved all the skills on one list we will move your child onto the next age bracket list. The thinking behind not allocating specific targets for children, is that children are not just focusing on developing 1 or 2 things at a time, but have the opportunity to work on multiple skills and area of learning and development as they arise throughout the days and weeks. The skills list will work alongside ‘Development Matters’ to ensure your child is progressing with all seven area of their learning and development.
The main aim is to develop depth in skills and knowledge rather than breadth.
If you would like a paper copy of the skills lists or would like your child’s key person to focus on certain areas of development each month, please let them know.
For more information:
Termly newsletters:
You will receive 3 newsletters per year. The newsletter will give you information regarding forthcoming events, theme days or notices to parents. Please ensure you read this when it arrives home.
Planning, observations, assessments:
Each week staff use observations taken from the previous week to plan for the following week. Staff will plan for activities that will support your child’s next steps in a way that meets their learning style and interests.
Every day when your child is at nursery, staff will be working alongside your child through play and taking notes (observations) of key things your child has learnt and progress they have made. These observations will be recorded in your child’s development folder and will be used to sign off targets and set new targets.
Your child’s development will be reviewed by their key worker at the end of each month when your child monthly diary will be updated.
At any point, parents can book a consultation with their child’s key worker, to discuss progress and targets and for staff to give parents ideas on how you can support your child at home
(Parents are reminded that consultations can be booked as often as you like, staff are always happy to engage with parents / carers.)
Every 3 months, parents will receive a copy of their child’s progress chart which will highlight what your child has achieved and what we are working on. Your key person will ask you to record what you know your child can confidently and independently do – as we are unable to witness some events and life experiences at nursery. These extra findings will be mirrored against nursery assessments to ensure we have an accurate account of your child’s capabilities
All assessments are paper based.
Additional monitoring:
Within the nursery we use lots of different assessment tools to track, monitor and support children. If we believe your child would benefit from extra support in a particular area, we may implement one of the following:
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Every Child a Talker (ECAT) - to identify children who need additional support with: Listening, Understanding, Social and Expressive language development.
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Every child a mover (ECAM) - to support children with physical difficulties.
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Derbyshire small steps tracking sheets - for children that need the EYFS to be broken down into more bite size chunks.
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Sensory process needs assessment
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WellComm to support with speech language and communication
2-year assessment checks
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) requires that parents and carers must be supplied with a short-written summary of their child’s development in the three prime learning and development areas of the EYFS: Personal, Social and Emotional Development; Physical Development; and Communication and Language. When a child is aged between 24-36 months. Scallywags will perform this check and a copy of the assessment will be hand delivered / emailed to parents and with parental permission posted or emailed to the local health visiting team.
The progress check is to enable earlier identification of development needs so that additional support can be put into place.
Room moves:
When your child is ready to move to the next room, you will receive information about the room your child is moving to. You will be invited in for a meet and greet session with your child’s new Key Person and to meet the staff that will be look after your child. This is a great opportunity to discuss any special requests you have, to ensure the new room is ready for your child.
Website:
The website will provide you find additional information sheets about the different rooms within the nursery. We also upload all termly newsletters and handy fact sheets to support you with developing key developmental milestones at home.
Notice boards and displays:
These are located in all nursery entrance and playroom doors. Please take time to read about upcoming events, ideas on how to help your child at home and information on what your child has been learning about on a daily basis.
Facebook page:
The nursery Facebook page is used to post photos about what the children have been learning about and upcoming events.
Menus:
All menus are published to parents when updated (at least 2 x per year) and provide parents with a view of our healthy eating plan – we thrive on cooking with fresh ingredients. If your child has additional dietary needs, please see your child’s key person or the nursery chef to discuss and document these needs. Please note that occasionally meals change due to delivery issues.
Invoices:
These are generated every 4 weeks. Any queries regarding invoices need to be sent to Vyna Peacock at: bookkeeper@scallywagsnursery.com. We are unable to sort invoice queries in the nursery offices as we do not have access to live account information. Vyna’s normal working days are Wednesday and Thursday 8.30am - 4pm.