Dear Parents,

Welcome, all 4 Street families to our summer newsletter. Our newsletter is one of the ways in which we like to pass on information to our parents about the nursery. If you have anything you would like us to include in our next newsletter please feel free to see me.

Welcome to new families

We would like to welcome all new families to the nursery.

Staffing News

We have unfortunately said goodbye to Gemma Miller who has moved onto a school setting. She has always aspired to Teacher Training and this will give her the opportunity to see if this is the career path she wishes to follow. We wish her every luck and success. Gemma has requested to stay working on our casual bank of staff, so we will continue to stay in contact with her.

As your aware the nursery has a robust probationary and induction period for new staff. Hanna O’Brien will not be staying with the nursery as there were a few areas of her performance that did not meet our high standards.

Katie, the Nursery Manager at Northwood Nursery and I have been busy recruiting. We have had some strong candidates and will keep you updated with our progress.

We are also extremely pleased and hopeful that Eileen Crewe may be returning to work after her illness and treatment. The doctor has agreed that she is now fit to return to work, although this will initially be for only a few hours in a week. This is extremely exciting for Eileen as she has very much missed working at 4 Street Nursery.

Staff Training

The full staff team has recently attended a training day on the “Early Years Foundation stage”

This consisted of 3 workshops sessions. The first delivered by Pam on “Putting the principles into Practice” The second was delivered by Katie on the new “Welfare Requirements” and the third by myself on “The planning and assessment cycle.” This completes a third training session this year or this newly implemented document.

Fundraising

We recently supported Jeans for Genes day at the nursery. Children and staff were encouraged to wear Jeans and donate £1.00 for a zip pull. We are please to inform you that we sent off a cheque for just under £50.00 to this worthy cause. Once again I thank you for your support.

Parents Evening

Thank you to all the parents who attended this successful event. We hope you valued your time with your child’s key person. We know from the feedback forms that you valued the training we offered. We must again say a massive thank you to the London Borough of Hillingdon Early Years and Childcare Service, particularly Christine Mustill who provided the training on “Speaking and Listening” Following the training I ordered a copy of the DVD Christine used for every family in the nursery. I hope you find this interesting. If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to discuss them with me. I would also like to thank Dominique and Rhian from our very own staff team who provided two sign a long sessions. Signing is becoming quite an integral part of the nursery and we would welcome your participation in this. To keep up the memento we will be attaching all new signs we are learning as staff to the future newsletter. Pam has now also been assessed and has successfully completed the course. The training sessions overall were so successful I would like to have further opportunities open to parents more regularly throughout the year. If you have any childcare subjects you would find valuable please do not hesitate to contact me with your suggestion. I would also finally like to share with you the sheer pleasure Christine expressed at delivering the training to such an interested group of parents and how highly she commended our relationship as a nursery with our parents. She said she had never before come across such a well attended parents meeting demonstrating the dedication of the nurseries parents to their children’s progression.

Sainsbury’s Active Kids Vouchers

We would like to thank parents for the vouchers that were collected and are pleased to inform you that we have now had our new equipment delivered. We have received a support pack for our parachute, two games to develop the children’s interest and awareness in Healthy Eating, called Greedy Gorilla’s and Tummy Ache, some scoop and catch games along with some large sensory balls for our sensory room.

Fees

Thank you to all parents who gave regard to the recent letter sent on the process for the payment of fees.  

Nursery Policies

We would like to inform you that both Katie Poulton and I have been looking at the nursery policies, and there have been a few changes made and new policies introduced. These will be available for you to familiarise yourselves with in the foyer very soon.

Christmas Closure

We would like to again take this opportunity to remind you of the nursery Christmas closure dates this year.  The nursery will close at 6.00p.m on Tuesday 23^rd December and will reopen at 8.00a.m on Monday 5^th January 2009.

Parents’ Corner

One of the families attending the nursery is looking, with hope, for a recommendation of a good childminder locally. The family has one child attending the nursery and one unfortunately too young at the moment to attend. If you maybe able to offer a recommendation please let me know and I will pass the families details to you.

Kitchen Corner – Around the World Week

This was great success. Thank you to all the families who offered suggestions on recipes. There is a lovely display in the Butterfly room demonstrating the learning journey the children went on during this activity. I must say a big thank you to Michelle and Joan who made this week possible.

Christmas is Coming…

Well as much as we may like to think its not, Christmas is fast approaching. This does however mean we are approaching our “4 Street Spectacular Sing a Long”

This has been an extremely successful nursery event in previous years with popularity and attendance increasing year on year. I have therefore decided that this year we will really get into the Christmas spirit by creating a “Winter Wonderland” in our Nursery garden. Amongst the Winter Wonderland you will be treated to well wrapped up children delighting you with carols and festive songs This event will take place on 16^th December at 4.00pm. This should enable parents with siblings to collect them from school and still attend. I would please ask though that you talk to older children about being very quite and attentive to their younger siblings as they will only have little singing voices! If this time does not fall into yours child’s normal pattern of attendance please feel free to come along with your child and join in the fun. Gloves hats and scarves will be essential, however if we are unfortunate enough to come across rain we will postpone to the following day and if again not successful will unfortunately need to cancel the event. Due to the popularity of the DVD I will endeavor to make arrangements again for this event to be recorded.

Regards

Elaine Caffary

Nursery Manager