Settling In Process
Hello there...
Rotherfield Village Pre-School aims to work in partnership with parents/carers to settle a child into the group environment to ensure they feel safe, secure, and comfortable with staff and their surroundings. We aim to give consideration to the individual needs of children and families and give confidence to parents, enabling them to feel comfortable that the needs of their child are met.
A key person will be allocated to the child based on the sessions that they are enrolled. We will invite them and their parents/carers for some stay-and-play sessions providing the parents/carers with the opportunity to complete any outstanding enrolment information.
On their first session, children will be introduced to the staff members, to other children and shown around the rooms in the setting.
Parents will be encouraged to say goodbye to their child, if the child and parent feel comfortable with this, and explain that they will be coming back at the end of the session.
Practitioners are mindful to treat every child as an individual and, therefore settle at different rates. Some children will settle more readily than others, but some children who appear to settle rapidly are not necessarily ready to be left. During this settling-in period, the practitioners can build up a picture of the child, using information that is gathered through communication with parents and observing the child. They will start to see what the child’s interests are, their stage of development, and how we can best support them through this particular time. Parents are kept informed about how their child is settling and are given adequate notice if the settling-in period is to be extended. Within the first six weeks of starting, the key person will use the information they have gathered from the parents and their observations of the child to complete their early year goals.