Within the Pre-school

 

Settling in

We advise parents/carers to create a goodbye ritual, where a firm goodbye and reassurance that you will be back at the end of the session promptly on time for collection. To avoid causing your child any distress and disruption to their settling-in-progress, we advise that you do not visit your child during the sesssion.

 

Positive handling

All members of staff abide to Medway's 'Safe Guarding Children' document, which allows children to sit on a staff members knees if the child asks to, and we can hug a child if asked or if a child needs comforting.  Also all staff have had Child Protection training to reinforce appropriate handling of children.

 

Behaviour management

The staff in each room will deal with incidents as they occur. If unacceptable behaviour is persistant by a child, their parents/carers will be asked to visit the Pre-school to discuss with their child's key-person the best way to achieve a positive outcome. 

 

Clothing and comforters

Our Pre-school provides protective clothing which is used with messy activities such as painting however, we cannot quarantee that your child's clothing will remain clean and dry. We encourage independance and skills to look after themselves including being able to clean themselves after going to the toilet and taking off and putting on outdoor clothes and shoes.

• We advise that children arrive at the Pre-school wearing clothing and have a spare set of clothing (kept within a bag) that is easy to manage to encourage this behaviour.

• A set of indoor shoes are required to change into for indoor play.

• Appropriate clothing for the weather is needed for example sun hats and sun cream applied before the child comes to Pre-school for the summer term and cardigans or light jackets for winter term.

• A clean drinking bottle containing water only is needed.

• We do not allow necklaces or chains and only studded earrings to be worn for health and safety reasons.

• We discourage the use of dummies and comforters, if needed they should be left in your child's bag.

 

All clothing and possessions including drinking bottles and show and tell items should be named.

 

Also as we are a Pre-school we have the right to ask parents/carers to come and change their child if they regularly soil themselves.

 

Outside the Pre-school

 

Attendance

It is important that you keep us up-to-date with any changes to your child's health. If your child is unable to attend Pre-school for example due to illness or medical appointments, please notify us on his/her first day of absence. If your child has been sick or has suffered with diarrhoea, they need to be well for 48 hours before returning. Head lice is a big problem with young children, to minimise their presence, we ask parents to check their child's head weekly with a nit comb. If your child has head lice they need to be kept at home and return to our Pre-school 24 hours after treatment.

 

Child collection

We ask parents to let us know if they are unable to collect their child at the end of a session and let the room leader know who will be collecting their child instead. There are procedures that will be explained to you once Admissions forms are completed.

 

No smoking/ alcohol and substance misuse

Our Pre-school has a no smoking policy, including passive smoking, within or in the vaccinity of our buildings. We advise that staff are not premitted to be around children for 30 minutes after smoking to protect your child.

 

We also have a Alcohol and Substance Misuse policy, which allows us the rights not to release a child to anyone who appears to be unable to provide appropriate care and protection.