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Welcome to Sticky Fingers Pre-school

We know how important your child is and aim to deliver the highest quality of care and education to help them to achieve their best.

Here is an introduction to our approach to supporting your child’s learning and development and how we aim to work together with you to best meet your child’s individual needs. 

Our pre-school's aim to:

  • provide high quality care and education for children

  • work in partnership with parents to help children to learn and develop

  • add to the life and well-being of the local community

  • offer children and their parents a service that promotes equality and values diversity

Parents

You are regarded as members of our setting who have full participatory rights. These include a right to be:

  • valued and respected

  • kept informed

  • consulted

  • involved

  • included at all levels

How parents take part in the setting

Our settings recognise parents as the first and most important educators of their children. All our staff see themselves as partners with parents in providing care and education for their children.

There are many ways in which parents take part in making our setting a welcoming and stimulating place for children and parents, such as:

  • exchanging knowledge about their children's needs, activities, interests and progress with our staff

  • contributing to the progress check at age two

  • helping at sessions of the setting

  • sharing their own special interests with the children

  • helping to provide and look after the equipment and materials used in the children's play activities

  • being part of the management of the setting, where appropriate

  • taking part in events and informal discussions about the activities and curriculum provided by the setting

  • joining in community activities, in which the setting takes part

  • building friendships with other parents in the setting

 

Joining in

We are a committee based preschool with members of the committee being past or present parents. We hold regular committee meetings and stay and play sessions to discuss the parents/young people's ideas and feedback on what we do well and how we could improve. 

We also hold half termly parent events in the settings, this gives families the opportunities to explore the setting with their child, join in with activities and speak with staff informally. We ensure that all members of the family feel valued and plan events such as Dad’s, uncles and grandad’s (DUGS) day and grandparents day. 

We also have an open door policy for parents to stay and play, we have a rota which parents can join if they would like to help at a particular session or sessions of the setting. Helping at the session enables parents to see what the day-to-day life of our setting is like and to join in helping the children to get the best out of their activities.

 and encourage our community to be involved in the settings to share their interests, culture and talents with the children to provide new experiences. This could be through coming in to read stories, dancing with the children or speaking about their job.

We also ask parents to fill out questionnaires about the pre-school giving their opinions and views on how they think their child is learning and developing, their views of the settings, what we do well and what we could do better. We encourage all parents to provide us with honest feedback.

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Working together for your children

We maintain the ratio of adults to children in the setting that is set by the Safeguarding and Welfare Requirements. This helps us to:

  • give time and attention to each child

  • talk with the children about their interests and activities

  • help children to experience and benefit from the activities we provide

  • Allow the children to explore and be adventurous in safety​

See our local offer for more information about how our settings support children in their families

 

Safeguarding​

Our settings have a duty under the law to help safeguard children against suspected or actual ‘significant harm’. Our employment practices ensure that people looking after children are suitable to fulfil the requirements of their role and help to protect children against the likelihood of abuse in our setting and we have a procedure for managing complaints or allegations against a member of staff.

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Our way of working with children and their parents ensures that we are aware of any problems that may emerge and can offer support, including referral to appropriate agencies when necessary, to help families in difficulty.

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In all of our settings, the lead practitioner and deputy are the designated safeguarding lead (DSL) and deputy designated safeguarding lead, responsible for coordinating action taken by the setting to safeguard vulnerable children and adults. All concerns about the welfare of children in the setting should be reported to the designated safeguarding lead (DSL) and deputy designated safeguarding lead.

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All of our staff recognise and know how to respond to signs and symptoms that may indicate a child is suffering from or likely to be suffering from harm through regular training. They understand that they have a responsibility to act immediately by discussing their concerns with the designated safeguarding lead or deputy designated safeguarding lead in the lead's absense. In all of our settings, the lead practitioner and deputy are the designated safeguarding lead (DSL) and deputy designated safeguarding lead, responsible for coordinating action taken by the setting to safeguard vulnerable children and adults. All concerns about the welfare of children in the setting should be reported to the designated safeguarding lead (DSL) and deputy designated safeguarding lead.

See our Safeguarding policy for more information

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Information we hold about you and your child

We have procedures in place for the recording and sharing of information [data] about you and your child that is compliant with the principles of the General Data Protection Regulations (2018) as follows:

The data is collect is:

  1. processed fairly, lawfully and in a transparent manner in relation to the data subject [you and your family]

  2. collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and not further processed for other purposes incompatible with those purposes

  3. adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary in relation to the purposes for which data is processed

  4. accurate and, where necessary, kept up-to-date

  5. kept in a form that permits identification of data subjects [you and your family] for no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which the personal data is processed

  6. processed in a way that ensures appropriate security of the personal data including protection against unauthorised or unlawful processing and against accidental loss, destruction or damage, using appropriate technical or organisational measures

When you register your child with us, we will provide you with a privacy notice that gives you further details of how we fulfil our obligations with regard to your data.

Adult and child

Key person and your child

Our settings use a key person approach. This means that each member of staff has a group of children for whom she/he is particularly responsible. Your child's key person will be the person who works with you to make sure that the childcare and early education that we provide is right for your child's particular needs and interests. When your child first starts at the setting, she/he will help your child to settle and throughout your child's time at the setting, she/he will help your child to benefit from our activities. 

We have a key person buddy system. Each key person has a buddy (another member of staff) and as a buddy group, key people will work closely to understand the needs of every child within the group to ensure that in the absence of your child’s key person we can maintain consistency of care and continue to promote learning and development based on your child’s individual needs.

Timetable and routines

Our settings believe that care and education are equally important in the experience which we offer children. The routines and activities that make up the day in our setting are provided in ways that:

  • help each child to feel that she/he is a valued member of the setting

  • ensure the safety of each child

  • help children to gain from the social experience of being part of a group

  • provide children with opportunities to learn and help them to value learning

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We organise our sessions so that the children can take part in a variety of child-chosen and adult-led activities during free play. They can choose from, and work at, a range of activities and, in doing so, build up their ability to select and work through a task, giving them opportunities to explore and are supported to extend their learning and development. 

The children are also helped and encouraged to take part in adult-led small and large group activities, which introduce them to new experiences and help them to gain new skills, as well as helping them to learn to work with others. We have free flow access to the outdoor area for most of the session where our outside areas mimic our inside environment to support those children who learn best outdoors. Outdoor activities contribute to all areas of learning and development, including their health and their knowledge of the world around them. 

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See our settings individual pages for their daily routine.

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