Health and Well being
"The health, safety and well being of all the children who attend our nursery is our number one priority" Renu Khosla, Director
As such we endeavour to develop all aspects of a child physically, creatively, spritually, emotionally, morally and socially.
We ensure the selection of activities we provide support children to develop a positive sense of themselves and others; respect for others; social skills; and a positive disposition to learn. We also ensure support for childrens emotional well being helping them to know themselves and what they can do, encourage independance and celebrate difference.
Our ethos ensures we develop each child holistically and fosters a belief that encourages children to embrace their own and others differences.
Safety
We have a devsied set of policies and procedures to ensure the safety of the children, staff, parents and visitors who attend our setting.
These include procedures for
* fire and electrical safety,
* risk assesments of all activities undertaken by staff,
*children or contractors,
* COSHH (control of substances hazardess to health),
* dietary procedures and food allergy managment,
* procedures for the collection and non collection of children,
* policy for safeguarding children (child protection),
* administration of medicines,
* sickness and exclusion for illness and notification of infectious illness,
* the furniture and equipment we purchase is sourced from recognise suppliers and confirms to Britsh safety standards.
In addition we have a strict NO mobile phone policy, camera policy, use of IT, security of visitors and many more.
Our nursery prosepectus and parent handbook talks in more detail of each policy or if you can contact the manager if you require further information.
Staff training
All staff our trained to NVQ level 3 or working towards attaining a level 3 qualification in early Years.
All staff hold the full 12 hour peadiatric first aid certficate
Staff have training in safeguarding, allergy awareness and food safety.
All staff are expected to refresh and update current knowledge and qualifications and to further their knowledge by accessing courses for higher education.
Other awards
We are always looking to imrove our services and have recently achieved the much sought after "Early Years healthy setting award"
This award involved all of our staff team and we were regularily inspected during the duration of the award to ensure we made planned imrovments to services, food and menus and our curriculum to achieve this award - and we are very proud to have achieved this award.
Food and nutrition
Good, safe and well balanced food is integral to a child's overall development. It gives children the nutrition they need to grow and learn.
Our menus have all been approved by professionals who supported us through attaining our Healthy settings award. We ensure children who attend a full day are introduced to the following food groups each day:
* Bread cereals and potatoes
* fruit and vegetables
* Milk, cheese and yohurt
* Meat, fish and vegeatrian alternatives
* Only allow SOME foods high in fat or sugar (but instaed of the other food groups - for example - we may include cake, biscuits or icecream but will serve these with fruit as a pudding) we ONLY offer fruit juice very diluted and opt to offer water at snack and meal times or milk.
We have our own on site chefs who plan and prepare all of the menus and childrens menus. As such we able to meet the most varied of diets for example we provide meals for children who only eat "Halal" meat and vegetarians. We can manage food for children who have allergies to products and have a traffic light system to further support this.
During your childs induction to the nursery you are most welocme to discuss your childs stage of weaning or diet with our chefs.
Our menus are rotated every 4 weeks ensuring that children who only part time are also given a varied option when in the setting.
Meal times
At Tyseley Tots meal times are a special time of the day and a pleasant social occasion.
Staff sit and eat thier meal with their key children, providing a family atmosphere, nuturing opportunites to learn abou the food they eating and promote good manners.
Our children are encouraged be independant when practicable by feeding them selves - we start by offering finger foods and special cutlery for babies. Older children are given child sized cutlery and taught how to use it. Older children are also encouraged to self serve their meal and support other children with this.
Providing meal time in this ways enables the children to learn necessary skills for eating together, including taking equal portions and good manners.
Children are encourged to eat at their own pace, are never rushed and encouraged to try new foods, but are not expected to eat any food they do not like.
In the baby room we may have babies from as young as 3 months old as such at this stage will still be on a diet of purely milk, so thier meal times are dictated by their routine at home. We will feed babies with thier milk, which you provide. They will be held and cuddled while they are fed just like they would be at home.
Once a baby has weaned we will feed them either in a high chair or low/floor chair. The food willbe freshly made and pureed and we will provide you with a written record of what they ate and how much. Again we will follow your child's routine from home.
Once your child becomes more confident with food they will join the older babies who sit up in high chairs and they will be fed together.
Children wil be given cows milk once they are old enough to have it and ONLY when it has been tried at home.
Weaning
Weaning is the process of introducing "solid" or pureed solid food to a baby's diet, in addition to his or her milk feeds.
Weaning should only be introduced after a number of considerations including the childs age, health, development and growth rate. Weaning should start by 6 months but not before 4 months in helathy full term babies, as this is the age at which milk alone becomes insufficient toprovide all the nutrients babies need to grow and develop.
Weaning is supported at the nursery BUT we will only provide foods that have been previously tried at home and no signs of any allergic reaction were observed. We will NOT give your baby their first taste of any food at nursery.
Upon commencment of introducing weaning to your child your key person will explain our policy for this and record the necessary information on your child peronaal file. All foods once tried at home must be updated on the nursery diet information.
Physical development - outdoors
We have a dedicated outoor space for children and we aim to access the outdoors for each child at least twice per day.
The outdoors not only provides us with a large space for large motor skill development such as running, climbing, jumping etc but can also be an extension of the indoor classroom and allows us to explore our environment, science, knowledge and understanding of the world in further detail.
At Tyseley Tots we provide children with equipment and resources both indoor and outdoor that are suffiecient, challenging, and interesting and build children's confidence to take managable risks in their play.
Our planning will show how we observe children's natural and spontaneous movements and how they are finding our about their bodies - for example if they run they get our of breath, they need sun cream to protect their skin.
On the reverse of this we also need to plan opportunities to provide children with sleep and rest. You will find in all of our age groups, oppportuintes will be provided to allow children to sleep and we have created quiet snugs or dens for children who want to relax and rest for a period of time.
An element of our Healthy setting award was to access further training to bring in different ways of getting children to exercise - such as yoga - which we do in a fun way through stories capturing childrens imagination by desgining our own story with yoga actions to support the story - we can make these indiviudal to children who may a role to play within the story such as a hero or heroine!
