DESCRIPTION

Welcome to the Sunny Smiles Children's Nursery. We are a Day Nursery open from September till end of June per year and we accept children between the ages of 2 months and 4 years. Our opening times are from 6:30a.m to 3:00p.m Sunday to Thursday. Children can enrol for from 2 days a week to 5 days a week and can be dropped anytime between 6:30a.m and 2:00p.m. We follow a mix of formal and informal curriculum to suite the stage of children.

Aims and Goals

Our primary goal is to ensure that we provide the highest quality childcare that is both accessible and affordable. Our nursery will differentiate itself by a passionate attention to detail in everything we do underpinned by our quality programme.

Your children will be safe, loved and stimulated in an efficient, well maintained and above all homely environment. We will promote a healthy understanding and respect for natural values in all aspects of the nursery.

Above all, we want your children to leave our nursery with the confidence and skills to help them meet the challenges that lie ahead in the school system and beyond. We passionately believe this to be a joint effort between the nursery and parents and to that end we will promote the right environment for that partnership to succeed.

Policies & Procedures

A successful nursery is combination of skilled and caring people with efficient and effective policies. We acknowledge that our policies and procedures are fundamental to ensuring we maintain the highest standards at all times. Some of the policies are briefly detailed below;

Settling in Procedure

The settling of a parent and child into nursery life is a very important process. Both the parents and the child should be given time to settle into the new environment.
We can arrange 3 sessions lasting 1-2 hours each. During these sessions we will encourage you to leave your child for a short time with our staff.

Behaviour Management

The Nursery firmly believes in a positive approach to managing behaviour. We aim to actively encourage children to be helpful, polite, caring and understanding to each other, and the adults in their environment. Children must be encouraged to recognise that bullying, fighting and hurting are not acceptable behaviour.
Staff must adhere to the following points:
•Never use any form of physical punishment or restraint.
•Staff should use a gentle calm tone, especially when dealing with unacceptable behaviour.
•Staff must demonstrate a good standard of behaviour at all times as they represent role models to your children.

Collecting children from the nursery

•When beginning at the nursery parents must provide photographs of all authorised adults that will be collecting their child.
•Any parent/carer who wishes for someone other than themselves to collect their child must inform us prior to the person arriving, giving us ID Number of the person.
•Staff members will ask the person who they have come to collect and also request to show the ID card.

Curriculum

The nursery's curriculum will be both formal and informal. We assess the children by stage, not by age, so every child can fulfil his or her potential. It will be broadly broken down into two areas:

*Care for children aged 18 months to 3 years
*Curriculum for children aged 3-4 years - based around the six areas of learning.

Children Aged 18 months - 3 years

The curriculum for the very young will promote the following:

A Strong Child

-Me, Myself and I
-Being Acknowledged and Affirmed
-Developing Self-assurance
-A Sense of Belonging

A Skilful Communicator

-Being Together
-Finding a Voice
-Listening and Responding
-Making Meaning

A Competent Learner

-Making Connections
-Being Imaginative
-Being Creative
-Representing

A Healthy Child

-Emotional Well-being
-Growing and Developing
-Keeping Safe
-Healthy Choices

Children Aged 3+ years

Using techniques of learning through play, the children will be encouraged to accomplish the 'six early learning goals' for all children approaching pre-school age. These areas of learning are:

*Communication, Language and Literacy
*Personal, Social and Emotional
*Mathematics
*Knowledge and Understanding of the World
*Physical Development
*Creative Development

Through the curriculum and policy objectives, the nursery will seek to achieve the following:

-To encourage language and communication with other children and adults.
-To teach each child about sharing and being part of a group.
-To help each child with understanding the basic concepts of mathematics, including length, weight and volume.
-To teach children about their five senses and how to use them.
-To help children recognise and identify shapes, colours and sounds.
-To help children understand their own bodies.
-To provide a greater understanding of other parts of the world
-To teach children to respect themselves and others.
-To instil in each child the skill and co-ordination required to control writing tools and basic literacy.
-To encourage each child to persevere, without fearing being wrong.
-To encourage each child to be kind and compassionate to others.
-To encourage children to control their emotions and learn to express themselves appropriately.
-To allow each child to learn through fun and pleasurable activities.