Parents In Partnership Policy

Parents and carers as partner’s policy.

Truly Scrumptious Early Years Nursery believes that in order for children to receive quality care and early learning that suits their individual needs, parents and staff need to work together in a close partnership. The two-way sharing of information is key to this. The nursery team welcomes parents as partners and this relationship needs to be built on trust and understanding. It is important that we, as practitioners, are able to support parents in an open and sensitive manner.

The nursery wishes to ensure parents are an integral part of the care and early learning team within the nursery.

Our policy is to:

• Recognise and support parents as their child’s first and most important educators, and to welcome them into the life of the nursery.
• Generate confidence and encourage parents to trust their own instincts and judgement regarding their own child.
• Welcome all parents into the nursery at any time and be as flexible as possible.
• Ensure nursery documentation and communications can be easily adapted to a format to suit individual parent’s needs, e.g. Braille, multi-lingual, electronic communications.
• Ensure that all parents are aware of the nursery’s policies and procedures. A detailed parent prospectus will be provided and our full policy documents will be available upon joining and is also display on the parent’s noticeboard.
• Maintain regular contact with parents to help us to build a secure and beneficial working relationship for their children
• Support parents in their own continuing education and personal development and inform them of relevant conferences, workshops and training
• Create opportunities for parents to talk to other adults in a secure and supportive environment through such activities as open days, parents play and stay sessions, workshops etc.
• Inform parents about nursery activities and events through regularly distributed newsletters, liaising and communication books.
• Operate a key person system to enable a close working relationship with all parents. Support two-way information sharing regarding each child’s individual needs both in nursery and at home
• Inform parents on a regular basis about their child’s planning and progress and involve them in the shared record keeping. Play and stay sessions are available for Karate fitness, baby ballet and French lesson together with morning sessions. Parents will be consulted well in advance with about the times of these sessions to avoid excluding anyone.
• Consider and discuss all suggestions from parents concerning the care and early learning of their child and nursery operation.
• Provide opportunities and support for all parents to contribute their own skills, knowledge and interests to the activities of the nursery
• Inform all parents of the systems for registering queries, compliments, complaints or suggestions, and to check that these systems are understood by parents. All parents have access to our written complaints procedure.
• Provide opportunities for parents to learn about the Early years foundation Stage(EYFS) and about young children’s learning in the nursery and at home.
• Provide a written contract between the parent(s) and the nursery regarding conditions of acceptance and arrangements for payment and funding.
• Respect the family’s religious and cultural backgrounds and beliefs and to accommodate any special requirements wherever possible and practical to do so.

Find out the needs and expectations of parents. These will be obtained through regular feedback via questionnaires, suggestion system and encouraging parents to review working practices. These are then evaluated by the nursery to promote nursery practice, policy and staff development.

This policy was reviewed by Hayley Marsh, Nursery Manager 6/7/2015

Contributions were made by Gabija Ankudaviciene, Parent Representative and volunteer (Romford setting)