SETTLING IN PRE-SCHOOL POLICY
We want children to feel safe, stimulated and happy at Heavitree Community pre-school and to feel secure and comfortable with all staff. We also want parents to have confidence in both their children’s well being and their role as active partners with the pre-school. We want them to feel welcome and involved from the beginning.
We aim to make the pre-school a welcome place where children settle quickly and easily because consideration has been given to the individual needs and circumstances of children and their families. This will be achieved by the following:-
We want children to feel safe, stimulated and happy at Heavitree Community pre-school and to feel secure and comfortable with all staff. We also want parents to have confidence in both their children’s well being and their role as active partners with the pre-school. We want them to feel welcome and involved from the beginning.
We aim to make the pre-school a welcome place where children settle quickly and easily because consideration has been given to the individual needs and circumstances of children and their families. This will be achieved by the following:-
- When a child starts to attend the pre-school, we provide parents with written information, e.g. prospectus, welcome Pack.
- We provide opportunities for the child and his/her parents to visit the pre-school prior to their starting so that the child and parent can familiarise themselves with pre-school before starting.
- We allocate a key person to each child and his/her family, before s/he starts to attend. The key person’s role is to help ensure that every child’s care is tailored to meet their individual needs, to help the child become familiar with the setting, offer a settled relationship for the child and build a relationship with their parents.
- The key person acts as the key contact for the parents and has links with other carers involved with the child, such as a childminder, and co-ordinates the sharing of appropriate information about the child’s development with those carers.
- A key person is responsible for developmental records and for sharing information on a regular basis with the child’s parents to keep those records up-to-date, reflecting the full picture of the child in pre-school and at home.
- Parents are welcome and supported in the pre-school for as long as it takes to settle their child.
- Parents will be encouraged, where appropriate, to separate from their children for brief periods at first, gradually building up to longer absences.
- We will provide strategies to help parents or carers to work with staff during the settling in phase as appropriate, e.g. never leaving without saying goodbye, collecting a child early, returning on time.