Dear Parents

In November 2017 we celebrated our 25th Birthday we cannot quite believe how much of an achievement it is to know our little company is 25 years old something we are very proud of.

As it was such a busy time of the year we decided to wait and have a big celebration in the new year. On 20th January we had a Silver Ball with all our staff enjoying a dinner and overnight stay and award ceremony at Kaevil House Hotel in Dunfermline it was so nice to see our staff out of uniform and all glamorous. We had a wonderful evening and have lots of photographs to share with you of our event in the next week or two so look out for them.

Many thanks to the parents who gave us some very kind words of support, poems and memories in our 25 years memory book which will be treasured.

Our awards went to the following people for length of service:
Julie Laidlaw – 25 Years
Rose Wright – 15 Years
Janice Robertson – 14 Years
Amanda Barton – 8 Years
Peter Goy – 7 Years
Ashleigh Fleming – 7 Years
Lauren Jackson – 6 Years
Gemma Cherry – 5 Years

Please congratulate them if you see them around, and I hope they stick around for many more years to come.

We are planning with the Parent Committee another few 25 years celebrations involving the children, news and dates on these will follow soon.

As I said in my last newsletter, our planning permission has been passed for a new extension onto the side of the building next to the toddler room that will provide us with much needed spaces. However there has been major delays in the building warrants due to the lack of staff at Edinburgh Council able to deal with issuing these. We hope to have this started shortly and will inform you as soon as I have further information.

Unfortunately, this year sees us having to increase our fees again. Significant increases in costs to our business with living/national wage rises, and pension contributions are the main reason for this. Please be assured the increase we are having to apply, will go directly to cover these costs only and is not something I would have done if it was not necessary.

The fees will increase by £1.50 per day taking them to £41.50 for a full day and £31.50 for a half day. This still makes Nippers the most competitively priced nursery with other companies in this area charging more than £45 per day.

Discounts for siblings will still apply if your children attend 3 days or more per week. The increase will apply from April 2018 and we will forward on to your shortly the new amounts to allow you to increase standing orders or vouchers.

We would encourage you to take a few minutes to take a look at the floor books within your child’s room in the nursery. These are full of pictures of what your children have been experiencing at nursery and are full of quotes from the children too. The staff take a lot of time with the children to prepare these books and work on them on a daily basis. If you do not see them in the room, ask the staff to see them.

As part of our Child Protection requirements we have introduced a new form called Accident at Home Forms. These forms will be required to be filled out if your child has had a significant accident out with nursery and is then returning to nursery with signs of an injury. If they require medication you will also be required to sign this in before we can administer it.

As you will see around the nursery we are trying to use more materials within our
setting that are natural rather than plastic toys. We would be grateful if you can take
a look at the types of materials we are looking for on the displays in our entrance
areas and it you have any at home you want to get rid of we will be more than
happy to take them. I have attached a nice document about loose parts play and
how important it is for our children’s experiences. If you can take a few minutes to
read this, we would appreciate it.

https://www.speelplein.net/Download/loose-parts-play-toolkit

Our parent area on the page. Here you will find newsletters, news on general events or celebrations as well as our planning for the rooms so you can see what the children are doing at nursery on a weekly basis. We will continue to add to this page anything that we think will be of interest to you.

Please log in and take a look your feedback would be very useful;
www.nippersnursery.com/parents

Parent Area Password is: n1ppers

Staff have been busy attending training over the last few months we would like to congratulate the following on completion of:

Bug Books Bringing Stories to Life – Jessica Williams
Transitions and Journey Learning – Caitlyn Gordon, Siobhan Graham, Ashleigh Fleming, Lauren Houston
Introduction to Creativity – Natasha Cowin
Creative Learning – Wendy Mart, Andrea Heigh
Bubble Oligy – Ashleigh Fleming, Andrea Heigh
Autism Training – Caitlyn Gordon, Jessica Williams, Fiona Venelle,Lauren Houston, Ashleigh Fleming,
Wendy Mart
First Aid – Nicole Oliver, Chloe Irvine, Charlotte McQueen, Rebecca Stewart, Alison Scotland
Child Protection Level 4 – Lauren Houston
Pre-Birth to 3 Planning – Wendy Mart
Pre-Brith Developing Environments – Judy Forsyth

We would like to congratulate Charlotte Gilchrist, Siobhan Graham and Ally Pearson who gained their qualification in SVQ 3 Early Years and Childcare this month. They have shown great commitment to their training and we are delighted that they will both be staying on with us as fully qualified practitioners. Well Done Girls!

There will be a few changes of staff coming in up a few weeks unfortunately Fiona Venelle has decided to step down from her role as Senior Pre-school Leader at Dalmeny. Fiona has started a BA in Childhood Studies and she is finding this along with her current role just a little too much work, which we can totally understand. Fiona will be staying with us in the preschool room as a Practitioner. I am delighted to announce that Ashleigh Fleming will be taking over from Fiona moving from our Tweenie Room and Andrea Heigh will be stepping up to Senior Practioner taking over from Ashleigh. We hope this will not cause any disruption and the handover between them will take place over the coming few weeks.

Natalie Main from Kirkliston will be leaving us to spend more time with her son before he goes to school. Thankyou Natalie and we hope you enjoy the next few months with Zach.

Natalie will be replaced with a new member of staff Megan Farrell who joins us in mid February from another nursery. She is a fully qualified practitioner and we look forward to welcoming her.

Below is an up to date list of our staffing:

*Alison Scotland – Modern Apprentice will work across all rooms where needed

*Kelsey King – Modern Apprentice will work across all rooms where needed

Come and Play Day – Saturday 28th April