At Patacake Day Nursery we work in partnership with parents to achieve the best possible outcomes for all the children in our care.
We provide a range of creative activities including, languages, early computer skills and emergent reading and writing to help the children develop, and prepare them for their next steps in education. Our programme meets the EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage) curriculum and the Cambridgeshire Local Authority funding requirements.
All staff undertake mandatory training in Safeguarding, Paediatric First Aid, Health, Fire and Food Safety.
Our fabulous staff make a great Nursery and we pride ourselves on having a highly qualified, trained and skilled team.
We provide a range of creative activities including, languages, early computer skills and emergent reading and writing to help the children develop, and prepare them for their next steps in education. Our programme meets the EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage) curriculum and the Cambridgeshire Local Authority funding requirements.
All staff undertake mandatory training in Safeguarding, Paediatric First Aid, Health, Fire and Food Safety.
Our fabulous staff make a great Nursery and we pride ourselves on having a highly qualified, trained and skilled team.
The Nursery Manager, has a wealth of experience in childcare, and is supported by a passionate and committed staff team. The team give each and every child the opportunity to grow in confidence, and reach their full potential.
No one knows your child better than you, so our partnership with parents is integral to our way of working. We hold termly parents’ meetings ensuring you have the time to discuss your child’s individual needs and progress with their appointed key person. However, our ‘open-door’ policy means that parents are welcome to come and speak to us at any time. We promote home learning, and encourage parents to participate and contribute to their child’s development, sharing information on a daily basis.
No one knows your child better than you, so our partnership with parents is integral to our way of working. We hold termly parents’ meetings ensuring you have the time to discuss your child’s individual needs and progress with their appointed key person. However, our ‘open-door’ policy means that parents are welcome to come and speak to us at any time. We promote home learning, and encourage parents to participate and contribute to their child’s development, sharing information on a daily basis.
Good nutrition is essential during childhood, as it is a time of rapid growth, development and activity. This is also a vital time for healthy tooth development and prevention of decay. General eating habits and patterns are formed in the first few years of life. A nutritious diet, together with good hydration, provides your child with good eating habits for life, healthy skin, a healthy weight, secure emotional well-being, and improved behaviour.
The nursery staff have a key role in introducing young children to a wide variety of foods and establishing a pattern of regular meals and healthy snacks. Eating is about more than food, it is a social event too, and nursery staff join your child’s mealtimes. Staff encourage interaction between the children, good table manners and the development of social skills. Staff are also on hand to support and assist, if needed.
Your child’s transition to solid foods can be challenging. We will work with you during the weaning period to ensure you are fully leading the next stage of your child’s development with their meals. The arrangements for children’s meals and snacks will, of course, be dependent on your child’s sessions whilst attending the nursery. The Nursery Manager will discuss this information with you before your child starts at the nursery.
To give every parent peace of mind, our seasonal menus are nutritionally well balanced. They rotate on a four-week cycle and are prepared by our qualified chefs to ensure we meet all children’s dietary and cultural needs, as well as exploring different tastes at mealtimes.
We believe in serving food that is fresh, local and honest. Our dedication to providing tasty meals prepared with farm assured meat, sustainable fish and local vegetables has been accredited by the Soil Association through a Food for Life Served Here Silver award. We achieved our Bronze award in 2019 and have achieved our Silver award in August 2020. The award also recognises that we champion freshly prepared meals by trained chefs who are passionate about the ingredients they work with.
We know that food is a vital part of education, and understand that fresh, healthy food is what children need to grow and develop. That’s why our varied menus include a range of options to make healthy eating easier for everyone.
Find out more about our award at www.foodforlife.org.uk/catering
Meal and snack times are an important part of our daily routine across all age groups. Children take an active role in the preparation of snacks, and, with adult support, serve themselves at lunch time. In our older age rooms, children take it in turns to set tables and then work together to clear away at the end of a meal. This enhances the development of social skills by helping to increase children’s confidence, self- esteem, independence and decision making skills, and is the next step for school readiness.
Our approach goes above and beyond the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) to foster deep level learning and optimise potential.
We offer a range of unique educational experiences which enable children to become successful, lifelong learners including:
At our nursery, children over two years of age take part in a fun fitness session every day at around 9:00am, and younger children are invited to join in with the session if they wish to do so. This exciting five-minute session is part of our Nursery’s everyday routine and ensures children’s brains are engaged, and they are alert and ready to learn.
Research has shown that when children are carrying out cross-lateral movements, this encourages the two sides of the brain to communicate. In turn, this strengthens the nerve-cell pathways linking both sides of the brain, making it easier for children to learn and absorb information and skills from activities. Other benefits of exercise for children include, healthy heart and lungs, strengthening of muscles and bones, as well as providing relaxation and developing co-ordination.
The Wake Up and Shake Up songs which accompany these sessions, encourage health and well-being and link in with the Early Years Foundation Stage areas of learning, particularly Physical Development and Communication and Language – both prime areas of learning for young children.
Music and movement sessions teach children to move with control and confidence whilst encouraging them to become more aware of the space around them. It also provides the opportunity for children to learn about their bodies and what they can do.
Starting with our youngest children; the ‘Feelings Bag’ is filled with resources that allow them to begin to acknowledge different types of feelings, such as happy, sad, shy, excited and angry. Practitioners use tools and resources, supported by detailed activity cards, to introduce these feelings to the children and also to demonstrate different ways in which they can be supported or ‘made to feel better’. This provides children with the initial understanding of how someone might make them feel happy and excited, or supported when they feel sad or shy.
As the children develop their understanding of feelings, the emotional aspect is added into our learning experience. This is achieved by helping children take their understanding of different feelings, and begin to look at how they may affect others. Activities such as using an animal puppet to simulate body language which represents how a child might be feeling, and supporting the children in their language and behaviours, are key ways that practitioners help children secure an understanding of emotional patterns and the impact of the actions of others.
The final stage, which takes place with the Pre-School aged children, explores the development of relationships and how children’s understanding of behaviour patterns which relate to emotions and feelings, can be used to support them in building lasting, meaningful relationships with adults and children.
As children develop, more advanced feelings and emotions are included, to further extend children’s vocabulary and their comprehension of how to process and handle these, and many other feelings, for example, feeling blissful, ecstatic or panicked.
It is through these activities and interactions that children are also taught about the concept of anger, frustration, and being annoyed when things don’t go how they planned or when something unpleasant happens. Staff use stories and activity cards to support each child in knowing that it is okay to feel these emotions, whilst also providing them with the tools to be able to recognise and regulate their behaviour to ensure they act appropriately.
Practitioners use facial expressions and a voice that shows interest and excitement, together with lots of language, to engage babies whilst they explore and discuss the boxes.
Taking part in ‘Chatter Box’ time will encourages children to listen to their peers which helps develop their attention and concentration skills.
Our Weather Boxes have been specifically designed for all age ranges to provide additional learning and development opportunities outside of the classroom environment. From story times and mark making, to mobile mud kitchens and science and investigation, these boxes have it all.
The boxes have been dynamically designed to provide everything our practitioners need to effectively carry out the activities contained within the box. Children are given the free choice as they enter the garden or head out for their walk, to choose which, if any boxes, they would like to access. Each adult-led activity using a Weather Box provides cross-curricular learning for children of all ages and covers the breadth of the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum.
Outside of the Early Years Outcomes, our children learn the importance of looking after the environment around them. They are encouraged and effectively supported in playing and exploring, actively learning, and questioning ‘the norm’ with their skills of creativity and critical thinking. This is all achieved through the use of a Weather Box and the interaction and teaching from our practitioners.
Our nursery has a nominated ‘Garden Champion’ who attends regular training sessions to further develop their own knowledge and skills, enabling them to bring back to nursery, a range of seasonal activities which can be carried out with the children. This is not simply an activity of planting grass seeds in a pot, but is in fact an opportunity for children to make use of real-life gardening tools and equipment to prepare an area, sow seeds, tend to vegetation and harvest their produce at the end of the process. The use of these tools further extends the children’s knowledge and understanding of how to manage their own risk, handle tools carefully, and keep themselves safe in an outdoor environment. Our children always complete their own visual risk assessment of the area, with the support of a practitioner, and decide for themselves if it is an appropriate and safe time to complete their activity. If the children decide it is not, they will then discuss what can be done to make it so.
Fruits and vegetables grown are picked and prepared by the children, alongside the nursery chef, who will then factor them into the menu for that day. This provides children with the ‘garden to plate’ experience, a fundamental aspect of supporting them in being able to make informed choices about the foods they put into their bodies.
Our nursery is registered with the Royal Horticultural Society and has achieved their RHS accreditation.
Children learn important life lessons – what better way than to learn from wise elderly people who have lived a long and interesting life? The elderly have learned many valuable lessons and sharing their stories with the children is magical.
Children will bring cakes or biscuits made at the nursery or share their artwork on the visit and descriptive language and recall on memory skills will be encouraged. The strong partnership helps the children have a sense of their own community and offers local citizenship; all strengths needed for the awareness of the world around them.
Our nursery features a ‘Chatter Approach’ in the walk up to, or reception area of the building. The chatter approach is designed to promote each child’s communication and language development through a series of visual prompts they can explore. These may include a range of images, questions or small challenges to complete and share with their peers/key person within the setting.
We are pleased to offer a welcome bonus to successful new starters joining our team.
Alongside competitive benefits and opportunities to develop, it’s our way of saying we value the people who choose to work with us.
Applies to L3 Nursery Practitioners and above.
Call us at 01223 411636 to find out more! (T&Cs apply*)
At Patacake Day Nursery we work in partnership with parents to achieve the best possible outcomes for all the children in our care.
