Staffing Changes

As from the 23 August we are having a staff change around. I apologise for the short notice but we can assure you that the changes will not affect the children as we want to keep any disruption to their routine to a minimum. Many of the children will be moving sections too and will have new key people.

We want to say Goodbye to Gemma as she makes a career move to Woodlands. We will all miss Gemma so much as she has an amazing knowledge and understanding of the curriculum and child development, but she has been able to share this with all of us and now has the opportunity to impart her knowledge to the staff at Woodlands. We wish her lots of luck in the future and know her move will continue to strengthen our relationships with our sister nursery.

Congratulations to Aimee who will be stepping up into the team leader role in pre-school. Aimee is an enthusiastic member of our staff team who is able to motivate the children and get them excited about learning. We look forward to her new and refreshing ideas. We know she will do a great job. Aimee has been with PlayAway since 2006 with a short break away to be a nanny.

Claire will be leaving us on Friday to further her education to become a teacher. Claire has been a refreshing addition to the pre-school team and we will definitely miss her happy face and cheery smile every day. We wish her the best of luck and know there will be many happy children in future with her as their teacher. Sarah has also left us to return to her home town. As Sarah’s move happened rather quickly you would not have had the chance to say goodbye, but we wish her well in her new venture. Sarah Ponsford, who worked with us during the holidays has now also left for a long holiday to America and then to follow her teaching career. Good luck to her wherever her career may take her.

We are very excited to welcome Chloe Kendall and Kate Sturges who will be joining our baby room. Both Chloe and Kate have a level 3 qualification and have many years experience working with children of all ages. We look forward to sharing the new ideas and input they will have into our babies’ learning and development.

Sam will be leaving the baby room to move to the toddler section and Steph will be leaving toddlers to move to pre-school. I know both carers are excited about their moves and we wish them well as they learn the ropes and work with their new teams. Stuart Witham has been working for us during the holidays and as he will be returning to college in September to complete his apprenticeship he will continue to work for us at the end of the day. Stuart has already displayed a keen interest in working with children of all ages and has developed good relationships with the children.

We are very excited to be introducing the PHUNKY FOODS programme from September. This is aimed at being healthy and learning about good food, eating and living habits. There is a website that parents can access that gives advice and information about meals, weaning, quantities and exciting child friendly recipes. The address is www.phunkyfoods.co.uk. You do not need to register, but click on the strawberry that says ‘Parents Section’ and you can access their information. We would appreciate any feedback that you may have about the programme or the website.

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Well Done to Carlie who is our Employee of the Month for July. Carlie has been so enthusiastic about the Tiny Talk baby signing and has created a wonderful display in the Toddler room. Keep up the good work J

As another school year ends, so too does another era at Woodlands Day Nursery. Every August we say goodbye to some of our most familiar young faces, and even as the years go by it never gets any easier. However, as always our sadness is mixed with excitement for the children as they prepare for the next exciting step in their lives – starting school!

Woodlands Day Nursery

woodlands day nursery

In order to mark the occasion in style, we recently held a Graduation Ceremony at Woodlands Day Nursery for all our school-age children and their parents. Our children wore a cap and gown in true graduation style, and each child was presented with a graduation certificate. The grad party was great fun rather than being anything formal, and the children all enjoyed games and food. Everyone had a great – if slightly emotional - time and it was a perfect celebration of how far the children have come since they started with us at Woodlands. We are proud of the work we do with our pre-schoolers, and they leave Woodlands confident, happy, and well prepared for school life.

outdoor fun and education

Thanks to all our lovely parents and the school-age children who have now left us – It’s been wonderful being a part of your all-important early years. We wish you all many fun, happy and healthy school years, and a bright future ahead. Please keep in touch!

In other news….  The children at Woodlands Day Nursery enjoyed learning all about road safety thanks to a visit from a local community Police Officer recently. We also had a nursery mummy come in to tell the children all about her religion (Sikh) and they loved having their hands & feet painted with henna!

On Wednesday 4th August both Woodlands & PlayAway Nurseries enjoyed a fab day at the National Play Day event at the Valley Gardens in Harrogate. We talked to lots of parents about the great things we do at the nursery, as well as handing out balloons, making fruit kebabs, and creating handprint pictures with the children.

Dear Parents/CarersAs the staff have all done training in baby signing and we are now using it throughout the nursery with positive results, its now your turn to learn if you are interested.

baby signing course at playaway day nursery

It is beneficial to your baby/child if you are able to consolidate the signs at home and use them with your child.  Signing helps children to communicate and avoids the frustration children sometimes feel when they are not able to ‘tell’ you what they want, or how they feel.   The staff do display a sign each week but the training course will give you more background information and training on baby signing.

The course will be on :       Monday 23 August at Playaway at 7.00 pm

It should last for approximately one and a half hours.

We look forward to seeing as many of you there as possible.

Kind regards

Dee Sturges

1. Does the nursery have a welcoming, happy and cheerful atmosphere – are the children and the carers having fun?

2. Are the children happy and settled? Does the person showing you around know the children? Do the children want to chat with you or the person showing you around?

3. Are child carers sitting with and interacting with the children or with each other?

4. Do the premises and equipment look clean but used? (Perfect equipment has not been used by children! Any experienced parent will tell you that an environment where children are active and enjoying themselves will NEVER be pristine!)

5. Do the children have opportunities to learn, explore and have fun in a natural environment outdoors? (Children need to learn about their world and so outdoor play environments should give them opportunities to explore mud, sand, leaves, grass, and build, run and jump. A ready made road and climbing frame isn’t nearly as challenging as crates, planks and den building equipment.

You can download this list from our funcare website here.

If you have any more questions, we’d be happy to answer them and show you around our lovely nurseries.

funcare nursery harrogate supports children in need

The children and staff of PlayAway & Woodlands Day Nurseries are excited about Children in Need this Friday November 20th.  Children will be dressing up in their pyjamas and bringing their teddy bears at PlayAway Day Nursery.  At Woodlands team leader Emily will be spending the whole day in song.  She is being sponsored to sing instead of talk for the whole day, entertaining the children and of course staff and parents!

Simply the best nursery in Harrogate

We are delighted that our dynamic nursery team at Playaway has reached the final in the Nursery Management Today nursery awards 2009.  Manager Dee Sturges says

Our dynamic team loves making the most of all opportunities to create fun and meaningful experiences for children and parents.  We enjoy challenging ourselves and are one big happy family. 

We are so proud to have reached the final 6 in this competition out of over 100 entries.  The team enjoy their work and this is evident in the high quality of our childcare practice.

Are you looking for the best childcare for your c hild?

To meet our lovely team please contact us.  We would be happy to show you around.

PlayAway was visited by OFSTED in July 2009, and we were delighted to be awarded an overall ‘good’ rating, with 2 elements of ‘Outstanding Practice for Inclusion and for continuous improvement’.

Playaway Day Nursery Harrogate

Woodlands Day Nursery

We wholeheartedly agree with their findings although we did feel that an outstanding would also have been appropriate for our ‘partnerships with parents’. We always get such positive feedback from parents in our questionnaires and it really does feel like one big happy family at PlayAway.

The inspectors also visited Woodlands in June 2009, and found Woodlands to be Outstanding at Being Healthy, Keeping Safe and Partnerships with Parents. It was a lovely day for all involved in the inspection, as the inspector made us all feel so relaxed and happy, and we truly showed off our nursery in it’s natural state!

Contact us to secure a place.

Playaway Day Nursery Harrogate

We are happy to announce the official opening of our new baby sleep room on the first floor at PlayAway in the old office.

The new room has been approved by OFSTED and has been fully kitted out with brand new cots and mattresses as well as some new storage drawers for babies’ clothes, sheets and blankets.

The new room has allowed us to increase the number of babies we can look after each day by 4.  We already have a waiting list for these spaces however, so it won’t be long before they are filled! Contact us to secure a place.

National Childbirth Trust

As well as taking a stall at the recent National Childbirth Trust Nearly New Sale, we will also be showcasing our nurseries at the forthcoming morning at Winkies in Knaresborough.

The event will run from 9:30am-12:30pm and for only £4 per adult families can come along and get free play at Winkies, sample activities with their children, including French for Fidgets, Enjoy-a-ball, Singamajigs and Baby Ballet. Every adult will be given a goody bag with the NCT out and about guide inside.

Bob and Wendy

Building has now commenced on our PlayAway extension, and we hope to have the new room ready by the end of January 2010.

The new room will have space for 10 pre-school children, and has been designed in keeping with our beautiful Victorian building with lots of windows and a lantern on the roof to allow light to flood into the building.

Double doors will allow our pre-schoolers to ‘free-flow’ in and out of the building, choosing their own location during the day, in or out!

The children have been very excited by the building work, which has sparked off a pre-school project about building. Our lovely builders have helped with this by creating ‘peep-holes’ in the hoardings to allow the children to supervise the building, whilst safely away from any danger.

The builders have been named Bob and Wendy by the children, but the question on everyone’s minds is ‘which one is which?