Baby playing on floor cleaning items in a bowl

Toddler washing doll in outside play area

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Values, Visions and Aims

Staff and Pupils have come up with the following 'Values, Visions and Aims' statement:

Here at Maple Nursery we aim to provide a happy, safe, warm and stimulating environment which will support and challenge our children in their exploration of the world around them. By keeping the children at the heart of everything we do, parents can feel confident that their child is receiving the very best care and start in life.

Nursery Introduction

Our Mission Statement

We aim to be the next best thing to being cared for at home, by providing a safe, loving and homely environment. We aim to support young mums and encourage bonding in a positive manner, and develop positive relationships between mother and baby. All children are special and unique and are treated as such. Children's achievements are shared and celebrated by all. We strive to provide a broad range of educational activities and experiences which will nurture and promote their confidence and development

We appreciate that young mums are understandably anxious when leaving their baby at nursery for the first time. For this reason we always strive to make the transition from home to nursery as smooth as possible. Settling in sessions help parents, carers and babies to get to know each other and also ensure that staff become familiar with baby's routines. This enables us to adhere to baby's home routines as much as possible in nursery. Key workers establish close, loving relationships with babies, enabling them to bond with each other.

EYFS curriculum

EYFS - Early Years Foundation Stage

Planning throughout the Nursery is based on Government Guidelines detailed in the Early Years Foundation Stage document and covers children aged from birth to five years.

It states that, "Every child deserves the best possible start in life and support to fulfil their potential. A child's experience in the early years has a major impact on their future life chances. A secure, safe and happy childhood is important in its own right, and it provides the foundation for children to make the most of their abilities and talents as they grow up. When parents choose to use early years services they want to know that provision will keep their children safe and help them to thrive. The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is the framework that provides that assurance."

The EYFS is divided into four themes:

A Unique Child recognises that every child is a competent learner from birth who can be resilient, capable, confident and self-assured. The commitments are focused around development, inclusion, safety, and health and well-being.
Positive Relationships describes how children learn to be strong and independent from a base of loving and secure relationships with parents and/or a key person. The commitments are focused around respect, partnership with parents, supporting learning, and the role of the key person.
Enabling Environments explains that the environment plays a key role in supporting and extending children's development and learning. The commitments are focused around observation, assessment and planning, support for every child, the learning environment, and the wider context - transitions, continuity, and multi-agency working.
Learning and Development. Children are born ready, able and eager to learn.They actively reach out to interact with other people and the world around them. Development is not an automatic process, however, it depends on each unique child having opportunities to interact in positive relationships and enabling environments.

The four themes are all part of Learning and Development recognises that children develop and learn in different ways and at different rates, and that all areas of learning and development are equally important and inter-connected.

The areas of learning are:

The three prime areas:

Personal, Social and Emotional Development
Communication and Language
Physical Development

Parenting Support

We understand that parenthood can be a daunting and scary prospect for most new parents so we offer advice and guidance so that babies and parents can develop together.

While students are pregnant they are given one to one sessions with a qualified nursery nurse on all aspects of parenting. These include, changing a nappy, bathing a baby, breastfeeding, sterilizing a bottle, preparing a formula feed, packing their hospital bag and items needed for baby. Students will also be taken to Doncaster Royal Infirmary to familiarise themselves with the delivery suite. All information provided follows current guidelines, which is summarised in our parenting booklet given to each pregnant girl.

Relationships with nursery staff are established early in pregnancy giving young mums confidence and trust to leave babies when born and enables nursery staff to address any concerns that the young mums and mums to be may have. The on-site nursery removes the uncertainty and anxiety of finding appropriate childcare. Home visits are also undertaken after baby is born to ease transition into nursery.

Once students become mums, their baby is allocated one of our nursery nurses to become their key worker. Our dedicated team of nursery nurses will work together with each new mum and their baby exploring issues and ideas around parenting skills with sessions provided on weaning, sleep routines, the importance of play, child development and dental hygiene. These sessions will be supported by other health professionals such as midwives, health visitors and our local Children’s Centre if appropriate. Guest speakers on topics such as Life skills, CSE, online safety, Domestic Violence.

During baby’s time in nursery key workers and parents work together within the EYFS to build a development file which supports planning to promote each individual child’s learning and progress. Activities are both planned and spontaneous within nursery, such as song time, messy play, sensory area and story time.

Parents are regularly invited to take part in activities within the nursery which we hope will extend their knowledge of the importance of play for them to take and use at home.