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

We would like to welcome all new families to the Nursery. We hope you all enjoy your time with us.

Goodbye

We would like to say goodbye to Genevieve who has recently left.

If any other families have a confirmed leaving date for their child, we would appreciate if you could inform Katie or Natalie at your earliest convenience as this will allow us to forward plan. We would like to remind you that we require 4 weeks written notice of your child’s leaving date.

We would like to wish the children who have moved groups continued fun and happiness at the Nursery.

Festivals and Celebrations

Over the following 3 months we will be celebrating the following festivals from around the world: November –  30^th – St. Andrew’s Day, Scotland

          December –  22^nd – Hannukah, Jewish

Information about individual festivals will be displayed with the children’s work in the foyer each month.

If any parents have information or ideas for activities relating to these festivals, we would be very grateful for your input.

Staffing update

As you may be aware the nursery is now almost full on most of our sessions and in line with this we are currently in the process of recruiting additional staff to support these rising numbers.

As a company we have extremely high standards and our recruitment process reflects this. We operate a robust vetting process to ensure that we recruit quality, experienced staff to care for the children at the nursery

We are very pleased to announce that Lucy Stainer will be joining us on Monday 1^st December 2008. Lucy is a qualified Nursery Officer and has 2 and a half years experience in childcare. Lucy will be joining Kathy in the Ladybird Room.

We are sure you will join us in welcoming Lucy to the nursery.

Staff Training

In October the staff team at both Northwood and 4 Street nurseries attended an in house training session on the implementation of the new Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum (EYFS).

The EYFS came into practice on 1^st September 2008 and replaced the Birth to 3 Matters and Early Learning Goals.

The training consisted of 3 separate workshops covering all areas of the EYFS and  staff feedback regarding the training received was extremely positive.

We are committed to offering regular staff training to our team to develop their skills.  The commitment to training and development enables the team to continue to offer the highest standard of care and putting into practice the new skills and knowledge acquired to benefit the children.

Kitchen news

As many of you will be aware, the nursery menus change twice a year.

Michelle is currently putting the finishing touches to the new winter menus. As always she has taken care to ensure that they offer a wide variety of healthy, nutritious and appetising dishes for the children.

The new menus will come into effect on the week commencing 17^th November. We look forward to seeing what new delights will be introduced onto the menus.

Parents’ Evening

We would like to say a big thank you to all parents who were able to attend our Parents’ Evening on 8^th October 2008.

The evening was a great success and was one of our busiest Parents’ Evenings ever.

We hope parents enjoyed spending some uninterrupted time with their child’s Keyperson to catch up on their child’s progression and development at the nursery.

Michelle and Michael prepared dishes from the nursery menus for parents to try and this, as always, proved a very popular addition to the evening. We were pleased that so many parents were able to sample some of the delicious food which is prepared for the children during their time at the nursery.

As you are aware Parents’ Evenings are held at the nursery every 6 months. If any parents have any suggestions as to what they would like to see at future Parents’ Evenings then please feel free to speak to Katie or Natalie.

And so approaches Winter…

 As you are aware the children attending the nursery participate in outside activities at least twice a day and we are keen to ensure the winter weather does not spoil their fun! For this reason we ask that parents ensure that their children bring weather appropriate clothes such as warm coats, Wellington boots and if possible, waterproof clothing for cold/wet weather to nursery to enable them to experience the outdoor activities in all weathers.

Parents’ Forum

As many of you maybe aware a Parents’ forum meeting takes place every six months at the nursery. These meetings give parents an opportunity to discuss ways in which we can work together to further develop the nursery.

The most recent forum took place on Monday 1^st September and was attended by Helen McIlrath (Nursery Proprietor), Katie Poulton (Nursery Manager), two parent representatives, Mr Moledina and Ms Haggerty and Carillion representatives.  Minutes of the meeting are available on the parents’ notice board for you to view. The next meeting will be held on Monday 2^nd March 2009 at 2pm, if you have any subjects you wish to be raised or discussed please see Katie or Natalie or speak to the above mentioned parent representatives.

Future dates for your diary

We would like to give you advanced notice of the following nursery events to enable you to plan your diaries in advance :-

Christmas sing a long – 12^th December 2008.

Our Christmas sing a long is a lovely time for parents to join us at the nursery to hear the children singing special Christmas songs.

Further details will be issued closer to the time.

Yoga

As you will be aware, as a company we are continually reviewing and developing the activities that we offer the children in our care.

We are very pleased to inform parents that the weekly Yoga sessions that we recently organised for the Bumblebee and Dragonfly groups have proved very successful. For those of you who are not familiar with this, the sessions are held at the nursery on a Wednesday morning with Magi, who is a qualified yoga teacher. The children appear to really enjoy the yoga sessions and participate eagerly each week. Magi encourages the children to focus on breathing exercises and basic yoga poses which are to aid relaxation, through fun child friendly activities.

Christmas Closure

 We would like to take this opportunity to remind you of the Nursery Christmas Closure dates this year.  The nursery will close at 5.30p.m. on Tuesday 23^rd December and will reopen at 7.45a.m. on Monday 5^th January 2009. We hope that the children and their families will enjoy this relaxing, well deserved break at the end of the year.

Parent news

We are always happy to include parents’ items on our newsletter. E.g. items for sale. Please speak to Katie or Natalie.

Jeans for Genes

We would like to thank everyone who helped us to raise money on Jeans for Genes day. We raised £51.40 for this worthy cause by selleing Fifi and The Flowertots zip pulls and through children and staff contributing money to wear their jeans to nursery on the day.