Newsletter - Winter 2007 – Issue No. 1

Notes From The Editor

Welcome to the first edition of the newsletter for Complete Childcare Ltd. This has been a long time coming and we hope that it will be a fun and useful source of information for parents, grandparents and carers - keeping you up to date with developments at our nurseries throughout the year.

In case you weren’t aware, we’re a family-owned business operating two nurseries: Happitots Day Nursery (1-3 Winnersh Grove, Winnersh) and Northumberland Day Nursery (14 Northumberland Avenue, Reading). There is a small Head Office team based over Happitots Schoolroom which supports the nursery operations.

All staff meet on a regular basis to discuss how their nursery is progressing and key topics such as children’s development, activities and curriculum, staffing, training, resource requirements, projects and themed activities. In addition we hold regular room senior and staff meetings at each nursery, including group training, Ofsted, updates on policies & procedures, health & safety and personnel.

We also enjoy ourselves together outside of work, and the team is looking forward to our “Grease” themed night for our festive celebrations in early December.

May I wish all children, parents and grandparents a very enjoyable and memorable festive season.

Janet

News from Happitots

A big thank you to everyone who helped to collect the Sainsbury’s Active Kids Vouchers over the summer.  We “purchased” a large range of items, from bean bags and tennis balls to cookie cutters and bun trays and even a 2 hob mini oven! The children are thoroughly enjoying all these new resources.

Another thank-you to all the parents who supported Jeans for Genes day in October and the Toddle Waddle in November, which included the whole nursery (babies too) joining in the fun for The Meningitis Trust.

We hope you noticed a change to our Little Toddler Garden – with the inclusion of a shaded area, play-house, decked flooring, raised herb planter and grassed area.

Meanwhile, there has been ongoing maintenance throughout the buildings and grounds. There is still more work to do, so thank you for your patience as ongoing work and updates are completed.

On the subject of outdoors, can I remind you about our indoor shoe policy.  Please ensure your little ones have some footwear exclusively to wear indoors, to avoid dirt being brought into the nursery. Please also take extra care to wipe your feet when dropping off or collecting.

We had a visit from a professional photographer in November. We hope that you liked the pictures and will want to select photos for special gifts or keep-sakes.

We aim to produce a photo album for each child at the nursery. If you have not already done so, please provide a photo of your child, siblings, parents, grandparents, pets and house to add to your child’s album.

Finally, we are looking forward to our busy seasonal activities – see our forthcoming events calendar for more details. Two important notes – parents of School House children involved in the nativity must please take them home straight after the performance. Also, this year’s Xmas Party will be Fancy Dress – we can’t wait to see everyone dressing up!

Vanessa

News from Northumberland

There has been lots of activity at Northumberland Day Nursery – where do I start? Thank you everyone who supported our Saturday open day in September. All staff took part and entertained children, parents and grandparents with a raffle, cake sale, treasure hunt, biscuit decorating and so on. We raised money for toys to go in our garden - recently renovated and now boasting a superb all weather safety surface and purpose built wooden climbing frame.

Our Genes for Jeans day raised £33 and the Toddle Waddle in October raised a magnificent £400 for the Meningitis Trust. By the time you read this, we will have joined in fundraising for Children In Need – thank you for your continued support for these extremely worthy causes.

We all enjoyed a great Halloween Party. Now we’re looking forward to our seasonal activities and hope to see many of you at them. I’d just like to give you a gentle reminder that we collect Tesco Sports Vouchers, so if you do your shopping there, please remember to ask for them.

Shememe

Training update

We take pride in continuous training for all staff, whether it be in-house mentoring/training or external courses.  Over the past few months, we have promoted three staff to be room seniors and must congratulate two other staff who recently qualified for their NVQ level 3. Two of our senior management staff attended an NDNA forum entitled “Building Better Partnerships”. This focused on building stronger relationships with Local Authorities and gave information on how the new Early Years Foundation Stage will be inspected by Ofsted.

Janet

Spotlight on Twins

There are now six sets of twins attending our Nurseries! Two sets of identical boy twins and one set of non-identical boy twins in the School House at Happitots and two sets of boy and girl twins - one set in the baby room at Happitots, one set in Little Toddlers and the other set in the School Room at Northumberland.

According to Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, boy and girl twins is called a Pigeon Pair? It was once supposed that pigeons always sit on two eggs which produce a male and a female, and these twin birds live together in love the rest of their lives. I did not know this until I gave birth to my pigeon pair in May this year!

Janet

Website Launch

We are going live onto the internet on 1st December 2007! Please visit us (ask your friends, too) at www.completechildcare.co.uk Your feedback about the site is welcomed. Contact Us and please put WEB FEEDBACK in the subject bar! We’ve included links to the National Day Nurseries Association, Ofsted, and Parents-in-touch websites, which are invaluable sources of down-to earth advice as well as free educational materials and guidance.

All things financial

We commenced Direct Debit payments in September and will be including more parents in the next month, if you have not yet signed-up please do so – this way we keep admin costs low and can spend more on the nurseries. Forms are available from both nurseries.  Monthly invoice production is now also in its third month; please remember fees are payable in advance. Early Years Grant (for qualifying over-3’s) has now been paid for the autumn term and will not therefore feature on December invoices.

Phil

Forthcoming events

There's lots of fun stuff planned for the weeks ahead!
CLICK HERE and see our table of forthcoming events

Latest date for entries for next edition 7th February 2008.

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