Parents and Carers Forum

Wednesday 14 th June

Introduction

 Claire introduction – Background – Degree in Psychology, 8 Years as a Practitioner, ECaT Lead Practitioner, Preschool Leader, Early Years Teacher.

 EYPS – Qualification launched in 2007, Early Years professional status – graduate leaders who are accredited early years specialists. The name was changed in 2013 to ‘Early Years Teaching Status’ to hopefully give more clarity and credibility to their role.

 Role as EYT – Role to promote children’s learning and development across the setting by working with and supporting support staff e.g. through unit observations and feedback, planning, observation and assessment, supervisions, training and development, changes in routine, activities and general provision, working with parents as partners and working alongside management to try and provide the best care for each and every child and their families.

Update from last forum

We have not had a parent’s forum for a while for a few reasons:

 We were put at risk of redundancy in April 2015 as nursery may have been closed for good. Many of our parents supported us by organising petitions, contacting the press and forming a parents steering group that was focusing on keeping the nursery open. This steering group continues to run today with meetings each term.

 We are working towards a number of goals and effectively meeting our targets to date which means we are not at risk of closure any more.

 We thank everyone involved for their continued efforts, hard work and support at a challenging time.

 Whilst the steering group is ongoing, we wanted to get the parent forum back up and running so we can build relationships with other parents, new parents and give feedback on what is happening at nursery.

Ofsted

 We had our last Ofsted inspection on 8th May 2017 and achieved a rating of Good in all areas. The report was very encouraging and the Ofsted inspector said that we provide a smooth running setting, baby’s pave the way as it offers a nurturing environment and paves the way for children going into Daisys and then on to preschool.  Two very committed and dedicated managers, Sarah is skilful and knowledgeable and the team is a credit to her. Sarah’s commitment is fantastic and this is reflected in the staff team and the processes, there have been massive changes to nursery as well as for Sarah herself but this has not had a negative impact and Sarah is inspirational.  The SEF is one of the best she has ever read and she really liked how reflective this was. We know where we are, we know where we want to be, we know how to get there but we also know it will take time.  Our reporting strategies (planning/profiles/assessments) are excellent and we should not rush into making any changes to include ‘in the moment planning’ as we are already reflecting these through our strategies. Teachable moments are on-  5 minutes daily is very effective and fantastic and our work towards this should continue  There is great value on our partnership with parents, the praised we received from the parents she spoke to was extremely good. In fact one parent became very emotional when reflecting on our service which is something she has not seen before.  Throughout her inspection Katie explained that she had observed quality teaching in all areas, lovely examples throughout nursery, excellent teaching. She particularity enjoyed the outdoor play lead by Adele, the story time lead by Adele, Lakhy’ s activity and the baby rooms nurturing environment with staff being very responsive to the baby’s needs. She praised Lakhy and said his teaching was excellent as he was very animated  She highlighted my point on needed to replenish our resources but explained that yes new resources are always nice however none of our children are missing out by this and it’s not having a negative impact on the children as the staff team and providing excellent teaching moments and using what we have effectively. She said that interactions throughout nursery were of high standard and good questioning was observed.  We are achieving very good outcomes for all or children and the characteristics of play are reflected.  She said throughout the setting she observed praise and encouragement continuously i.e. good listening, lovely sharing etc. she said for the smallest thing praise was given and this is effective and supports positive behaviour  There are seamless transitions throughout the setting and this is evident in practice - from planning/profiles/children’s behaviour etc.

Ofsted Recommendations

 To link our all about me book to our initial baseline as parents should be involved with the baseline (new all about me book)  To reduce distractions, whilst observing Adele’s story time she observed that the door opened and shut with a bang 7 times which distracted the children from the story (learning opportunity). She discussed this in length with Amanda and Sarah and asked why story times were so important they explained and she agreed so said this is why we need to make them distraction free. We explained that we would develop a ‘shush story in session sign’ she really liked this idea and said that’s it as simple as that and that will solve the problem. – This is being developed along with a policy and will be a practice in nursery very soon.

Nursery Library

 In the main nursery we have currently developing and revamping the library area, we have introduced a range on song bags and story sacks that can be taken home. This is to try and promote communication and language development and promote children’s love of books. We would love your views on how we can make this more inviting, informatics, how to present the story bags…

Parental Home Observations

 We have devised some new home observation sheets these are located on the parent engagement board in the main entrance. If you would like to write down observations on your child’s language or any aspect of development these can contribute to your child’s developmental profile.

Parental consultations

We are offering all parents the opportunity to engage in a parental consultation with their child’s keyperson. These run throughout the year and we will try our very best to accommodate a date and time to suit your individual requirements. Please see you child’s keyperson for more information. – How can we effectively communicate this to other parents within the setting?

Routine/Activities

There has been a slight change in nursery routine e.g. breakfast served from 7.45-8.45 and a dance and movement session introduced before lunch. Each room plans activities at the end of the week for the following week based on children’s interests and next steps as outlined in the EYFS. However, if a child changes direction of an activity the child’s lead is followed (in the moment, teachable moments).

Sometimes a themed week may be introduced if many children are showing a particular interest or if it is observed that many children require support in a particular area (e.g. Sweetpeas road safety).

Each room engages in circle time twice a day (am/pm) and these are planned for in line with the weekly planning. We also do group time sessions twice weekly but these are under review – we feel that we are breaking the children’s day up too much, would you agree?

We have recently trialled in baby room the use of slippers indoors and are thinking about possibly rolling this out in other units – what are your thoughts?

Sleep times have changed; we now open up the shutters at 1.30ish to allow the children who do not asleep to have full use of the activities on offer earlier whilst those that require a rest can do so. This is working well.

Links With China

 We have been having meetings with Xuena Lu (Louise) an International Business Development Director and are currently working with ‘Bliss’ which is the first international bilingual nursery in Jingzhou, Hubei Province, central China.

 Sarah and Amanda flew to China on 20th June 2017 for the first visit and it is hoped that this will continue perhaps, a couple of times per year where staff from nursery can fly to the setting in China and staff from China will come over to work here.

 Feedback from Sarah/Amanda

 It is hoped that all senior staff (Amanda, Claire, Adele, Fahrat) will have the opportunity to be involved initially, before possibly opening the opportunity to all practitioners that may be interested in being involved.

 We would like to share practice, planning ideas, compare provision and learn from the different methods of teaching from each setting.

 We feel that this is a unique and exciting opportunity and we are looking forward to working with others internationally.

 We will keep you updated on the progress in due course.

Parent Forum Members

 Any ideas on how to encourage more parents to join the forum?

 Do we prefer day time gatherings or late afternoons (6pm)?

Next Forum: