Policies and procedures

 

St Mabyn Pre-School is governed according to a comprehensive list of policies and procedures which are available in their full version to be viewed: 1. in the Operational File kept in the village hall; and 2. attached below as pdf documents.

For parents and carers, we have put together the following precis for areas of common interest. If you want to see more information on any subject, you may read the pdfs or contact a committee member.

Admissions
Behaviour Management (inc. Discipline)
Child Protection
Equal Opportunities
Food and Drink
Health and Safety
Non-Collection of Children
Outings
Parental involvement
Payment of Fees
Settling In
Sickness and Medication
Special Needs

Admissions
We aim to ensure that all sections of our community have access to the Pre-School through open, fair and clearly communicated procedures. We ensure that information about our Pre-School is written and, where appropriate, in different languages, or in Braille, or through signing or an interpreter. We welcome both fathers and mothers, other relations, and other carers, including childminders.

Our waiting list is as follows:

1. 3-4 year olds in receipt of Nursery Education Funding
2. Children already in Pre-School being offered additional days
3. Priority to Committee Members' families
4. Priority to brothers and sisters who have already attended the setting
5. Date of birth

Behaviour Management (inc. Discipline)
We aim to teach children to behave in socially acceptable ways and to understand the needs and rights of others. The principles guiding management of behaviour exist within the programme for supporting personal, social and emotional development. We believe in positive strategies for handling any inconsiderate behaviour, by helping children find solutions in ways which are appropriate for the children's ages and stages of development. We have more in-depth procedures to deal with situations such as rough and tumble play, aggression, hurtful behaviour, and bullying.

Child Protection
St Mabyn Pre-school will work with children, parents and the community to ensure the safety of children and to give them the very best start in life. We abide by the commitments of the Pre-school Learning Alliance policy for safeguarding children. We carry out this policy by:

  • promoting children's right to be strong, resilient and listened to by creating an environment in our setting that encourages children to develop a positive self image, which includes their heritage arising from their colour and ethnicity, their languages spoken at home, their religious beliefs, cultural traditions and home background;
  • promoting children's right to be strong, resilient and listened to by encouraging children to develop a sense of autonomy and independence;
  • promoting children's right to be strong, resilient and listened to by enabling children to have the self confidence and the vocabulary to resist inappropriate approaches;
  • helping children to establish and sustain satisfying relationships within their families, with peers, and with other adults; and
  • working with parents to build their understanding of and commitment to the principles of safeguarding all our children.
For more information about legislation and legal framework, as well as our procedures and methods, refer to the full policy.

Equal Opportunities
St Mabyn Pre-school is committed to valuing diversity by providing equality of opportunity and anti-discriminatory practice for all children and families.
We aim to:
  • provide a secure environment in which all our children can flourish and in which all contributions are valued;
  • include and value the contribution of all families to our understanding of equality and diversity;
  • provide positive non-stereotyping information about gender roles, diverse ethnic and cultural groups and people with disabilities;
  • improve our knowledge and understanding of issues of anti-discriminatory practice, promoting equality and valuing diversity; and
  • make inclusion a thread that runs through all of the activities of the setting.
Food and Drink
This setting regards snack and meal times as an important part of the setting's session. Eating represents a social time for children and adults and helps children to learn about healthy eating. The Pre-school Learning Alliance promotes healthy eating through our campaign 'Feeding Young Imaginations'. At snack times, we aim to provide nutritious food, which meets the children's individual dietary needs. We aim to meet the full requirements of The National Standards for Day Care on Food and Drink (Standard 8).
If your child has individual dietary needs, please discuss this with a staff member before your child starts at the Pre-School.

Health and Safety
St Mabyn Pre-school believes that the health and safety of children is of paramount importance. We make our setting a safe and healthy place for children, parents, staff and volunteers. We aim to make children, parents and staff aware of health and safety issues and to minimise the hazards and risks to enable the children to thrive in a healthy and safe environment. Non-Collection of Children In the event that a child is not collected by an authorised adult at the end of a session, St Mabyn Pre-school puts into practice agreed procedures. These ensure the child is cared for safely by an experienced and qualified practitioner who is known to the child. In the event that a child is not collected by an authorised adult, we will ensure that the child receives a high standard of care in order to cause as little distress as possible. We inform parents/carers of our procedures so that, if they are unavoidably delayed, they will be reassured that their children will be properly cared for. Parents are informed that if they are not able to collect the child as planned, they must inform us so that we can begin to take back-up procedures. We provide parents with our contact telephone number. We also inform parents that - in the event that their children are not collected from St Mabyn Pre-school by an authorised adult and the staff can no longer supervise the child on our premises - we apply our child protection procedures as set out in our child protection policy.

Outings and visits
  • We have agreed procedures for the safe conduct of outings.
  • Parents sign a general consent on registration for their children to be taken out as part of the daily activities of the setting.
  • Parents always sign consent forms before major outings.
  • A risk assessment is carried out before an outing takes place.
  • Our adult to child ratio is high, normally one adult to two children