Policies and Procedures
Welcome to Little Angels Day Nursery. We understand and appreciate the importance and difficulty of making the right choice of childcare for both you and your child.
Little Angels Day nursery first opened in 2004. We are in a purpose built building which is situated alongside the Community Resource Centre.
At Little Angels, we will aim to make the decision easier by providing high quality affordable childcare in a safe, secure and stimulating environment.
We can cater for up to 99 children on a term time basis. We have three rooms which consist of:
Baby Room for babies aged 6weeks- 2 years which is called Baby Angels
Toddler Room for our 2- 3 year olds which is called Rising Angels
Preschool room for our 3-4 year olds which is called Flying Angels
Our operating times are Monday to Friday 8am to 6pm all year round. We close for all bank holidays. For 2, 3, 4 year funded children we operate the same term dates as Coventry City Council. You will be made aware of half term holidays as well as 5 staff development days in advance.
Intent
At Little Angels Day Nursery, we encourage child initiated play and help scaffold their learning and development and provide a confident and positive attitude towards learning. We also provide planned, focused, adult led activities in order to enhance expand and develop children’s learning and curiosity in the environment around them. We work according to the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), with emphasis placed on Personal, Social and Emotional development, Physical Development and Communication and Language. We actively promote and teach children British Values by incorporating the values into their play and learning whilst also focusing on cultural capital by providing a variety of learning experiences which enables children to investigate and widen their development and understanding.
Settling In
We recognise and understand the anxieties for both parents and children when starting nursery. Some children will settle in on their first visit whilst others may take a little longer to adjust to a new environment. In order to support you and your child when settling in, the nursery manager will contact you before your child’s start date to arrange a convenient time for the first settling in session. The number of settling in sessions will then be discussed and agreed with you during your first visit. During the settling in sessions, your child’s key person will discuss with you your child’s needs, likes/dislikes, favourite foods, sleep patterns, routines, etc. This information will enable us to cater for your child’s individual needs and assist in the settling in process.
- 1st session The parent/carer stays with the child for the 1 hour within the nursery room.
- 2nd Session The parent/carer will stay with their child for 30 minutes and then leave the child with the key worker for 30 minutes.
- 3rd Session The parent/carer will leave the child in the room with their key worker for 1 hour.
If the child gets upset then the staff will contact the parent/ carer.
Will my child need extra settling in sessions if they are still upset?
Practitioners will discuss with you how best to manage your child’s transition into Nursery, using the last settling in session as an indicator. For example your child may need regular short visits prior to their start date if they were very upset so they may adapt to the new environment with confidence. Each child entering the nursery will be treated as an individual and the transition will be adapted to meet their needs.
Some children may require extra additional support on a one-to-one basis. The staff will devise a support plan after observing the child which will be shared with the parents. The key worker will discuss and asses the childs needs with the room leader and parents. If the child needs a long-term slow transition/ settling in, for example if the child will benefit from attending 1 to 2 hours so we are able to offer one to one focused support for the hour. The parent/ carers are also welcome to come in for a play and stay session until we feel the child does not require one to one support and is able to explore the nursery environment and feels comfortable. The reduction in hours will only be put into place for the best interest of the child after assessing their individual needs.
The Key Person/worker Approach
You will often hear the phrase ‘key person’ in the nursery. Whilst the children are cared for in groups, it is important that we meet the individual needs of your child and ensure that he/she has an opportunity to bond with one ‘special person’ at the nursery. It is also important that you have a specific person whom you can get to know and share information with about your child. Each child is assigned a key person at the settling in stage. It is their role to share information with you about your child and ensure that your child’s individual needs are being met. The key person will observe your child and plan for his/her learning and development and make assessments on progress. In the event that your child’s key person is not available or is absent, we have a ‘buddy system’ which is an allocated staff member who will continue with your child’s observations and focus activities in their absence. You will be notified of the key person’s buddy, which is also displayed outside of the rooms on the key group list.
Parent Partnership
We aim to make your child’s early years experiences as positive as possible. In order to achieve this, it is important that we communicate effectively with you and build positive relationships between you and the nursery team. We do this by:
- Nursery Planning – Parents are encouraged to look at the nursery planning and add their thoughts as well as anything exciting the child might have done at home (parents voice).
- Wow moments – We are aware that children do a lot of learning at home, therefore we would love to hear from you when you see them doing something that makes you proud. We have introduced ‘WOW’ slips; these offer a chance for you to share with us things that your child achieves at home. If you see them doing something that makes you think WOW then write it down and get a photo if you can. You can email us the photo at [email protected] and we will print and add to your child’s learning journal.
- Home Learning –Your child’s key person will regularly share with you what your child’s next steps are for the term and will ask you to support this at home through discussions and ideas by conducting termly parents meetings
Transition from Nursery to School
Parents are responsible for notifying the staff if their child is going to be starting a new school. This is so the staff can complete the relevant paper work and include them in the end of year graduation ceremony which takes place in July.
We plan activities focused upon the transition to school that aim to help prepare children for the transition and also gives them an opportunity to talk about their experiences alongside their peers.
The child’s Key Person will complete a School readiness form, End of term summary report is completed and all information will be shared with the parents. The key worker will hand over their childs learning journal. The parents are encouraged to share this with their childs new school.
Paid Sessions
Paying parents must read and sign the nursery contract to ensure that they have fully read and understood the terms and conditions. Please speak to the nursery manager if you have any questions. Below are some which are addressed within the contract:
- Fees are invoiced monthly in advance and are due for payment before the end of the month. Cash payments will receive a receipt immediately whereas online transfers will be receipted the following month.
- You will be charged for each session that you have booked, regardless of whether your child attends. Refunds or replacement sessions cannot be given for unattended sessions and booked sessions cannot be swapped for alternative sessions.
- The nursery is closed on all bank holidays and closes at 12pm on Christmas Eve and New Years Eve. Fees will be charged as normal for these days, other than the two 12pm closures that we will notify you of during the year.
- If Management decide to increase the nursery fees then you will receive at least one month’s notice of any changes.
Notice Period
One month’s written notice is required to cancel your child’s nursery place or reduce sessions. If insufficient notice is given, you will be liable to pay fees in lieu of notice.
Funding for nursery children
If your child is eligible for funding through the Government, we will require you to fill out a funding agreement form which enables us to recognise which funding each child receives, the form will consist of your details along with a signature required for each term your child attends.
All children are entitled to up to 15 hours of free early education per week during term time from the beginning of the term after their third birthday until they either go into a reception class or reach compulsory school age (the term following their fifth birthday). The free early education place provides for up to 15/30 hours per week of free early education during term time, which is usually 38 weeks. Nursery management will discuss available sessions with you. The nursery is unable to spread the 30 hour funding all year round and it will only be for term time.
We also take 2 year funded children for 15 hours a week term time only. Nursery management will discuss available sessions with you.
Please be advised we only cater funded hours in the following sessions: 9am – 12pm or 12.30pm – 3.30pm (for 15hours) or 9am – 3pm (for 30 hours).
Nursery Policies and Procedures
This booklet provides you with an outline of the most important policies and procedures that concern your child whilst in our care. The full set of policies and procedures are available from the nursery office. You are welcome to request to view any policies and procedures.
Communication
Daily feedback about your child’s day at nursery is provided through daily/weekly diaries, and/or verbal feedback, depending on your child’s age. Please feel free to discuss any issues with your child’s key person at any time. A concern can often be easily resolved by talking about it at an early stage. In addition, the nursery manager should be able to address any concerns that you may have.
Drop off/pick up policy
A child will only be released into the care of their parents/guardians or other authorised persons that have been put onto the registration form. If you wish to authorise others to collect your child from nursery, you must name the individual on your child’s nursery registration form and a password will also be required, the individual must be able to state the details which you have provided on the registration form to prove their identity. If an unauthorised person comes to collect your child, we will endeavour to contact you if you have not already done so. The individual will be asked their name and the password that has been set by you. If we have any doubts, then your child will not be released. Children are to be dropped off at their session time.
Late pickup of child policy
Little Angels Day nursery adhere to a strict adult/child ratio. If a child is picked up late repeatedly, we will initiate the following procedure:
- 1 warning will be given the first time late
- After the first warning parents will be charged £5 per 5 minutes late
- With repeated lateness a meeting will be held with parent to find out the cause of lateness and any support we can put in place. You will be asked to book your child in for an extra hours session at £7 per hour which will be invoiced at the beginning of each month
- Refusal to book the extra hour session and repeated lateness continuing may lead to termination of your child’s nursery place.
Uncollected Child policy
If a child has not been collected from the nursery after a reasonable amount of time (30 minutes has been allowed for lateness), we initiate the following procedure:
- The manager will check for any information regarding changes to normal routines, parents’ work patterns or general information. If there is no information recorded, the manager will try to contact the parents on the telephone numbers provided for their mobile, home or work. If this fails the manager will try the emergency contacts shown on the child’s records
- The manager/staff member in charge and one other member of staff must stay behind with the child (if outside normal operating hours). During normal operating times, the nursery will plan to meet required staff ratios. If the parents have still not collected the child, the manager will telephone all contact numbers available every 10 minutes until contact is made. These calls will be logged on a full incident record
- In the event of no contact being made after one hour has lapsed, the person in charge will ring the local authority children’s social services emergency duty team.
- The nursery will inform Ofsted as soon as convenient.
- The two members of staff will remain in the building until suitable arrangements have been made for the collection of the child.
- The child’s welfare and needs will be met at all times and to minimise distress staff will distract, comfort and reassure the child during the process.
- In order to provide this additional care a late fee of [£5 for every 5 minutes] will be charged to parents. This will pay for any additional operational costs that caring for a child outside their normal nursery hours may incur.
If no-one collects the child within one hour of their expected collection time and there is no-one who can be contacted to collect the child, we will apply the procedures for uncollected children.
The nursery manager or a member of the senior management team will contact the local authority children’s social care team.
Safeguarding Children Policy
Safeguarding the children in our care is of high importance to us. More detailed information can be found in our safeguarding children policies, procedures and guidelines. However, we would like to draw your attention to our responsibilities within this:
- The setting will promote the ethos of: ‘Safeguarding is everyone’s business’
- All staff members, students and volunteers must be aware of the possible indications of abuse or neglect and of the procedure for dealing with suspected cases.
- All staff and volunteers must keep a professional relationship with parents. Boundaries must not be blurred through friendship networks amongst staff and parents e.g. babysitting, Facebook friends.
- All staff and volunteers are carefully recruited.
Abuse
We acknowledge that abuse of children can take place in different forms – physical, emotional, and sexual, as well as neglect. When children are suffering from physical, sexual or emotional abuse, or may be experiencing neglect, this may be demonstrated through:
- significant changes in their behaviour
- deterioration in their general well-being;
- Comments which may give cause for concern, or the things they say (direct or indirect disclosure)
- changes in their appearance, their behaviour, or their play
- unexplained bruising
- marks or signs of possible abuse or neglect
- Any reason to suspect neglect or abuse outside the setting.
We take into account factors affecting parental capacity, such as social exclusion, domestic violence, parent’s drug or alcohol abuse, mental or physical illness or parent’s learning disability.
We are aware of other factors that affect children’s vulnerability such as abuse of disabled children, fabricated or induced illness, child abuse linked to beliefs in spirit possession, sexual exploitation of children such as through internet abuse and Female Genital Mutilation that may affect or may have affected children and young people using our provision.
We also make ourselves aware that some children and young people are affected by gang activity, by complex, multiple or organised abuse, through forced marriage or honour based violence or may be victims of child trafficking. While this may be less likely to affect young children in our care we may become aware of any of these factors affecting older children and young people who we may come into contact with.
Where we believe a child in our care or known to us may be affected by any of these factors we follow the procedure for reporting child protection concerns.
Where such evidence is apparent, nursery practitioners will
- Makes a dated record of the details of the concern on a ‘running record’ sheet and discusses what to do with the ‘designated safeguarding lead’. The information is stored on the child’s personal file.
- In the case of suspected abuse or neglect, we may be required to contact MASH, in some cases we require your consent in order to do so. We will contact you if this is the case and continue with the investigation.
- We refer concerns to the Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) and co-operate fully in any subsequent investigation. This may escalate to the local authority children’s social care department and in some cases this may mean the police or another agency identified by the Local Safeguarding Children’s Board.
- We take care not to influence the outcome either through the way we speak to children or by asking questions of children.
- We take account of the need to protect young people aged 16-19 as defined by the Children Act 1989. This may include students or school children on work placement, young employees or young parents. Where abuse is suspected we follow the procedure for reporting any other child protection concerns.
- The views of the young person (16-19) will always be taken into account, but the setting may override the young person’s refusal to consent to share information if it feels that it is necessary to prevent a crime from being committed or intervene where one may have been, or to prevent harm to a child or adult. Sharing confidential information without consent is done only where not sharing it could be worse than the outcome of having shared it. Recording suspicions of abuse and disclosures.
Roles And Responsibilities
The Ofsted ‘Registered Person’ named on page one of this booklet has overall legal responsibility for safeguarding. If concerns relate to the ‘Registered Company’, Ofsted and the LADO should be contacted through their whistle-blowing policy.
- The Lead Person for safeguarding is Razwana Mukhtar (nursery manager) and Komal Mahmood (deputy manager), both are Designated Safeguarding Leaders. Safeguarding concerns relating to allegations against staff and volunteers should be reported to Razwana or Komal and recorded. If the concerns relate to the DSL’s, then the Registered Person (owner, Chair of Committee, Company Director, etc) should be contacted.
- The DSL will usually be responsible for passing on concerns, or making referrals, to the Referral and Assessment Team. In their absence the next most senior member of staff on will assume responsibility
- The Designated safeguarding lead person will contact the Children’s Social Care Referral and Assessment Team to either discuss a concern or report an incident.
- The timing of referrals will reflect the level of perceived risk and will always be within one working day of recognition of risk.
- All referrals made verbally must be confirmed in writing by the referrer within 24 hours (the next section defines how records will be kept).
- Any allegation or concern about a member of staff or volunteer must be reported immediately to Ofsted and the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) by DSL.
Record Keeping and Records Management
In line with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) all records will be held confidentially but will be shared with other agencies, e.g. MASH, the police, Children’s Social Care, Ofsted, if needed, as this assists ongoing investigation. Records will be held for a reasonable period of time after children or staff members have left the provision in case they are needed for any future investigation.
The Nursery has a safeguarding information file which holds all relevant information regarding the Safeguarding of children which is updated regularly
For the full Safeguarding policy please see nursery policy and procedures folder
Administration of medication
In many cases, it is possible for children’s GP’s to prescribe medicine that can be taken at home in the morning and evening. As far as possible, administering medicines will only be done where it would be detrimental to the child’s health if not given in the setting. If a child has not had a medication before, especially a baby/child under two, it is advised that the parent keeps the child at home for the first 24 hours to ensure no adverse effect as well as to give time for the medication to take effect.
- Children taking prescribed medication must be well enough to attend the setting.
- Only medication prescribed by a doctor (or other medically qualified person) is administered and a medication form must be completed prior to this. The medication must be in-date and prescribed for the current condition (medicines containing aspirin will only be given if prescribed by a doctor). The first dose of any prescribed medication must be given at home prior to the child attending the setting.
- The only other medication we are able to administer other than prescription based, is Calpol.
- Paracetamol is administered ONLY for children with the written consent of the parents in the case of a high temperature. This is to prevent febrile convulsion and where a parent or named person is on their way to collect the child. Paracetamol will be administered according to the guidelines written on the bottle and it must be an unopened bottle brought into the setting or nursery bottle will be used. Consent is required at the time of registration.
- Children’s prescribed medicines are stored in their original containers, are clearly labelled and are placed in a locked First Aid unit in the nursery office to make them inaccessible to the children. These are handed back to the parents/carer after they finished the session.
- At no time should the medication form be completed in pencil but it always needs to be completed in pen.
- No Medication should be left in children’s bags
Food and drink/Packed lunches
We follow these procedures to promote healthy eating in our nursery.
- Before a child starts to attend the setting, we ask their parents about their dietary needs and preferences, including any allergies. (See the Managing Children who are Sick, Infectious or with Allergies policy.)
- We record information about each child’s dietary needs in the registration form and parents sign the form to signify that it is correct.
- Parents must inform the staff about any allergies their child has, a care plan will then be put in place and if new allergies occur, parent’s must inform the setting immediately and sign the up-to-date record to signify it is correct.
- We display current information about individual children’s dietary needs so that all staff and volunteers are fully informed about them.
- We provide nutritious food for all meals and snacks, avoiding large quantities of saturated fat, sugar and salt and artificial additives, preservatives and colourings.
- We include a variety of foods from the four main food groups:
- Fish and protein (meat) alternatives;
- Dairy foods;
- Grains, cereals and starch vegetables; and
- Fruit and vegetables.
- We include foods from the diet of each of the children’s cultural backgrounds, providing children with familiar foods and introducing them to new ones.
- We are a nut free nursery and therefore do not provide food containing nuts or nut products and are especially vigilant where we have a child who has a known allergy to nuts.
- Through discussion with parents and research reading by staff, we obtain information about the dietary rules of religious groups to which children and their parents belong, and of vegetarians and vegans.
Packed lunches
Where parents decide to provide a packed lunch for their child to have whilst at nursery, we:
- Ensure perishable contents of packed lunches are refrigerated or contain an ice pack to keep food cool;
- Inform parents of our policy of healthy eating;
- Encourage parents to provide sandwiches with a healthy filling, fruit and milk based desserts, such as yoghurt, as we can only provide cold food from home. We discourage sweet drinks and can provide children with water or milk
- Discourage packed lunch contents that consist largely of crisps, processed foods, sweet drinks and sweet products such as cakes or biscuits. We reserve the right to return this food to the parent as a last resort;
- We provide children bringing packed lunches with plates, cups and cutlery.
- Water or drinks provided from home must be in a sealed bottle. We do not accept any opened bottles of drink from home, however we welcome parent’s to provide an empty bottle which we will fill with water.
We do not accept prepared milk from home; instead we will prepare any formula milk provided by parents, parents must bring in a sealed tin of powdered milk which is kept and stored at nursery for 30 days once tin has been opened, the staff will notify parents in advance when they require another tin.
Unacceptable behaviour by parents/carers/visitors on nursery premises
If any parent/carer or visitor behaves in an unacceptable way within the Nursery premises i.e. shouting, swearing, violence or any other abusive behaviour including degrading staff or other individuals, will result in the person being excluded from the premises. If we feel the behaviour is persistent or has been, we will terminate the child’s place at the setting and issue this via email.
Any member of staff/parent/carer visitor who witnesses any unacceptable behaviour must report it to the Manager immediately and who will deal with the offending person in the appropriate manner. These procedures are in place to ensure the well-being of staff, parents and everyone else involved. We act according to our policies to ensure the environment is ethical and respectful where everyone feels at ease.
We reserve the right to exclude anyone who does not comply with our Policies and Procedures.
Nursery Parking space and policy
Please park in the designated, short-term spaces in the parking lot when coming to the nursery. These spaces are located directly in front of our building and to the Northwest side of our building. When parked, please keep in mind the following:
- Do not leave your engine running.
- Do not leave children in your car unattended.
- Hold your child(s) hand when walking to and from the nursery.
- Be alert at all times to moving vehicles.
- Park only in designated parking spaces.
- Please do not park in the disabled parking spaces, unless you have a badge to state you are required or entitled to do so.
No liability is accepted by the nursery or any member of its staff for personal property brought into the nursery. Any person using the nursery car park does so at his/her own risk, as loss of or damage to any vehicle or other property driven or left thereon.
Thankyou for choosing Little Angels Day Nursery. We hope that your child enjoys their time here and together we can meet their learning and development needs.