'A Home Away From Home'
SETTLING INTO OUR NURSERY
Home Visit
Before a child starts at Rainbow Hill House, one of our management team, along with another member of staff will request to visit your home to meet you and your child.
Visiting your child at home is extremely reassuring as it is a place where you and your child feel comfortable and relaxed and therefore, when you welcome us into your home, your child sees us as friends. Children need to see that the people who are going to be caring for them are friendly and trusted by you.
We come to chat about your child and answer any questions that you may have about them starting Nursery. We like to find out more information about your child and can help you fill in any forms that we need for our records. Usually, the visit lasts about half an hour. We will bring a few toys and books for your child to look at and play with.
We like to visit you approximately a week before your child is going to start. This is so that the gap between seeing us and starting Nursery is as short as possible for your child. They see us in their own home and the following week they come to play with us at Nursery.
Settling In
Our staff put a great emphasis on developing the children's confidence, independence and self-esteem, that's why we believe that the settling-in period is crucial regarding the children's future in our setting.
By recommending to the parents a long settling-in period, at least 3-4 weeks, we make sure that we provide the children with sufficient time to familiarise with the environment and our staff. During the settling-in period we gradually increase the hours of settling-in sessions.
The parents are required to stay with their child on the first two sessions in order to ensure that the child is able to seek comfort from his/her parent(s) if needed. During these first two sessions we encourage the child to explore and get familiar with the environment, take part in activities and socialise.
The next step is to allocate a key worker to the child, possibly a member of staff who is able to comfort the child and encourage the child to build a strong relationship with the allocated members of staff, socialise and play alongside the other children.
All our staff know about the importance of building strong attachments with children. They are trained to recognise the different stages of attachment and use this knowledge to support children and families settling in to the nursery.
Transitioning to School
We work closely with, and have great relationships with, various local schools including Bounds Green Primary School, Rhodes Avenue and Bowes Primary School who all help in ensuring the transition from nursery to school goes as smoothly as possible for each individual child.
At Rainbow Hill House, we put great emphasis on developing all children's self-confident and independence, but the year before a child goes to school, we put extra measures in place to ensure each child is prepared and ready. For example, we invite the children's future teachers to have a stay and play session with the children, booklets are created which include photographs of the new school, children take photographs of their new setting home to talk about it with their parents and carers etc.