Our baby rooms are purposefully designed for our very youngest Little Ones. We are registered to care for children from 3 months old and our baby room teams are chosen specifically for their love and experience of very young children. Our rooms are light and airy with cosy spaces and learning opportunities perfect for tummy time, crawlers, pre-walkers and walkers. Babies stay in our baby room until they are 2 years old when they will transition into our big room with the support of their key person. They will already be familiar with our big room and our big room staff as we all join together at meal times and eat as one big nursery family. We have a separate sleep room to ensure our babies can take their naps in a quiet, peaceful area.
Our aim is to nurture the babies’ development by providing a stimulating, happy, safe and caring environment to enable each and every one of them to flourish. Before your baby starts with us we will invite you in for some settle sessions; from this moment the key person will start to build a loving and warm relationship with not only your baby but with yourselves. Our baby room key people will love and care for your child as if they were one of their own, they will cuddle them if they need a cuddle, they will share a story with them and sing songs all as part of our day to day running of the baby room. We will introduce the babies to a range of physical and sensory experiences and activities, which very young children love; albeit they can get a little bit grubby! Our baby rooms are well equipped to allow for opened ended play and development and can be easily differentiated to meet the needs of all of the babies. There will also be a sensory area with treasure baskets and heuristic play materials allowing the babies to use their natural curiosity to explore the loose parts using all of their senses, there will be opportunities for painting and messy play, and of course they will be outside daily getting some fresh air and exploring the great outdoors!
There will always be somebody available for face to face communication at the beginning and end of the day, if this isn’t your baby’s key person the messages will always be passed over. But in addition to this, our under 2’s have a daily diary which will give you information on what they have had to eat and drink, sleeps and nappy changes throughout the day as well as a little comment about what activities they have been doing. We also encourage you to write any messages in the diary that might be useful throughout the day, like if they need an earlier sleep or they might be teething.
At Little Ones we know and respect that you know your baby better than anyone else, which is why we will always endeavour to follow your care routines that you have worked hard to embed in the early days. We also follow the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), and in the baby room concentrate to embed the 3 Prime Areas of Learning, which are Personal, Social and Emotional Development, Communication and Language Development and Physical Development. The Prime areas of learning cannot be taught it’s all about building strong and secure relationships and providing them with a learning rich environment which enables each child to reach their full potential, which is exactly what our baby rooms promote. Once a child feels secure within the Prime areas, they will feel ready to be taught new things and will start developing within the specific areas of learning. With this in mind, when your child starts at nursery, you will be given a ‘What to expect and when’ booklet. This is a parent’s guide to the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) during your first settling session your child’s key person will go through this booklet with you and ask you to mark off what your child can do. This enables us to plan age and stage appropriate activities for your child right from the beginning. After 2 weeks of your child starting with us, your child’s key person will complete a Starting Out Form, where they carry out an assessment on where your child is within the EYFS using their own observations and your information. They will then set some simple next steps and your child will be included in our planning system. This information is shared with yourselves.
Every child at nursery has a Record of Achievement Folder (ROA); they have been designed around the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and become a lovely memory of your child’s time at nursery. These folders are shared with you during our 2 parents evenings held throughout the year and given to you when your child leaves nursery. The folders include information about your child; within each learning area we record anecdotal observations of your child’s development. This may be recognition of caring for another child, achieving a milestone, creating a wonderful piece of art, helping others, or simply joining in and having fun! Every 3-4 months your child’s key person will complete an Individual Learning Plan (ILP) for your child. This is an assessment of what your child has achieved within the EYFS over the past 3-4 months. The key person will then set some next steps on what they are going to work on next. The ILP’s are shared with yourselves and there is space for you to contribute on what your child is doing at home. These next steps are then fed directly back into the planning system where activities are planned to meet your child’s next steps.