Care
At Sandcastles we provide children and their families with high quality care and education. Our practitioners care for your young children, nurturing them, watching them grow and flourish, tailoring the provision and all that it encompasses to meet individual needs. We build close professional relationships with families and get to know each child’s character and unique ways with the aim of providing a sense of security and independence enabling them to become confident, capable learners.
Our home from home environment has been designed to help families feel welcome and comfortable in our surroundings. We provide a caring personal service encouraging a two-way partnership with parent/carers. We work closely as a united team and continue to strive to move our practice forward welcoming family contributions. We operate an open-door policy should parent/carers wish to discuss any matters.
Sandcastles plan an array of events throughout the year for families to encourage family partnership and offer an open invitation for family members to come in and help, share stories and/or their knowledge and skills.
Our aim is to try and accommodate all families needs to offer a flexible service, continuously reviewing our service such as our opening hours and sessions. We work closely with our cook to maintain a well-balanced healthy menu providing children with nutritious home cooked meals including their five a day. Family contributions are welcomed, and we are happy to discuss any individual dietary matters.
We are here to provide professional advice and signpost families to our amenities in our local environment and other professional services in our local community.
Keyperson Approach
During the enrolment period each child at Sandcastles Nursery is assigned a Keyperson. The Keyperson carries out the family’s room induction* during which they introduce themselves and explain their role which is to help ensure all children assigned to them have their care and learning tailored to meet their individual needs. In addition, they engage and support parent / carers in guiding their child’s development at home and help families engage with more specialist support when appropriate.
As far as possible information will be shared with parents/carers by their child’s key person. For example, during parent evenings, on the phone and at the beginning and end of each session attended. As our staff work shifts within our opening times, they will not always be available but all members of staff within a team are more than able and willing to inform parents of their child’s day.
Sleep
Individual care routines are followed at Sandcastles which are discussed and continuously reviewed between the family and keyperson to ensure continuity between home and nursery. Sleep provision is made in accordance with the children’s own routine. Coracles and sleeping mats are provided along with individual bedding.
Nappy and Toileting
Nappies are checked regularly and changed in accordance with our procedures.
When a child shows readiness for toilet training the keyperson will work closely with the family to ensure this stage of development is supported. We aim for all children to be toilet trained prior to starting our Pre-school room, unless there are any underlying health issues or development delay which may affect this.
Parent/Carer Responsibilities
The parent/carer as the prime carer and educator has a responsibility to Sandcastle’s Nursery and for us to carry out our role in best meeting each child’s needs, we ask all parent/carers to be punctual, attend all the sessions booked, inform Sandcastles of any change of circumstances, share information with your child’s key person and support home learning. This will all have a positive impact to further support your child’s care, learning and development.
We require parent/carers to read Sandcastle’s policies, interact with our website, Instagram page and read FAMLY posts and emails to keep up to date with our latest news.