Principal’s Letter

Dear Parents/Guardians,

On behalf of the Governors and staff may I welcome both you and your child into our family. The Board of Governors and staff will do all in their power to make your child’s stay at our school as happy as possible. We will endeavour to provide high quality learning at all times. I set very high standards for leadership, learning and teaching.

Good discipline is the key to a happy school therefore I do not accept any behaviour or language which will lower standards in school. Your child will be treated with respect at all times and, if required, disciplined in accordance with our discipline policy. Self-discipline will be highly valued and rewarded within school.

The prospectus has been designed to give you some basic information about our school. It is hoped that we have covered all the relevant aspects of school life. During the year a review of all policies and procedures will be carried out and the information contained within the prospectus will change to reflect the changing needs of the school.

These changes are required to meet the challenges of the Human Rights Legislation and the Freedom Of Information Act, as it applies to children. You will be kept up-to-date with any changes, which are relevant to you or your child. The Governors and staff will be committed to the rights principles set out in the European Convention on Human Rights and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The following quote from Professor John West-Burnham encapsulates my philosophy of education.

“If culture is the personality of an organisation then a quality school is restless, constantly questioning, never satisfied, challenging norms and believing that things can always be better.”

 The choice of your child’s school is a big responsibility and I encourage you to pray for the right decision to be made on their behalf. If you wish to find out more information please feel free to make an appointment to see me during school.

Mr. W. M. Tate  (Cert. Ed., B. Ed., Dip. Ed. L., MBA, MCMI, FRSA)

Principal

Belvoir Park Nursery

General Information.

Website address.                   www.belvoirparkprimary.org

Address:                                Belvoir Park Primary School Nursery

                                                Belvoir Drive ,

                                                Belfast ,

                                                  BT8 7DL

Tel. No:                                 

Principal:                                Mr. W. M. Tate

Nursery Staff.

Head of Nursery:                   Mrs. S. McCracken

Teacher:                                 Mrs. A. Orr

Nursery

Assistants:                          Mrs. D. Orr.

Welcome to Belvoir Nursery

Dear Parents,

It gives us great pleasure to welcome you and your child to Belvoir Nursery.

We hope that your child will be very happy with us and that they will benefit from the wide range of pre-school learning experiences that we have on offer. At Belvoir Nursery we aim to provide a secure friendly environment in which your child will have the opportunity to explore and discover through happy play activities. We have an excellent outdoor play facility to help enhance the quality of education on offer.

We are always happy to speak with parents either at the start or end of the day. Appointments can be arranged throughout the year should any queries or concerns arise.

We look forward to September and hope that your child will thoroughly enjoy their time with us.

S.McCracken

A.Orr

D. Orr

Our Learning Aims and Objectives.

Children who experience our nursery curriculum have an opportunity:

·       To acquire the foundation knowledge and understanding that will lead to deeper learning as they progress throughout the school

·       To develop skills, concepts, positive attitudes and values to help them learn within our school family

·       To have an opportunity to live their dreams

In order to ensure that each child develops as an individual we have a clear and focused set of objectives.

At Belvoir Nursery we aim to:

• Provide a safe, secure, friendly and stimulating learning environment in which the children are confident and happy.

• Deliver a carefully planned and well-structured curriculum, which enables each child to develop emotionally, physically, socially and intellectually.

• Provide learning experiences, which encourage children to play in a settled and productive manner.

• Foster the children’s sense of self-discipline, consideration of the wishes of others and the need to share equipment agreeably.

• Encourage the development of both independence and interdependence.

·       Help children experience success and foster a positive attitude toward learning.

·       To build relationships of mutual respect between parents and staff.

·       To help the children to understand and co-operate with the necessary rules and routines that underpin their learning experiences.

The Curriculum.

What goes on at Nursery to foster learning?

Each day a wide range of varied activities are on offer to the children.

These play activities are carefully structured to provide the children opportunities to develop in each of the seven areas of the Pre-school learning curriculum:

• Personal social and emotional development.
• Physical development.
• Creative/Aesthetic development.
• Language development.
• Early mathematical development.
• Early experiences in science and technology.
• Knowledge and appreciation of the environment.

These are a few examples of some of the activities that are offered:

Imaginative role play

• House, hospital, shop, café, baby clinic, hairdressers.

Natural materials

• Water, sand, play dough and baking.

Creative activities

• Using paint crayons pencils, pens, chalk and cutting and sticking using variety of paper dressing up, music, songs and rhymes.

Construction activities

• Variety of construction toys and junk materials.

Physical activities

• Outdoor play on wide variety of mobile toys, climbing frames balancing equipment and a session at Kindergym.

Table-top toys activities

• Matching, sorting, grading, pattern making, threading, and a wide variety of jigsaws.

Picture and storybooks are always available in the classroom and story time is held each day in the quiet room.

Uniform

We want your child to be comfortable and free to move about and to get dirty some occasions without spoiling their good clothes. That is why we have a uniform which we would strongly request that your child wears every day.

The uniform has been designed with your child in mind helping to ensure they become more independent in dressing themselves. There are no awkward buttons, zips or fasteners to deal with.

The uniform consists of:

• A yellow polo shirt with school badge.
• A blue sweatshirt with school badge.
• Navy jogging bottoms.

All items can be purchased from any member of the staff.

Wearing a uniform is not only comfortable and practical but also makes the child feel part of a team of friends in the Nursery and the wider school family. It is also helpful with reference to a health and safety point of view in that it will not get caught on climbing frames or bicycles. It has the added advantage that outside the classroom environment your child can easily be identified as part of the class group.

Please make sure that every item is CLEARLY NAMED before coming to school.

As the children play outside everyday we would suggest that VELCRO FASTINGS are the best practical form of footware  for nursery

Pick up Rules to ensure the health and safety of your child

It is essential that you aim to collect your child promptly at the end of each session.

We operate a 10 minute pick up period

FULL TIME CLASS -- Between 1.20pm – 1.30pm

If you are late this can cause the child great concern, however, we realise that unforeseen situations do arise and would ask you to phone so that we can reassure your child that you are on your way. 

Please let us know that morning if your child is going to be collected by someone else so that we can ensure your child’s safety.

All adults must come into the Nursery to collect their child.

If in doubt the Nursery staff will not release a child into the care of an adult who is not known to the staff.

Drop off Rules to ensure the health and safety of your child

Children must be brought and left into Nursery by an adult. Cars are not permitted in the car park and all children and parents should enter the playground using the pedestrian gate.

The cloakroom will be open approx. 10mins before each session begins and all children must be accompanied by an adult if they are waiting here. If the staff do not know the adult we would ask that the adult makes themselves known to the nursery staff.

THE STAFF ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CHILDREN BEFORE  9.00AM

Each morning the classrooms will be opened by the teacher when the 9.00am school bell rings. All children must be brought into the classroom by an adult.

General Information

Snack time.

Every day the children are offered a small snack. This is on offer over a 45min period and the children are free to choose when they come to enjoy their break.

We try to encourage healthy eating and offer the children milk or water to drink and a variety of foods such as toast, fresh fruit, yoghurt, pancakes, breadsticks, crackers, cheese, crusty bread and plain biscuits.

We also provide birthday cakes for each child on the closest school day to their birthday.

To help cover the cost of this parents are asked to make a voluntary contribution of £2.00 each week. This will also go towards paying for baking ingredients, party treats and any other small extras, which may occur throughout the year.

We collect this money on Mondays. Simply pop it into the named bag found at your child’s peg and your child can then pop this into the tin in the classroom.

Please inform us if your child has any food allergies or particular dietary needs before your child starts with us.

School dinner is available at an extra charge and whilst this is not compulsory we would encourage you to consider this nutritionally balanced meal as an alternative to packed lunches.

A well balanced diet is vital to enhance the learning chances of your child.

Health and Hygiene.

Individual information.

It is very important that you let us know of any particular illness or medical conditions that your child may have e.g... asthma, allergies, hearing or vision, speech, behaviour.

This is in order to ensure that your child has the suitable care and attention the he / she needs. Please make sure we have all details no matter how insignificant they may seem on the child’s information form.

It is also very important that we have at least 2 contact numbers that we can call if your child becomes ill during school hours.

If your child is ill, please do not send them to nursery until they are fully recovered and ready to take part in all activities including outdoor play.

Tummy bugs and colds spread very quickly amongst a group of children and we would recommend that your child is free of all symptoms for at least 24 hours.

Toilet Time!

All children must be FULLY TOILET-TRAINED before starting nursery. Unfortunately they will not be permitted to come each day until they are able to go to the toilet independently. Pull up trainer pants must not be worn to nursery.

We understand that occasional accidents will happen and we have spare clothing to change a child of necessary. We need your signed permission in order to do this.

Discipline

Rules are kept to an absolute minimum and are made to ensure the safety and well being of the children. These rules are told verbally to the children as frequently as is necessary especially in the first few weeks. Every attempt is made to make the children aware of the need for the rules and the rewards of keeping them with the aim of promoting self-discipline.

If a child is behaving in an unacceptable manner, an adult intervenes to stop the behaviour. Together the adult and child talk about what was wrong and what could happen if they kept on behaving that way.

The child is encouraged to say sorry if necessary and allowed to continue playing.

Should unacceptable behaviour resume the child is taken away from the activity, rules explained again and they are directed to play elsewhere. If this fails they may be told to sit on the bench for a few minutes, this is called Time-Out and the rules will be explained again.

Should a child continue to display unsociable or unacceptable behaviour with no sign of improvement, this will be brought to the attention of the parent so that a joint approach towards improvement can be made.

If a child continues to be a behavioural problem or breaks the rules that govern health and safety then a place at the nursery will be withdrawn.

If you have any worries of concerns about how your child is settling please feel free to contact us. We understand that children can find it hard to settle into a new environment and that behaviour can take a while to reach our high standards but we will get there together.

Starting and Settling in.

Staggered Intake

At Belvoir we like to start the children in small groups throughout the month of September. This is to ensure that we are able to get to know each child as an individual and that the children are able to adjust gradually to this new environment and experience.

• For the first day your child will stay for 1 hour.

• All being well your child will be able to stay for an hour and a half for the rest of the week.

• As the weeks progress the amount of time your child stays for will gradually build up depending on how well your child is coping in nursery.

• The class teacher will inform you each Friday how long your child will be staying each week.

Please do not rush to have your child staying for the full time too soon. Remember that by introducing your child into school gradually you are keeping their best interests at heart and ensuring that they feel completely happy, confident and comfortable to stay on their own and enjoy the full benefits of the nursery.

Children who are returning for their second year at the nursery will obviously be more familiar and secure within the nursery. Consequently, these children will be settled back into the nursery within a shorter period of time.

Preparing for Nursery

Here are just a few ideas to help prepare your child for starting.

1.      Talk about nursery in a cheerful and positive way.

2.      Talk about all the fun things they can do.

3.      Encourage your child to tidy away their things.

4.      Encourage them to share.

5.      Read to your child and say familiar nursery rhymes together.

6.      Try to establish a regular bedtime.

7.      Ensure your child can use the toilet by themselves, flush it afterwards and wash their hands.

8.      Encourage good behaviour and show your disapproval when your child misbehaves and explain to the child why you are not happy and how the child modify their unacceptable behaviour.

9.      Make sure your child says please, thank you and sorry when necessary.

10.  Take time to talk to your child and reassure them that nursery will be fun.

And Finally…

We hope that your child will be excited and looking forward to starting nursery and that they will enjoy their time with us. Over the year we hope your child will develop and grow as individuals in a safe and happy environment.

We look forward to working with both you and your child in what always proves to be a very busy year!