The new academic year is now in full swing and we have
been pleased to welcome lots of new children into all our
nurseries. The staff teams have enjoyed a change of pace
over the summer weeks, as have the children, with a
slightly more relaxed routine without all our term-time only
pre-schoolers. I know there have been some great trips out
and adventures outside of nursery in lots of places and
there are some lovely photos from these events on our
Facebook page. However, it’s good to get back to our
normal routine and I hope your children have all settled
back in well, if they have had a break.
I don’t have a lot of news from our head office team, we all
seem to busy with supporting the managers and their staff
teams and providing on-going training. I will let the
nurseries give you all their news now and hope to see many
of you during the course of this next term.
Please remember that you can always get hold of me by
phone or e-mail and we can arrange a meeting at any of the
nurseries. A particular thank you to all of you who have
recommended us to friends and colleagues, it is always the
ultimate compliment.
Best wishes,
Sarah Steel
HEAD OFFICE CONTACT DETAILS:
[email protected]
tel: 07725 049744 (Sarah Steel)
[email protected]
tel: 01522 521758 (Jo Bowley)
CHILDREN’S UNIFORM
We now have a range of children’s uniform items available
from the same company which provides our staff uniform. If
you would like to buy pink or purple polos with our logo on,
or purple fleeces, or navy or white sunhats, please have a
look at the following website and you can order direct from
them:
www.simplyschoolwear.co.uk/shops/the_old_station_nursery
(where there are spaces – please use underscores)
NOTES FROM THE OFFICE
As many of you now know, I am going to be spending most
of my time in the Tots room over the next few weeks, to
help them with routines and the environment. I am going to
have the title of ‘Under 3’s Coordinator’ so I will still be
overseeing the Baby room and working alongside that
team. I will have Emily with me until she goes on maternity
leave later in October, as well Amanda B. We are also
looking forward to welcoming Natasha in a few weeks, who
joins us as an experienced level 3 practitioner, to add
stability and experience to this room Thank you for your
patience and understanding during this busy time.
Mary will become the room senior in babies, with Amy
Richards joining her as another qualified level 3 practitioner,
working full time hours. The third member of staff in the
room will be made up with Emma in mornings and Mili in
the afternoons, so we hope to keep a very consistent and
well qualified team in there, without introducing too much
change.
The pre-school team has settled down really well in the
short time that they have had so far this term. Amy B is
busy as deputy manager and pre-school leader and she
and Sophie are the full time team members in pre-school.
They are very ably supported by Ashleigh, our new
apprentice, who has settled in really well and is already an
essential part of the team and very popular with the
children.
Sadly we have to say goodbye to Danielle who is going to
be off travelling the world for a year. We will all keep in
touch with her and let her know how her babies are getting
on as I know she will miss them all! We also say farewell to
Katie next week, who is leaving for a change of career, so
we wish her all the best in the future.
We also have some great news about the management of
the nursery, as this evening we have had a staff meeting
and the opportunity to meet Emily Kersey, our new
manager who will be joining us on 14th October. Emily is an
experienced manager who has worked in many nurseries,
including for Bright Horizons and Childbase. Her real
passion is child development and she is looking forward to
working with all of us here at Innsworth.
We will arrange an evening for you all to meet Emily during
her first week and look forward to having her on the team.
Best wishes, Hayley
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and insects! This will be on Monday 28th October from 8:459:45am and hope that as many of you can make it. If your
child does not normally come in this day, you are welcome
to bring them in as long as you stay with them for the hour.
We will remind everyone and put up posters nearer the time
to find out who is coming.
Baby room
Autumn is now approaching so we are planning lots of fun
activities to fit in with the season. We are hoping to go on
some walks to collect lots of leaves, twigs and some
conkers and pine cones. We are planning to have a
Halloween party again as they have always been popular,
with dressing up and pumpkin carving.
With the autumn weather approaching, if your child would
like to bring in a pair of slippers to wear in the room, please
feel free as they will be comfier for the children. A pair of
named Wellingtons and spare clothes will also be good as
we still like to spend as much time outside as possible.
Hayley, Mary, Amy R, Emma and Mili.
Tots
Please do not hesitate if you have any questions or queries.
As you will have already read, Hayley will be joining the
Tots team as ‘Under 3’s co-coordinator’, running the Tots
room whilst still overseeing the Baby room. She will be a
familiar face along with me, Amanda and some other bank
staff, until we have a new full time member of staff in place.
We hope this will stabilise the room and you will see
continued progress.
Amy B, Sophie and Ashleigh
STOP PRESS!
The new door code to access the nursery is 1379. Please
only give this to family members or friends who will pick up
or drop off on a regular basis; occasional visitors should just
ring the bell. Please remember to wait for the door to close
when you come in or leave, and do not let in anyone whom
you do not know.
As autumn approaches, we will be focusing on seasonal
activities such as leaf printing, planting daffodils that will
grow in the spring time and hopefully going on some
autumn walks, finding lots of conkers and pine cones for our
treasure basket we are starting.
Katie is leaving to start a new adventure as a Trainee
Support worker which will work well with her long term plans
of working in social care. We will miss her a lot but wish her
all the best in her future career.
Please ensure you bring enough spare clothes in your
child’s bag, especially when they first start potty training.
We like to do lots of messy activities and spend as much
time outside as we can, so if you could bring a waterproof
all in one in, that would really help.
Emily, Hayley and Amanda
Pre-school
I would like to welcome Sophie, who is now in Pre-school
full time and Ashleigh who is our apprentice. Ashleigh will
work 7 hours every day from 11-6pm and will have a couple
of key children. The Key Carer list is displayed on the
Parent Information board, inside the room, but please ask if
you have any questions or aren’t sure how the Key Carer
role works in practice.
We have been very busy over the summer, cleaning and
tidying the room and have purchased some new resources.
The children are doing an excellent job of caring for the
room and the resources and we and finding that behaviour
is much better and children are really engaged in activities
for much longer periods of time.
We have some new water bottles for the children; all are
named so that the children have access to water all day.
They are getting used to this and like being able to help
themselves at any time.
For Halloween, we are going to have a visit from ZooLab,
telling a story about Meg and Mog, using lots of animals
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