Little Acorns Nursery
POLICIES
Out of School at All Saints Ltd incorporating Little Acorns Nursery with Sunrise and Sunset Club are continuously updating our ways to keep up with the latest positive trends in children’s learning and development. Our policies and procedures are always carefully considered and long-lasting.
Please see below a short statement, knowing a full copy can be obtained from the management.
Admissions Statement
Our organisation is committed to anti-discriminatory practices to promote equality of opportunity and valuing diversity for all children and families. It is our intention to make our Little Acorns Nursery and Sunrise and Sunset Club genuinely accessible to all children and families from every section of the community. Our admission policy is fair and transparent.
Equal Opportunities Policy
Out of School at All Saints Ltd is committed to taking positive and proactive steps to ensure that we provide a safe and caring environment, free from discrimination for everyone in our community. We believe in the unique value of every child and are therefore committed to meeting each child’s individual needs. We will do our best to provide equal opportunities for all children and families who come to our setting, as well as promoting equal opportunities in our employment practices.
Safeguarding Children
We aim to keep children safe by adopting the highest possible standards and taking all reasonable steps to protect children from harm.
Safeguarding is much more than child protection. Child Protection is specifically about protecting children and young people from suspected abuse and neglect. Safeguarding is much wider than child protection. It includes everything an organization can do to keep children and young people safe, including minimizing the risk of harm and accidents and taking action to tackle safety concerns. The purpose of this Safeguarding Policy is to set a clear protocol of actions and a framework for our responsibilities and legal duties in relation to each child’s welfare. The hope is to ensure a reliable and effective response in the event of any concern for a child’s welfare and to support each child and each family. We aim to put children’s needs first at all times. We hope to encourage children to be confident and
assertive. We aim to develop a trusting and respectful relationship with the children in our care so that they know they will be listened to and believed.
This Policy complies with all relevant legislation and other guidance or advice from the Local Safeguarding Children Board.
All staff has had Prevent Duty training in 2017.
Arrival and Departure
Nursery opens from 8 am and children arrive at varying times throughout the day. The busiest arrival time is 9 am; during this time, one member of staff will stand at the main door to greet children and parents. Another member of staff will be placed inside near the register to sign the children in. Parents are encouraged to help the child to self-register and choose their lunch. A child's key person will be available to give comfort and reassurance to those children who need it.
We have register time shortly after 9 am and this enables both children and practitioners to greet each other and start the day together.
Children leave at various times throughout the day; our busiest departure time is 3:30 pm. One member of staff will sign the children out and another will stand by the door to ensure no children get out unattended, and no one comes in who isn't known or authorised to do so.
At other times when individual children are leaving nursery, one member of staff will open the door to parents/carers and lock it immediately behind them, until the child and parent/carer are ready to leave.
General Data Protection Regulations Policy (GDPR)
GDPR stands for General Data Protection Regulation and replaces the previous Data Protection Directives that were in place. It was approved by the EU Parliament in 2016 and comes into effect on 25th May 2018. GDPR states that personal data should be ‘processed fairly & lawfully’ and ‘collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and that individuals' data is not processed without their knowledge and is only processed with their explicit consent. GDPR covers personal data relating to individuals.
Out of School at All Saints Ltd are committed to protecting the rights and freedoms of individuals with respect to the processing of children's, parents', visitors', and staff personal data. The Data Protection Act gives individuals the right to know what information is held about them. It provides a framework to ensure that personal information is handled properly. Out of School at All Saints is registered with the ICO (Information Commissioners Office) under registration reference: Z2528030 and has been registered since 11th February 2011.
Safer Recruitment
Out of School at All Saints Ltd takes its commitment to Safeguard and Promote the Welfare of Children and Young People very seriously and expects all staff, students and volunteers to do the same. We aim to ensure that all people working with children are suitable to do so and we are therefore extremely vigilant when recruiting new staff to join our team.
Partnership with Parents
We know that a child’s parents, carers and families are by far the most important influences in a child's life. Your support plays a vital role at all stages of your child’s development and learning. Your views and knowledge of your child are paramount in ensuring that we are able to provide the best possible care, learning and play, which supports your child’s current development stage.
We firmly believe that a parent’s involvement in nursery life enriches a child’s experience and we, therefore, invite and encourage parents and carers to become actively involved, from sharing particular talents, reading a story (particularly in a different home language) to simply joining us on our different fun days and events.
We acknowledge that many of our parents work and or have busy days filled with family business; but we need to work together and make information sharing a two-way process if we are to give your child the best start in life.
Promoting British Values
The government set out its definition of British values in the 2011 Prevent Strategy, and these values have been reiterated by the Prime Minister this year. At Out of School at All Saints, these values are reinforced regularly in everything we do and the way we do it. It also links directly to keeping children safe.
Sickness and Medication
Little Acorns Nursery and Sunrise and Sunset Club aim to promote the good health of all our children who attend the setting. What this means is we will work with parents and carers to ensure children are well enough to attend, whilst meeting the needs of children who need short-term or long-term medication.
It is not our aim to care for sick children, who should be at home until they are well enough to return to the setting; we will agree to administer medication that has been prescribed by your GP as part of maintaining their health and well-being when recovering from illness. In many cases your child’s GP should be able to prescribe medicine that can be taken at home in the morning or evening. As far as possible, administering medicines will only be done where it would be detrimental to the child’s health if it were not given at the setting. If the child has not been prescribed the medicine before, we advise the parent should keep their child at home for 48 hours to ensure there are no adverse effects from the medicine and to allow the medicine to take effect.
Health and Safety
Out of School at All Saints Ltd Health and Safety policy sets out how we will manage health and safety and will let our staff and others know our commitment to health and safety. It clearly states our legal requirements and describes who does what, when and how. We aim to prevent accidents and cases of work-related ill health and provide adequate control of health and safety risks arising from work activities. We aim to provide adequate training to ensure employees are competent to do their work. We will implement emergency procedures and evacuation in case of fire or other significant incidents. We aim to provide nursery care and education and out-of-school provision which is safe and secure for the children in our care.
Food and Drink
In Little Acorns nursery we regard snack and meal times as important parts of our day. Eating represents a social time for children and adults. At snack and meal times we aim to provide nutritious food, which meets the children's individual dietary needs. Meal times provide an opportunity for us to teach our children about eating healthy and the similarities and differences we have. It also helps to support British values such as having good manners and being aware of boundaries and expected behaviour.
It is important we gain information about any special dietary requirements a child has and how they eat at home to enable us to support the child’s health and lifestyle in nursery.
Behaviour
It is our aim to support all children in gaining the skills needed to be active members of society, but we acknowledge this can only happen if we work in partnership with the child’s parents and carers. After many years of delivering care and education within our provision, we have learned that children need to be able to express and display a wide range of feelings in order to learn how to self-regulate their behaviour; they need to do this without the fear of physical punishment or punishment that causes pain or humiliation to the child. We do not use or threaten to use any punishment which could adversely affect a child’s wellbeing.
In both nursery and after-school club children’s behaviour is managed in an appropriate way, but we also recognise the need to set reasonable and appropriate boundaries that all adults will maintain in the management of children’s behaviour. Practitioners recognise the importance of adults’ behaviour as a role model for the children and will not allow physical or verbal abuse towards anyone on the premises.
Complaints
Out of School at All Saints Ltd believes that parents are entitled to expect courtesy and prompt, careful attention to their needs and wishes. We welcome suggestions on how to improve our setting and will give prompt and serious attention to any concerns about the running of the setting. We anticipate that most concerns will be resolved quickly by an informal approach to the appropriate member of staff. If this does not achieve the desired result, we have a set of procedures for dealing with concerns. We aim to bring all concerns about the running of our setting to a satisfactory conclusion for all of the parties involved.
A copy of our complaints procedure can be located in Little Acorns Nursery and Sunrise and Sunset Club and also details of how you can complain to Ofsted.
Students and Volunteers Policy
We believe that placement for a student or volunteer at our Nursery is a valuable opportunity to build experience whilst learning about working within a childcare Nursery. Equally, we appreciate the positive contribution that such committed and enthusiastic people can bring to our Nursery.
However, at all times the needs of the children are paramount and therefore a Nursery needs to restrict the number of students and volunteers admitted at any particular time, in order to minimise disruption to the Nursery’s core activities.
Out of School at All Saints is responsible for ensuring that all students and volunteers working at the Nursery are suitable and that they will not detrimentally affect the service provided for children and their parents/carers. The Management has overall responsibility for supervising and supporting students and volunteers while they are at the Nursery.
Trainees and all students are supervised at all times and we aim not to count them in staffing ratios. Where the Manager is satisfied that trainees aged 17 years or over who are on long term placements, and are competent and responsible, they may be included in the staffing ratios.
All students have Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) before they begin their placement at the Nursery and all are attending a school, college or university.