Approach

The key elements of our approach can be summarised as follows:

• • We offer a warm and loving ‘family’ atmosphere with home-cooked meals prepared on site
• • We focus on continuity of care – keeping staff turnover as low as possible is one of our top priorities. Staff are supported, trained and rewarded for their hard work and many have been with nursery for over five years. We aim to retain the staff we have so your child can benefit from a familiar and caring environment and staff have time to develop into outstanding practitioners.
• • We have a high % of QUALIFIED nursery nurses – all of our staff are Level 3 qualified or are qualifying currently. This far exceeds the OFSTED requirement of 50% of staff trained to level 2 or higher.
• • We provide an individual key person system for each child for their duration in each room

The role of the Key person:

Every child is assigned a member of the team as their Key Person shortly after starting. The Key person will form a close bond with each child for which they are responsible, adapting activities to suit their needs and stage of development, monitoring and recording their progress and acting as the main point of contact for parents.

Children have their own unique Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Diary which the key person writes on their behalf. It tracks their progress as we observe it, with photos and observations linked to the learning goals of the EYFS. This diary goes home with the child when they leave nursery to go to primary school, along with a memory stick full of all the photos we take of them during the course of their journey at Tiny Acorns.

In addition, we track each child’s progress through the following assessments:

• • Starting point assessment – when your child joins us initially

• • Two year check – all children are required to have this check done at the key age of between two and three years old. We undertake this check at nursery and discuss this with you

• • Tracking – we track every child every six months to see how they are developing and compare this to their chronological age. Our goal is to ensure all children are moving forward in every area of the EYFS during their time at Tiny Acorns, regardless of where they started when they joined us. We feed back your child’s progress at two parent’s evenings each year, held in April and October.

Whilst the key person plays a vital role, it is also important to say that every staff member knows, cares for and helps develop each child in their respective rooms. Your child will learn through playing and interacting with all the children and staff members in their room, and will learn to socialise, share and bond with many different people as a result.