Places are made available by mutual agreement on a first-come, first-served basis upon receipt of our formal registration form and a £45 administration fee. Great care is taken to deal with new admissions responsibly and sensitively. Parents unfamiliar with parting from their children will be supported by their child’s key worker during the settling in period.
Illness and Medicines
We rely on all parents to take care not to bring their children to nursery if they are unwell. Particular care should be taken to maintain a period of absence of 48 hours after a bout of sickness or diarrhoea. We are of course willing to offer advice based on considerable experience of childhood ailments.
The N.H.S. has provided a very useful guide to treating childhood illnesses and whether your child should be coming in to nursery: NHS Child Health Advice
We would always advise you should your child become unwell while at nursery and, only if necessary, request that you come to collect your child.
We will not administer any medicines without your specific written instructions and authorisation to do so.
All our staff have current paediatric first aid qualifications.
Nursery Policies
All of our policies on issues such as safeguarding and education are available to view on our website.
Listed below are summaries of our core policies and procedures. All of our policies and procedures are available to download using the Policy Download menu at the top of this site.
Safeguarding Children
Our prime responsibility is the welfare, safety and protection of all children in our care. We work with children, parents, external organisations and the local community to give our children the best possible start in life. Children have the right to be treated with respect, be helped to thrive and to be protected from any type of abuse in whatever form.
All of our staff are trained in line with the Pan-Dorset Safeguarding Children Partnership’s guidance and procedures. We have a designated Safeguarding Lead who acts as the lead person for any safeguarding concerns. This person will ensure that all safeguarding policies are followed with any safeguarding concern.
All staff are fully vetted and must hold a current enhanced DBS certificate.
Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)
We follow the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) framework which enables our staff to underpin our high standards of learning, development and care of children from 2 to 5 years. When you join the nursery we will ask you to complete an ‘All About Me’ document to help us to support your child’s individual learning journey with us. Children will be learning skills, acquiring new knowledge and demonstrating their understanding through 7 areas of learning and development.
Your child’s key worker will form a secure and quality relationship with your child which is central to wellbeing and emotional health and acts as a bridge between the nursery and home. The key worker will communicate regularly with you about your child’s needs and will offer support for continued learning and development at home.
All of our staff members are committed to teaching and supporting children by making sure that activities are suited to their unique needs and interests. We actively promote children’s progress and document their learning by completing regular observations, which are used to plan activities around individual children’s interests. These observations are all recorded in children’s learning journals which are available to view at any time. Parents are encouraged to contribute to all aspects of their child’s learning whilst at the nursery.
Promoting Positive Behaviour
We believe in a consistent and positive approach to managing the behaviour of children in the nursery. We ensure that staff develop effective strategies and use positive methods that are tailored to each child.
We aim to provide a stimulating environment in which children develop self-discipline and self-esteem. We believe that children flourish best when they know how they and others are expected to behave. Children gain respect through interaction with caring adults who act as good role models, show them respect and value their individual personalities.
Equality & Diversity
We take great care to treat each individual as a person in their own right, with equal rights and responsibilities to any other individual, whether they are an adult or a child. We are committed to providing equality of opportunity and anti-discriminatory practice for all children and families according to their individual needs.
Discrimination on the grounds of gender, age, race, religion or belief, marriage or civil partnership, disability, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, pregnancy or maternity, ethnic or national origin, or political belief has no place within our nurseries.
Health & Safety
The Health and Safety of all children in our care is of paramount importance.
All of our staff are trained to create safe learning environments for children. Staff regularly make safety checks of the learning environments, both indoors and outdoors to ensure that they are safe and secure.
We have a designated Health and Safety Officer who carries out regular checks on first aid kits, ensures that our Health and Safety policy is fully adhered to and completes and monitors risk assessments.
All of our staff are fully trained in paediatric first aid.
Our nursery is kept secure and has locked doors that can only be opened by staff. All visitors to our nurseries are required to sign the visitor’s book on arrival and departure, and we ensure that visitors will not be left unsupervised with children.
Children can only be collected by their parents/carers or by a person that has been given permission. If our staff do not recognise a person that is collecting a child, then the child will remain at nursery until a member of staff can contact the child’s parents/carers. We follow our Late Collection Policy should a child not be collected at the usual time and two members of staff will remain in nursery with the child at all times.
Healthy Eating
We believe a healthy, balanced diet and regular physical activity are essential for children’s health and well-being. Snacks that we serve at nursery are planned around a healthy and balanced diet and parents are encouraged to put healthy food choices in their child’s lunch box. Lunch times are a very sociable time of day. Our staff eat their lunches with the children which provides great opportunities for discussions about a healthy diet, exercise and different family’s and culture’s food choices and traditions.
Our registration form asks parents to record if their child suffers from any allergies (including food intolerance) and whether they have any special dietary requirements (e.g. vegetarian, religious, cultural, medical). Upon joining us detailed discussions regarding any allergies are had with the parents and we complete allergy management forms for all affected children. All staff are made aware of children’s individual needs.
Our Staff
Great care is taken to recruit and retain staff of the highest calibre in terms of relevant qualifications and/or experience. Enhanced DBS and health checks and personal references are all taken up as a matter of course and all staff are approved by Ofsted.
We enjoy a high level of staff loyalty, dedication and length of service.
Expressed simply our aims for your child are:
To be happy and have fun
To become confident and independent
To make friends and integrate in a group situation with the necessary social skills to do so
To develop a love of learning
To develop his/her own gifts and skills to maximise potential in all areas
To develop respect and tolerance for their own and others views, faiths, cultures and race
The basis of our approach follows the world renowned methods developed by Dr Maria Montessori, the first woman in Italy to graduate in medicine. As a trained paediatrician she dedicated her life to finding techniques for guiding a child’s motivation & development which are highly respected world-wide.
By offering your child the benefit of specially designed apparatus & materials within a purpose built, child centred environment we enjoy a well proven track record of children attaining their full potential in a well balanced & natural way.
We also firmly believe in adding the best of all current techniques & resources to the best of the traditional to ensure a whole spectrum of opportunities are presented for fun & learning. During the all important “formative” years from 2 to 5 children have a natural desire for, and a deep love of learning. Montessori materials are specifically aimed at captivating these opportunities when a child is most receptive to benefit fully from a given activity.
Recent studies have shown that Montessori methods can elevate all the children in a class despite any disadvantages. These are not just important outcomes for each child – but for the class as a whole… Montessori Outcomes for Disadvantaged Children
More recently, research has shown how an early Montessori education can help close the income achievement gap for children… Montessori News April 2018
Practical Life
Everyday practical skills such as learning to get dressed, using fasteners such as buttons bows or laces. Polishing shoes, spooning, pouring from jugs or chopping fruit and vegetables all serve to captivate a child’s desire to imitate adults.
Through these activities the child gains:
Improved social and personal skills; improved levels of concentration; heightened self awareness and self esteem; independence and logical thought; a development of fine motor skills and hand/eye co-ordination; a sense of order and tidiness.
Sensorial
Learning via the five senses is at its optimum in the young child and our sensorial equipment provides ideal mediums for confirming and developing the impressions given by the senses. Concepts of colour, taste, sound, touch and smell are all explored in ways to stimulate children’s natural curiosity and enhance their senses.
Mathematics
Early skills in numbers and arithmetic are most effectively nurtured by a tactile approach in a positive concrete way. Children relish working with the beautifully crafted materials and in doing so gain a real concept of and enthusiasm for the world of numbers.
Language
The early drive and mental dexterity a child needs to learn to talk remains evident right through the formative years. It is during these years that the best opportunities exist for natural advancement by captivating the child’s fascination and aptitude for words and letters. Montessori materials such as sandpaper letters, moveable alphabet, word boxes etc together with phonetics and encouragement for the love of books all serve to facilitate reading and writing skills appropriate to each individual child’s level of readiness.
Cultural
Many activities are designed to impart an understanding of the world around us and encompass science, geography, history and differing cultures, festivals and traditions.
General
In addition we incorporate a wealth of creative arts and crafts activities, singing, music and movement, stories and rhymes, nature study, simple French, physical development and free play indoors and outside. Our extensive range of resources including Brio, Duplo, puzzles, sand and water trays etc encourages a wide range of play and learning activities together with regularly changing projects.
Previous Montessori alumni include:
Anne Frank
Beyonce
Bill Gates
Dakota Fanning
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Jeff Bezos
Larry Page & Sergey Brin
Mark Zuckerberg.
Prince George
Princes William & Harry
Prince William, Prince Harry and Prince George.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin – founders of Google, both attended Montessori preschool and both highlight that it was Montessori education that contributed to their independent
thinking and success.
Mark Zuckerberg – Co-founder of Facebook
Jeff Bezos – founder of Amazon.com who proudly cites his Montessori roots
Gabriel Garcia Marquez – Nobel Prize winner for Literature – attended a Montessori school for 5 years as a child and credited his time there with making him fall in love with
language. “I do not believe there is a method better than Montessori for making children sensitive to the beauties of the world and awakening their curiosity regarding the secrets
of life.”
Anne Frank – author, diarist from World War II. Anne showed aptitude for reading and writing at a very early age, a talent that was nurtured in her Montessori school.
Beyonce Knowles – Beyoncé’s talents first emerged in a Montessori school that valued both art and academics. Today Beyoncé is one of pop music’s most highly-regarded figures and has
been nominated for more Grammys than anyone else in history.
Dakota Fanning – renowned as the youngest-ever actor to be nominated for Screen Actors Award, Dakota has said that she learned to read at the age of two while enrolled in a
Montessori school. The educational environment allowed her the freedom to pursue her interests from a young age, such as a love for reading, and fostered the kind of focus that is
useful in pursuing an acting career.
Bill Gates – American business magnate, investor, author, philanthropist, humanitarian, and principal founder of Microsoft. “I believe that the Montessori Method – implemented in so many countries, homes, and schools around the world – is producing children who will be innovative risk-takers.”
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