COMMUNICATING WITH PARENTS

The staff and management team at Rosemount work really hard to maintain and develop new information systems to keep a continuous flow of information between the nursery and parents:

1.  Every child is assigned a key worker as a special point of comfort and contact during the nursery day.  The key person will be available to chat informally to parents at appropriate times.  All children have a co-keyworker in the event their keyworker is not in the setting for some reason.

2.  We have an open door policy i.e. all staff are always available for informal chats with parents, carers at any time.  We have informal chats at the end of each day to update parents on how their child has fared that day.  We welcome views from parents on their child’s home life, likes/dislikes, and any new changes we should be made aware of.  When a child starts at Rosemount, their parent completes the ‘All About Me’ booklet which tells us all about the child.

3.  All children have a ‘Special Book’, which is a detailed shared record of special times within the nursery and at home.  Parent, child and teachers are involved in formulating the book.

4.  Staff notice board in reception is updated regularly and has lots of important information for parents such as the weekly menus, monthly newsletter packed with all the latest updates, any special events coming up, and the curriculum plan for the coming week.

5.  We also have a fortnightly photo board in reception showing many images of the children’s week at nursery.

6.  We involve parents in the planning of the activities at the nursery by asking for feedback on their child’s progress at home. Parents are invited to come and chat to the keyworker.  We have a ‘Planning Your Child’s Next Steps’ questionnaire which helps facilitate information sharing.

7.  6 week formal meetings- these are carried out 6 weeks into a new child’s start at Rosemount, as usually the child has now settled.  Meeting with parents prior to 2 year progress check.   We have termly parent consultations, where the keyworker gets to discuss the child’s progress to date and share work and observations with the parent.  At the end of this meeting parents are given a questionnaire to complete on their views on the keyworker and the setting.

8.  We issue end of term reports to parents in December and July of each year.

9.  A range of childcare publications and magazines are available for parents to take away from reception.  These contain all matters with regards to early years.