Newlands Spring Pre-School

Newlands Spring Pre-school

Dickens Place, Copperfield Road, Chelmsford, CM1 4UU,

01245 442505

POLICIES

AND

PROCEDURES

OF

NEWLANDS SPRING

PRE-SCHOOL

SEPTEMBER 2014-2015

Registered Charity No: 286023

Contents

Admissions Policies:

1) Admissions

2) Valuing diversity and promoting equality

3) Inclusion

4) Supporting children with special educational needs

5) Parental Involvement

6) Settling into Pre-School Policy and Practice

7) Communication with Parents Policy

Fees Policies:

1) Payment of Fees

2) Non Payment of Fees

3) Refund of Fees

4) Unexpected Closure Policy

Other Policies:

1) Unexpected Closure

2) Safeguarding Children

3) Missing Child

4) Confidentiality

5) Health & Safety

6) Promoting Health & Hygiene

7) Non Collection of Children

8) Equipment & Resources

9) Food & Drink

10) Employment & Staffing

11) Student Placement Policy

12) Making a Complaint

13) Parental Behaviour

14) Behaviour Management Children

15) Outings

16) Personal Social Networking

Admissions Policy

It is our intention to make Newlands Spring Pre-School genuinely accessible to children and families from all sections of the local community.

In order to accomplish this we will:

• Ensure that the existence of the pre-school is widely known throughout the local community by means of advertising and open days.
• Ensure that information about our pre-school is accessible.
• Require a one-off administration charge of £15 per child under the age of 3, or £20 for twins, which is non-refundable, to enable the child to be placed on the waiting list.
• Allocate spaces to children in a fair manner and as such we will look at whether the child lives within the catchment area (the catchment area of Newlands Spring Primary School), the child’s date of birth and the date we received their completed waiting list application form. We may also consider if they have siblings already attending or having previously attended our pre-school.
• Describe the pre-school and its practices in terms which make it clear that it welcomes all family members, carers and childminders, and people from all ethnic, religious and social groups, with and without special needs.
• Make our Equality & Diversity Policy widely known.
• Consult with families about the opening times of the pre-school to avoid excluding anyone.

• The pre-school is solely responsible for allocating spaces to children. If a child can no longer attend a session already paid for (see Refund of Fees policy), we cannot accept a parent allocating their child’s un-used space to another parent.

Valuing diversity and promoting equality Policy

We will ensure that our service is fully inclusive in meeting the needs of all children, particularly those that arise from their ethnic heritage, social and economic background, gender, ability or disability. Our setting is committed to anti-discriminatory practice to promote equality of opportunity and valuing diversity for all children and families. We aim to:

• provide a secure and accessible environment in which all our children can flourish and in which all contributions are considered and valued;
• include and value the contribution of all families to our understanding of equality and diversity;
• provide positive non-stereotyping information about gender roles, diverse ethnic and cultural groups and disabled people;
• improve our knowledge and understanding of issues of anti-discriminatory practice, promoting equality and valuing diversity; and
• make inclusion a thread that runs through all of the activities of the setting.

EYFS key themes and commitments

Procedures

Admissions

Our setting is open to all members of the community.

• We advertise our service widely.
• We reflect the diversity of our society in our publicity and promotional materials.
• We provide information in clear, concise language, whether in spoken or written form.
• We provide information in as many languages as possible.
• We base our admissions policy on a fair system.
• We ensure that all parents are made aware of our equal opportunities policy.
• We do not discriminate against a child or their family, or prevent entry to our setting, on the basis of colour, ethnicity, religion or social background, such as being a member of a Travelling community or an asylum seeker.
• We do not discriminate against a child with a disability or refuse a child entry to our setting for reason relating to disability.
• We ensure wherever possible that we have a balanced intake of boys and girls in the setting.
• We develop an action plan to ensure that people with disabilities can participate successfully in the services offered by the setting and in the curriculum offered.
• We take action against any discriminatory behaviour by staff or parents. Displaying of openly discriminatory and possibly offensive materials, name calling, or threatening behaviour are unacceptable on or around the premises and will be dealt with in the strongest manner.

Employment

• Posts are advertised and all applicants are judged against explicit and fair criteria.
• Applicants are welcome from all backgrounds and posts are open to all.
• We may use the exemption clauses in relevant legislation to enable the service to best meet the needs of the community.
• The applicant who best meets the criteria is offered the post, subject to references and checks by the Criminal Records Bureau. This ensures fairness in the selection process.
• All job descriptions include a commitment to promoting equality and recognising and respecting diversity as part of their specifications.
• We monitor our application process to ensure that it is fair and accessible.

Training

• We seek out training opportunities for staff and volunteers to enable them to develop anti-discriminatory and inclusive practices, which enable all children to flourish.
• We ensure that staff are confident and fully trained in administering relevant medicines and performing invasive care procedures when these are required.
• We review our practices to ensure that we are fully implementing our policy for promoting equality, valuing diversity and inclusion.

Curriculum

The curriculum offered in the setting encourages children to develop positive attitudes about themselves as well as to people who are different from themselves. It encourages children to empathise with others and to begin to develop the skills of critical thinking.

Our environment is as accessible as possible for all visitors and service users. If access to the settings is found to treat disabled children or adults less favourably then we make reasonable adjustments to accommodate the needs of disabled children and adults. We do this by:

• making children feel valued and good about themselves;
• ensuring that children have equality of access to learning;
• undertaking an access audit to establish if the setting is accessible to all children;
• making adjustments to the environment and resources to accommodate a wide range of learning, physical and sensory impairments;
• making appropriate provision within the curriculum to ensure each child receives the widest possible opportunity to develop their skills and abilities, e.g. recognising the different learning styles of girls and boys;
• positively reflecting the widest possible range of communities in the choice of resources;
• avoiding stereotypes or derogatory images in the selection of books or other visual materials;
• celebrating a wide range of festivals;
• creating an environment of mutual respect and tolerance;
• differentiating the curriculum to meet children’s special educational needs;
• helping children to understand that discriminatory behaviour and remarks are hurtful and unacceptable;
• ensuring that the curriculum offered is inclusive of children with special educational needs and children with disabilities;
• ensuring that children learning English as an additional language have full access to the curriculum and are supported in their learning; and
• ensuring that children speaking languages other than English are supported in the maintenance and development of their home languages.

Valuing diversity in families

• We welcome the diversity of family lifestyles and work with all families.
• We encourage children to contribute stories of their everyday life to the setting.
• We encourage parents/carers to take part in the life of the setting and to contribute fully.
• For families who speak languages in addition to English, we will develop means to ensure their full inclusion.
• We offer a flexible payment system for families of differing means and offer information regarding sources of financial support.

Food

• We work in partnership with parents to ensure that the medical, cultural and dietary needs of children are met.
• We help children to learn about a range of food, and of cultural approaches to mealtimes and eating, and to respect the differences among them.

Meetings

• Meetings are arranged to ensure that all families who wish to may be involved in the running of the setting.
• Information about meetings is communicated in a variety of ways - written, verbal and in translation - to ensure that all parents have information about and access to the meetings.

Our Equality Named Co-ordinator is Linda Robinson

Inclusion policy

Newlands Spring Preschool is a committee run preschool. We take children from the age of two and a half and admit children in accordance with our admissions policy. Our SENCO (Special Educational Needs Co-ordinators) are Victoria Free and Giselle Protheroe who are responsible for organizing Special Educational Needs and Equal Opportunities provision in line with the Early Years Foundation Stage framework, so that our provision has an Inclusion policy which supports the inclusion of all children.

All children are unique and diverse and we therefore provide equal opportunities and a welcome for all, recognizing that no two children have the same needs. All children, irrespective of special educational need, disability, mental health, medical need, race, culture, class, creed, sexual orientation, gender or social status have the right to express their needs and have them met.

Aim

To work in partnership with all those involved in the child’s upbringing.

To recognize the importance of parents/ carers and families in the life of every child.

To actively try to seek the views of children and families and value their contribution.

To promote access for all children to the same range of services, facilities and resources.

To safeguard the welfare of every child

To provide a range of stimulating, fun and creative activities which are both age and ability appropriate and in line with the Early Years Foundation Stage

To increase awareness of special needs, minority groups and groups that can be discriminated against.

To encourage both children and adults to have a positive self-image.

To create a friendly and caring setting.

To challenge unacceptable language, actions and beliefs which may be prejudicial or exclusive to others?

Purpose

To meet the individual needs of children and young people in our setting.

To ensure that Inclusion and Equality are put into practice

To raise quality and standards

To recognize the rights of the child.

To encourage parents/carers and young people to use the provision

To increase social awareness

Methods

We have an admissions policy, which makes our Preschool genuinely accessible to families and children from all sections of our local community. We display notices outside of the building with session times and a contact telephone number. We are a member of the Pre-school Learning Alliance and have our own website. We ensure that local schools, health visitors and G.P.s are aware of us and have our contact details.

We have a waiting list onto which children are placed and admission is then in accordance with the admissions policy although where possible we try to keep some sessions available for families who are new to the area or are only with us for a short time.

We see parents and carers as partners with us in the early education of their children. We encourage this partnership by offering information about our group to parents when they first approach us in written form, verbally and by offering a visit. We develop this with an Orientation Evening before a child is due to start, a meeting with a key worker soon after the child starts, regular parents evenings, newsletters, notice boards and an open door policy that allows parents/carers the opportunity to speak to a member of staff at the beginning and end of every session. We operate a flexible settling in policy and respect parent’s views on their child’s needs while they are settling in. Our setting recognizes the importance of early identification of special educational need as outlined in the SEN Code of Practice and we do this by having a system of discussions with parents/carers on entry, regular observations then being made on all children and individual records being kept with regard to the Early Years Foundation Stage.

If key workers, other practitioners or parents are concerned about a child’s progress they can discuss it with the SENCO who may carry out some more observations or assessments, suggest some targets or access help from outside agencies. This process will be ongoing and subject to a cycle of review and involve consultations with parents/carers and children at all stages.

We are committed to working with other agencies and demonstrate this by keeping clear records based on regular observations and making them available when necessary. Records and observations are shared with parents on request and at parents evening, and their consent will always be sought before any outside agency is contacted. A resources file of contacts and information is held to assist parents and staff to access help and support and we also have the support of an Area SENCO who has access to a wider range of resources.

The pre-school is accessed via wide level doorways and is all on one level. We also have a fantastic outside classroom, which is also on the same level as the pre-school. We have disabled toilet facilities and a free flow open plan layout.

We can make our information available in other forms and can offer translations where necessary. We provide food at snack time and are able to offer cooking activities. These can both be adapted for any dietary needs or allergies.

We ensure staff in our setting support all children by offering them training for continuing development, by giving support from senior staff/SENCO, by working together and regularly discussing the progress and well being of all children and involving outside agencies if needed. Our staff are chosen to reflect our belief in equality of opportunity and we support any staff who have an individual specific need.

We show our commitment to staff training by having a designated budget for training, having information available on training, by giving staff paid time to attend training and by sharing information obtained from that training.

We aim to ensure full access to the Early Years Foundation Stage for all children by considering the needs and individual stages of development of individual children at all stages of planning and we are flexible and allow children to access/ ask for resources and equipment.

We evaluate our activities to ensure that they are appropriate and are meeting individual needs – however if difficulties are observed we may: -

1.Do more/specific observations.

2.Differentiate the curriculum.

3.Involve the SENCO (Early Years Action).

4.Set IEP (individual education plan) targets.

5.Involve outside agencies (Early Years Action Plus).

6.Review regularly.

Our resources support individual learning needs and reflect cultural diversity. They are regularly reviewed in the light of the children currently in the setting, any comments received, new information from training attended, etc. We arrange and use the areas of learning of our setting to promote self- confidence, develop physical skills, personal, social and emotional development, self-esteem and to offer physical and intellectual opportunities both with and without adult support.

Successful transition arrangements with the schools our children go on to are important because they ensure that children and families are happy and confident about the next stage and continue to progress and have access to the curriculum. We aim to achieve a positive transition by meetings with school staff, offering staff the opportunity to visit the pre-school, keeping accessible information about the local schools and entry procedure and we hand over our records to the parents and we encourage parents to share those records with school staff also.

We also arrange for the SENC0 of the school to make a visit to the pre-school in order that they may observe any children who are on an IEP in order to facilitate a consistent and smooth transition to primary school.

This policy will be reviewed annually and updated in line with any new legislation/guidance we receive.

Supporting children with special educational needs