Welcome to Nursery

 

We would like to take the opportunity to welcome you to our nursery and hope that our ethos and values agree with what you want for your children. I hope that together we will have a long and enjoyable partnership.

All of us at The William Amory Nursery and School strive to continue our tradition of being an exceptionally welcoming place with a real family feel and strong values. A place that children and parents feel part of the family and where, together, our children can learn and explore the world around them in and caring, engaging and exciting way.

The staff and parents at our setting share a goal. Together we aim to continue the drive towards ensuring that every child in our care can reach their full potential. Towards giving the children the courage to challenge themselves and be confident in who they are. Towards excellence – whether that be in the classroom, on the stage, the sports field or all three.

Working together we are creating a nursery and school where the children, parents, governors and staff are proud to be part of and where children can thrive. A place where children develop a love of learning as they travel through.

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First Days

 

Preparing for the big day
What can you do to help your child prepare for this important milestone in their life?

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Talk about what nursery will be like
Your child is bound to be wondering what nursery will be like when they arrive and what sort of things happen during the day.

 

Use tried and tested resources
Why not watch clips from BBC’s Time For School to help reassure them about what to expect? If you want to go further resources like CBeebies’ My School Book website can help you.

 

On the first day
Allow plenty of time. The chances are, your child won’t be prepared for you to just drop him off and leave on the first day, so be prepared to hang around until he’s settled. You’ll probably be feeling just as anxious and emotional as they are, but try to stay cheery and confident – children pick up on your feelings of apprehension. Explain to your child when you’ll be back – don’t fob him off with fibs such as “Mummy’s just going to move the car” when you make your exit. Tell him you’ll be back after lunch/drink and biscuit time/story time.

 

If your child cries and won’t let you leave, ask staff for advice. In most cases they’ll ask you to stay for a while with your child in the early days. When you’ve said your goodbyes, try not to worry. If there is a problem, you’ll be contacted, but in most cases your child will be enjoying their exciting new experience.

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Communication

The telephone number to contact nursery will change to 01782 394900.

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There are several ways of communication between parents and school but the main way is to talk to us when you are dropping off or picking up as part of our open door policy.

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Notes and letters are also useful for information that we need to keep on record and, regretfully, there are always 101 forms, permission slips and records that will need to be constantly updated.

 

It’s really critical that we have your current mobile numbers. These have a habit of changing quite often so please make sure that you let us know immediately when this happens. We use an electronic messaging service for urgent texts and weekly newsletters so it’s really useful to have your up to date emails as well.

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Staff make regular observations of children in Nursery and keep a record of their progress and development by completing the Foundation Stage Profile, which is linked to the seven areas of learning in the Foundation Stage curriculum. We feed this back to you regularly.

Of course, please don’t hesitate to book an appointment with the headteacher or the staff if you would like to speak to them.

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Clothing

 

While at nursery we will do a range of messy and creative play activities both inside and outside and clothing can get dirty. Therefore, we ask you to send your child to school in comfortable and suitable clothes for such activities. We encourage children to manage their own coats and shoes, so styles and fastenings which are easy for children are encouraged. They will also need a bag of spare clothes, which can be kept on their peg in case a change of clothes is needed.

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Sessions 

For charges, please contact us

Nursery

Morning Session
9am – 12 pm

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Afternoon Session
12.00pm – 3.00*pm (*3.15pm collection is available at a nominal  fee)

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Nursery Day
9am – 3.00*pm (*3.15pm collection is available at a nominal fee)

(6hr session includes lunch and snacks) 

 

Full Day
7.15am – 5.45pm (All meals and snacks included)

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Out of Hours Care (Before, After School & Holidays)

 

Breakfast

7.30am – School Opens (includes breakfast: cereal, toast, yoghurts and fresh fruit).

 

Early Drop

8.30am-school starts

 

After School

until 5.45pm (includes light Healthy tea, i.e. Beans on toast, Filled oatcakes etc.) 

 

Holiday Full Day

7.30am – 5.45pm (Includes breakfast and light tea.) 

 

School Day

9am – 3pm (6hr Session)

 

Other Charges that apply to both

 

Hourly Charge
2hr Minimum session (subject to availability) 

 

Late Charge

Plus Hourly Charge, failure to collect a child on time after any session without correspondence 

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Late Collection Charge

5.45-6pm 

 

 

BOOKINGS

 

Please speak to staff about booking sessions. You can call 01782 394900 and follow the instructions to get hold of the team.

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Payment

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15 Hours

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All 3 and 4 year olds are entitled to funding of up to 15 hours of nursery provision per week (over 38 weeks or 570 hours a year).  However, we can ‘stretch’ these hours over our 48 weeks of the year at the moment.
This funding is available from the term after your child’s third birthday (so a birthday of 31st August means the fund is available on the 1st September. But a birthday of 1st September means you will have to wait until the 1st January next year).

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30 Hours

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Working parents who meet the earnings criteria could be entitled to an additional 15 hours of early education, making up a total of up to 30 hours per week (over 38 weeks, or 1140 hours across the year).
Successful applicants will receive a confirmation code from HMRC which will be sent to the parents new Gateway Account. Parents must pass the code onto their childcare provider to verify. Families who are eligible will be able to claim for the additional 15 hours from the term after parents have received their confirmation code from HMRC.

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Paying for our services or additional hours

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Obviously if you just use the 15 hours universal funded hours or the 30 hours we will arrange payment between ourselves and the authorities. The only issue is if you use more than one nursery for your provision.

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In the very short term (August 2017) we will continue to take cheques or cash as payment for extra hours or Out of Hours care. However we will shortly set up an online payment system (ParentPay) that the rest of the school uses and from that point we would ask that payments are made directly via ParentPay. This is the most popular system of school payments and is used by the majority of schools and we will give you instructions on its use when we have your records in place.

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Some parents/carers may wish to use childcare vouchers. The William Amory Nursery is registered for most but you may just need to speak to a member of staff to make sure we are.

The Small Print

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Refunds

We really do appreciate how tight money can be and that you can’t always make sessions. However we have to, by law, employ the right number of staff for each moment there are children in the building. For that reason it is worth thinking that you are not booking a place for your child, rather you are paying for the correct number of staff needed to look after your child. For that reason we do not offer refunds. However, we will always try our level best to help your situation if we can.

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Cancelling and changing bookings
As above, if we have already arranged for staffing to be present for a session that you have booked we would expect you to honour that booking.

 

Changes during the school day
We understand that for events such as sports day the school will dismiss early and that you might attend and wish to pick up early. Regretfully, if a child has a place booked for after school we will, at the present moment, be sending him or her up to the Nursery. 

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Absence, medication and illness
If your child is unwell, please telephone the schoolchild’s absence informing us that they will not be attending nursery and the expected date of return. Please follow this up with a note explaining your child’s absence on their return. If your child has a medical appointment, please inform  the office and provide a copy of the appointment card or letter.

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Sickness and diarrhoea spread very quickly between children. For this reason please do not send your child back to school until a full 48 hours after the last bout of sickness or diarrhoea. We will give medication but only if a doctor prescribes it to be taken during the session. We don’t give out Calpol or similar and will only give antibiotics if they are prescribed to be given during the session. In most cases doses can be provided before or after by parents. A medicine form has to be filled in and kept on record in order for any staff to be able to administer medicine

 

Insulin and other medication will be given but will need an initial meeting and risk assessment to be carried out by the staff and parent/ carer.

 

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Complaints Procedure

If you have a problem about your child’s education or pastoral care please do not hesitate to contact the class teacher. To do this you can either telephone school to make an appointment or contact the teacher in person or by letter. The teacher will endeavour to see you at the earliest possible mutually convenient time. The best time for teachers is at the end of afternoon school since the mornings are usually very busy. We hope that your concern does not become a complaint. If, however, you feel the need to complain please contact the Headteacher . If the need should arise, the Chair of Governors should be contacted.

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Disability and discrimination act.
We are committed to providing a fully accessible environment which values and includes all pupils, staff, parents and visitors, regardless of education, physical, sensory, social, spiritual, emotion or cultural needs. We are further committed to challenging attitudes about disability and accessibility and developing a culture of awareness, tolerance and inclusion. The school has developed its facilities to assist access to the school by pupils with disabilities and is working in partnership with the Local Authority in developing and implementing its access plan.

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Policies
All our policies are available to you on request. Statutory policies are on the website.

 

Contracts

For more information on the fund visit:

www.staffordshire.gov.uk/eef

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or contact the Family Information Service on

Tel: 0300 111 8007

or via email

fis@staffordshire.gov.uk

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We are required to give you a very large number of documents to sign. We have attempted to streamline those that the school requires onto one application form. However, there are a number of statutory forms that are outside our control.

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Early Years Education Fund
Can I take funded hours at more than one provider?
Yes, Parents can split funded hours between multiple providers, but no more than two sites in one day. This can be between any types of provider.
Parents will need to decide how many hours their child attends each setting as both providers must agree to this.

 

What if I want to change provider?
If you wish to change provider, you can do so and the funding will follow your child. Be sure you inform the provider your child is leaving and check the notice period length.  The new provider can then claim for your child from the start date.

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Getting Involved
We really try to involve parents and carers in as many things as we can in and around school so that you can see your child in action. We have regular coffee mornings and theme week events to keep you up to date. We put on Church services and sports days and a whole host of other things.

 

A lot of parents get involved in the PTFA – the parent’s association that raises money for the school. They are a very friendly group and they don’t expect you to do everything even if you just turn up for one meeting. But it’s a good way of getting involved in the school, meeting folk and knowing that you’ve done something useful for your child and all the other children.

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Contact us
The telephone number for Nursery is 01782 394900.

To contact Tracy by email – tmycock@williamamory.staffs.sch.uk