Parent Information

Parent Partnership

Children’s day nurseries aren’t just for the child’s benefit. As a parent, it’s vital to know that your child is developing and learning to the best of their ability and that they’re well taken care of. It’s the job of a children’s day nursery, then, to demonstrate this. One way of doing so is through a partnership with parents.

What is a partnership with parents?

According to the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) framework, a partnership includes ‘parents, families and practitioners working together to benefit children.’ For a partnership to work well, it must be built on trust, transparency and responsibility from all parties involved.

There are many ways practitioners and parents can work together. The EYFS focuses on four elements, including:

Supporting learning and development

Sharing information

Contributing

Making decisions and advocating different approaches and courses of action

But why is it so important for children's day nurseries to partner with parents?

The most important element of any children’s day nursery is trust. Leaving your child is a difficult thing to do, especially at such a young age, and it’s up to the day nursery to show that your child is in a trusting environment.

Not only that, a child needs to feel safe when they’re in an environment without their parents. At Fledgelings, we use key persons & buddy approach to partner children with adults to effectively tailor each child’s development. Not only does this help build trust in the child, it also creates trust for the parents, too.

At Fledgelings Day Nurseries, the expectation is that parents will actively get involved in their child’s learning. For the parent, they expect their child to be left in the right hands, and that those hands are actively progressing their child’s learning and development.

Parent partnerships, then, clarify the expectations for everyone. Good relationships with day nurseries helps you manage your expectations and raise any concerns that you have about their learning. It also allows a school to set their expectation of how involved parents should be outside of the classroom.

Famly App

At Fledgelings Nurseries we recognise the importance of parents as the main influencers in their children’s lives and their first educators. We use an app called ‘Famly’ which allows our nursery staff to share photos, videos and instant messages with parents and parents to share information with nursery via their mobile phones, tablets or laptops.

There is a news feed and the look is similar to other social media programmes that parents are familiar with such as Facebook. You can message, post and ‘like’ items that nursery staff post and even add emoticons.

All information is visible in real time which means that you can see important events as they happen.

We are also able to share our observations of children’s wellbeing, learning and development and link it to the early years foundation stage so that you can see and understand the progress your child is making.

All data stored on Famly is protected securely and compliant with data protection regulations including the new General Data Protection Regulation effective from May 2018.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How do you keep parents informed of their child’s progress?

We have recently implemented Famly App to the majority of our nurseries, providing you with instant access via an app of your child’s development and progress.

As well as regular updates via Famly App throughout the day, when collecting your child you will be provide with a verbal communication on their day. Including the learning opportunities that they’ve participated in, nappy changes, sleep times and meals etc.

We also hold regular parents evenings where you will be able to have a more in depth conversation around your child’s learning and development with your child’s key person.
How do you support children’s learning and development?

Our unique curriculum, has been developed to provide opportunities for children to learn, explore and discover, whilst attending a Fledgelings Day Nursery.

The curriculum reflects Fledgelings' vision and values ensuring all children have the best possible start in life, enabling them to reach their full potential to become strong and motivated learners for life.

This play-based curriculum supports the delivery of the seven Educational Programmes as defined within the Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage (England) and the mandatory elements of Curriculum for Wales, focusing on the needs of the developing child through the five developmental pathways. It values children as unique, strong, capable, and resilient individuals and recognises that play is fundamental for children’s learning and development.
What are the ratios of staff to children?

In England the legal requirements are:

0-2 years – 1:3 ratio
2-3 years – 1:5 ratio (but the majority of our settings usually operate on a 1:4 ratio)
Over 3 years – 1:8 ratio
What qualifications do your staff have?

The requirements are a minimum of 50% qualified staff to unqualified. Our qualified staff hold a minimum of a Level 2 in Childcare with many at or working towards Level 3. All our senior team in nursery hold a Level 3 or above. We have paediatric first aid trained staff within our nurseries, which is renewed every three years.