TRANSITION POLICY

Starting nursery:- We aim for all our children to be happy and confident and encourage parents to bring children into the nursery and have visits in the room that their child will be in.  These visits are 1 hour long and each child can have as many visits as the child’s parent/guardian feel necessary to settle their child.  On the first visit, the child’s parent will be asked to stay with their child and fill in Admission Forms and also discuss their child’s routine, likes and dislikes.  After the first initial visit, the parent/guardian will be encouraged to leave their child for a short period of time to see how they settle into nursery.  The number of visits will be different for each child as all children adapt to different environments differently.

Moving to another room within nursery:- Parents/guardians will be informed of any move of room and will be invited to meet staff and look around the new room with their child.  After the first initial visit, the children will have visits to their new room for 1-2 weeks, building the time they stay from 1 hour to a full morning or afternoon.

The child’s key person will take the child from their room and stay with them on their first visits.  We will always try to move Baby Room children to a Family Room where they are already familiar with the staff and Family Room children to Pre-school Rooms where they are familiar with staff.

Children leaving to go to school:-  We will ensure that the children are informed about moving onto school through stories, pictures and circle time.  We will also encourage teachers of the schools the children will move to, to visit the children in the nursery environment.  We will make sure that Foundation Stage Booklets are passed to the child’s relevant school and will prepare any reports necessary to help the children’s transition to school.

Children who have additional needs:-  We will always ensure that all paperwork is passed on is necessary to a new school or nursery e.g.

Individual Education Plans for Individual Activity Plans and any other relevant information regarding the child’s additional needs.  We will pass on a Passport Booklet with photos and information about the child’s progress and routines where necessary and will liaise with staff to ensure the child’s needs are still being met.

Where necessary, we will have a transition meeting with nursery/school staff to pass on information with the child’s parent/guardian.

We will always try to make any move for the children as smooth as possible and will help the child and their parent as much as is necessary with any transition their child may need to make, being it moving to school, another nursery, moving house, etc., and would encourage parents to make us aware of any changes to their child’s life that we may be able to help them with.