2018 Newsletter

Dear Parents/Carers/Employees,
2018 has been a great year for Central Park Nursery. After reviewing the children’s development based on the Learning Journeys the staff complete three times a year, it is very clear that the children in our care have made positive steps this year in developing key skills and building friendships.

We have had new members of staff join our team this year and others that have moved on to try new career paths. Many of the staff members have completed training and qualifications and continue their professional development in house and we are very pleased with their determination to succeed and better their knowledge and practise. Training included Food Hygiene, NVQ’s ranging from Level 2- Level 5 & Prevent with regular updates about changes to legislation and nursery policy shared at monthly staff meetings.

Nursery has had an update including important aspects such as decorating, new uniform for staff showing our new logo, a new welcome sign in the office, a new nursery and afterschool prospectus as well as some staff changes around nursery.

As every year previous to this the fees have once again risen, although we do hope that this money is seen to have been put to good use in nursery, by providing additional resources, new experiences and decorating that were needed at the time. This will continue to support the consistent improvements you will see in the coming year.

Policies and procedures have been updated as they are annually, but are closely monitored as we consistently strive to be the best we can be and ensure that our practise is to the standard we expect. Our policy of the month board has also been a positive addition to nursery and a new policy can be found every month alongside the newsletter in the foyer.

We have had to sadly say goodbye to our Yoga teacher who was coming in once a week, however as of the New year we will be having Forest School every week as an optional additional activity as opposed to the once a fortnight it is currently running at. Our Forest School itself has also had changes made to it along with our garden to support the children’s outdoor learning. These include things like a platform for the children to stand on while doing outside painting and drawing, new planters in which we will grow herbs in the new year and a new tarpaulin cover to ensure that we can still use this valuable asset whatever the weather.

We have had a range of special occasions and activities throughout the year which have been a great success such as the Animal Man, Nursery Birthday Party, Science Week, Toasting Marshmallows on Bonfire night, collecting food donations for Telford Network crisis and a Macmillan Bake sale. Holiday club have also been to places such as Blists Hill, The Wrekin, The cinema and many more exciting places. We also had a fantastic month of fundraising for Zac where staff and children wore red, sold activity books, cakes and sweets. We were able to raise just under £500 which was an incredible show of teamwork and community.

During 2018 we have also concentrated on raising money so that we can purchase a defibrillator which will be kept on site. This will benefit not only nursery but the surrounding business park and as we are sure you will agree is extremely beneficial to all who use nursery. We would like to, at this point, thank everyone who has donated over the last 12 months, whether this was through a pyjama day, bake sale or raffle. We are very close to target with under £200 left to raise which we are hoping will be covered by our Christmas 2-day bake sale, sweets for sale and our guess the weight of the Christmas Cake game throughout December.

We would once again like to thank everyone for their input into nursery this year and truly believe that next year is going to be even better based on the positive parent partnerships, our continual training schedule for staff members and the wonderful opportunities we will be offering all children in our care.

We wish you a very merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year.

Kind regards
Marie Davies & Paul Styles.