Settling In  and Monitoring Progress

First Steps

You can visit our Pre-School at any time we are open by making an appointment or just calling in. Often, attending our Friday afternoon Stay & Play baby and toddler group is a good way for you and your child to become familiar with the space.

When your child first joins us, we will work with you to support them through the transition. As every child is an individual, we will tailor our approach to suit your child. Once registered, we offer a free taster morning where you can stay with your child, meet their key person and update us with your child's current developments, as well as giving you both the opportunity to meet our staff and other pre-schoolers.

Each child’s progress with settling in varies. Your child’s 'Key Person' will liaise with you to review the settling in plan over the first few weeks and a formal Progress Meeting will take place 6 weeks after starting.

The settling in process will be individual to each child and depends on a variety of factors. Some parents/carers may choose to gradually reduce the amount of time they spend in the setting with their child, whilst others will be happy to leave their child from the initial session. There is no right or wrong way, it’s about what suits you and your child and we will continually work with you and review this process.

After this session….monitoring progress

We believe that the highest quality childcare can only be delivered in close partnership with parents. Our staff will work closely with you to get to know your child's individual needs and personality – and provide you with regular feedback on how they are progressing. Each child is assigned a key person who will support your child’s emotional and developmental needs, helping them to feel safe and secure and enabling them to thrive in our setting.

We believe that the best form of communication is in person and we know that parents understand their children best so we ask them to contribute to assessment, sharing information about what their children like to do at home and how parents are supporting development. We are always available to chat about any issues or concerns at the beginning of a session, likewise we are keen to hear what your child has been doing outside of Pre-School so that we can get to know them better. Alongside our informal chats, we also use the online learning journal Tapestry where we record formal observations and provide termly reports which chart your child’s progress in relation to the learning goals of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS).  This is followed by a face-to-face review with parents in which we set future learning objectives or ‘Next Steps’ together.