Early years setting prospectus

Our setting aims to:

• provide high quality care and education for children primarily below statutory school age
• work in partnership with parents to help children to learn and develop
• add to the life and well-being of its local community
• offer children and their parents a service that promotes equality and values diversity

We aim to ensure that each child:

• is in a safe and stimulating environment
• is given generous care and attention, because of our ratio of qualified staff to children, as well as volunteer parent helpers
• has the chance to join with other children and adults to live, play, work and learn together
• is helped to take forward her/his learning and development by being helped to build on what she/he already knows and can do
• has a personal key person who makes sure each child makes satisfying progress
• is in a setting that sees parents as partners in helping each child to learn and develop
• is in a setting in which parents help to shape the service it offers

Children's development and learning

Children's development and learning is guided by the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework issued by the Sure Start Unit of the Department for Education and Skills. (This document is mandatory with effect from September 2008)

The EYFS aims to provide an integrated approach to Care and Education, removing the false distinction between the two and also aims to help young children achieve the five Every Child Matters outcomes of staying safe, being healthy, enjoying and achieving, making a positive contribution, and achieving economic well-being. Underpinning the framework is a play-based approach to an education programme that supports the development and learning of children from birth to five in all early years settings. In line with the framework we recognise the key influences of parents and families in children's learning and the importance of working in partnership with parents. We plan for individual children to ensure the early identification of their particular needs. Our Setting values diversity in the local community, including recognising the importance of children's home languages.

The EYFS adopts a principled approach that guides our work. The principles are grouped into four distinct but complementary themes as listed below:

A Unique Child recognises that every child is a competent learner from birth who can be resilient, capable, confident and self-assured. The commitments are focused around development; inclusion; safety; and health and well-being.

Positive Relationships describes how children learn to be strong and independent from a base of loving and secure relationships with parents and/or a key person. The commitments are focused around respect; partnership with parents; supporting learning; and the role of the key person.

Enabling Environments explains that the environment plays a key role in supporting and extending children's development and learning. The commitments are focused around observation, assessments and planning; support for every child; the learning environment; and the wider context - transitions, continuity, and multi-agency working.

Learning and Development recognises that children develop and learn in different ways and different rates, and that all areas of learning and development are equally important and inter-connected. The learning and development areas are outlined below:

The Early Years Foundation Stage for children birth to five years

Children start to learn about the world around them from the moment they are born. The care and education offered by our setting helps children to continue to do this by providing all of the children with interesting activities that are appropriate for their age and stage of development.

Personal, social and emotional development

By the end of the EYFS, children should:

• Continue to be interested, excited and motivated to learn.
• Be confident to try new activities, initiate ideas and speak in a familiar group.
• Maintain attention, concentrate, and sit quietly when appropriate.
• Respond to significant experiences, showing a range of feelings when appropriate.
• Have a developing awareness of their own needs, views and feelings, and be sensitive to the needs, views and feelings of others.
• Have a developing respect for their own cultures and beliefs and those of other people.
• Form good relationships with adults and peers.
• Work as part of a group or class, taking turns and sharing fairly, understanding that there needs to be agreed values and codes of behaviour for groups of people, including adults and children, to work together harmoniously.
• Understanding what is right, what is wrong and why.
• Consider the consequences of their words and actions for themselves and others.

• Dress and undress independently and manage their own personal hygiene.
• Select and use activities and resources independently.
• Understand that people have different needs, views, culture and beliefs, that need to be treated with respect.
• Understand that they can expect others to treat their needs, views, cultures and beliefs with respect.

Communication, language and literacy:

By the end of the EYFS, children should:

• Interact with others, negotiating plans and activities and taking turns in conversation.
• Enjoy listening to and using spoken and written language, and readily turn to it in their play and learning.
• Sustain attentive listening, responding to what they have heard with relevant comments, questions or actions.
• Listen with enjoyment, and respond to stories, songs and other music, rhymes and poems and make up their own stories, songs, rhymes and poems.
• Extend their vocabulary, exploring the meanings and sounds of new words.
• Speak clearly and audibly with confidence and control and show awareness of the listener.
• Use language to imagine and recreate roles and experiences.
• Use talk to organise, sequence and clarify thinking, ideas, feelings and events.
• Hear and say sounds in words in the order in which they occur.
• Link sounds to letters, naming and sounding the letters of the alphabet.
• Use their phonic knowledge to write simple regular words and make phonetically plausible attempts at more complex words.
• Explore and experiment with sounds, words and texts.
• Retell narratives in the correct sequence, drawing on language patterns of stories.
• Read a range of familiar and common words and simple sentences independently.
• Know that print carries meaning and, in English, is read from left to right and top to bottom.
• Show an understanding of the elements of stories, such as main character, sequence of events and openings, and how information can be found in non-fiction texts to answer questions about where, who, why and how.
• Attempt writing for different purposes, using features of different forms such as lists, stories and instructions.
• Write their own names and other things such as labels and captions, and begin to form simple sentences, sometimes using punctuation.
• Use a pencil and hold it effectively to form recognisable letters, most of which are correctly formed.

Problem Solving, Reasoning and Numeracy

By the end of the EYFS, children should:

• Say and use number names in order in familiar contexts.
• Count reliably up to ten everyday objects.
• Recognise numerals 1 to 9.
• Use developing mathematical ideas and methods to solve practical problems.
• In practical activities and discussion, begin to use the vocabulary involved in adding and subtracting.
• Use language such as ‘more 'or ‘less 'to compare two numbers.
• Find one more or one less than a number from one to ten.
• Begin to relate addition to combining two groups of objects and subtraction to ‘taking away '.
• Use language such as ‘greater ',‘smaller ',‘heavier 'or ‘lighter 'to compare quantities.
• Talk about, recognise and recreate simple patterns.
• Use language such as ‘circle 'or ‘bigger 'to describe the shape and size of solids and flat shapes.
• Use everyday words to describe position.

Knowledge and understanding of the world

By the end of the EYFS, children should:

• Investigate objects and materials by using all of their senses as appropriate.
• Find out about, and identify, some features of living things, objects and events they observe.
• Look closely at similarities, differences, patterns and change.
• Ask questions about why things happen and how things work.

Physical development

By the end of the EYFS, children should:

• Move with confidence, imagination and in safety.
• Move with control and coordination.
• Travel around, under, over and through balancing and climbing equipment.
• Show awareness of space, of themselves and of others.
• Recognise the importance of keeping healthy, and those things, which contribute to this.
• Recognise the changes that happen to their bodies when they are active.
• Use a range of small and large equipment.
• Handle tools, objects, construction and malleable materials safely and with increasing control.

Creative development

By the end of the EYFS, children should:

• Respond in a variety of ways to what they see, hear, smell, touch and feel.
• Express and communicate their ideas, thoughts and feelings by using a widening range of materials, suitable tools, imaginative and role-play, movement, designing and making, and a variety of songs and musical instruments.
• Explore colour, texture, shape, form and space in two or three dimensions.
• Recognise and explore how sounds can be changed, sing simple songs from memory, recognise repeated sounds and sound patterns and match movements to music.
• Use their imagination in art and design, music, dance, imaginative and role-play and stories.

Play helps young children to learn and develop through doing and talking, which research has shown to be the means by which young children think.  Our setting uses the stepping stones leading to the early learning goals to plan and provide a range of play activities, which help children to make progress in each of the areas of learning and development. In some of these activities children decide how they will use the activity and, in others, an adult takes the lead in helping the children to take part in the activity. In all activities information from the stepping stones and the early learning goals has been used to decide what equipment to provide and how to provide it.

Learning through play

Play helps young children to learn and develop through doing and talking, which research has shown to be the means by which young children learn to think.  Our setting uses the stepping stones leading to the early learning goals to plan and provide a range of play activities which help children to make progress in each of the areas of learning and development. In some of these activities children decide how they will use the activity and, in others, an adult takes the lead in helping the children to take part in the activity. In all activities information from the stepping stones and the early learning goals has been used to decide what equipment to provide and how to provide it.

Assessment

We assess how young children are learning and developing by observing them frequently. We use information that we gain from observations to document their progress and where this may be leading them. We believe that parents know their children best and we ask them to contribute to assessment, sharing information about what their children like to do at home and how parents are supporting development.

Working together for your children

In our setting we maintain the ratio of adults to children in the setting that is set though the National Standards for Under 8s Day Care and Childminding. 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

How parents take part in the setting

As a member of the Pre-school Learning Alliance, our setting recognises parents as the first and most important educators of their children.  All of the staff see themselves as partners with parents in providing care and education for their child. There are many ways in which parents take part in making the setting a welcoming and stimulating place for children and parents, such as:

• exchanging knowledge about their children's needs, activities, interests and progress with the staff
• helping at sessions of the setting
• sharing their own special interests with the children
• taking part in events and informal discussions about the activities and curriculum provided by the setting through the Parent Voice
• joining in community activities in which the setting takes part
• building friendships with other parents in the setting

Key persons and your child

9 Months uses 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 care and education 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 the setting's activities.

Records of achievement

9 Months keeps a record of achievement for each child. Staff and parents working together on their children's records of achievement is one of the ways in which the key person and parents work in partnership. Your child's record of achievement helps us to celebrate together her/his achievements and to work together to provide what your child needs for her/his well-being and to make progress.

Your child's key person will work with you to keep this record. To do this you and she/he will collect information about your child's needs, activities, interests and achievements. This information will enable the key person to identify your child's stage of progress. You and the key person will then decide on how to help your child to move on to the next stage through 6 monthly reports.

Learning opportunities for adults

As well as gaining qualifications in early years care and education, 9 Months staff take part in further training to help them to keep up to date with thinking about early years care and education.

The setting also keeps itself up to date with best practice in early years care and education through the Pre-school Learning Alliance's magazine Under 5 and publications produced by the Pre-school Learning Alliance, Nursery World and EYDCP training courses.

9 Months timetable and routines

Our setting believes that care and education are equally important in the experience which we offer children. The routines and activities that make up the day in 9 Months 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

The Nursery day

9 Months organises the day so that children can take part in a variety of child-chosen and adult-led activities. These take account of children's changing energy levels throughout the day.

The setting caters for children's individual needs for rest and quiet activities during the day.

Outdoor activities contribute to children's health, their physical development and their knowledge of the world around them.

Snacks and meals

9 Months makes snacks and meals a social time at which children and adults eat together. We plan the menus for snacks and meals so that they provide the children with healthy and nutritious food. Do tell us about your child's dietary needs and we will make sure that these are met.

Policies

Copies of the setting's policies and procedures are available for you to see in the office and are also displayed on our website.

9 months policies help us to make sure that the service provided by the setting is a high quality one and that being a member of the setting is an enjoyable and beneficial experience for each child and her/his parents.

The staff all have the opportunity to take part in the annual review of the policies. This review helps us to make sure that the policies are enabling the setting to provide a quality service for its members and the local community.

Special needs

As part of the setting's policy to make sure that its provision meets the needs of each individual child, we take account of any special needs a child may have.

The setting works to the requirements of the Education Act (1993) and The Special Educational Needs Code of Practice (2000).

The setting has a parent support group. This group is made up of parents of the children who attend the setting and is called The Parents Voice.

Fees

The fees are payable monthly in advance. Fees must still be paid if children are absent without notice for a short period of time. If your child has to be absent over a long period of time, talk to the manager.

For your child to keep her/his place at the setting, you must pay the fees.

We are in receipt of nursery education funding for three and four year olds; where funding is not received, then fees apply.

Starting at 9 Months

The first days

We want your child to feel happy and safe with us. To make sure that this is the case, the staff will work with you to decide on how to help your child to settle into the setting. The setting has a policy about helping children to settle into the setting:  a copy is available to see.

Clothing

We provide protective clothing for the children when they play with messy activities.

We encourage children to gain the skills that help them to be independent and look after themselves. These include taking themselves to the toilet and taking off - and putting on - outdoor clothes. Clothing that is easy for them to manage will help them to do this.

We hope that you and your child enjoy being members of 9 Months and that you both find taking part in our activities interesting and stimulating. The staff are always ready and willing to talk with you about your ideas, views or questions.