Mulberry Bush Nursery, Whitefield - Structure and facilities
The nursery is located on Sefton Street, a quiet side street just off Manchester Road in the heart of Whitefield. It is ideally placed for parents who work in Manchester or Bury and travel using the car, tram or bus. It is also a short distance from junction 17 of the M60 motorway making it convenient for those that travel further a field. Mulberry Bush Nursery, Whitefield is a single storey building comprised of three units: Kindergarten, Toddlers and Pre-school. The Kindergarten unit has two spacious rooms that are split up to provide separate areas for eating, sleeping and play. The unit has direct access out onto a new safety surface playground. The Toddler unit is in a large open plan room. It has also been divided into several areas where the children can read books, play with sand or water, use the home corner or enjoy table-top activities such as puzzles or construction. The room also has direct access to the playground. The Pre-school unit is now based in our new extension. There are two bright rooms where the children can keep very busy and enjoy lots of different activities. The oldest children spend time using the Oxford Reading Tree and the Jolly Phonics system, which has proved very beneficial when starting school. The Pre-school staff enjoy the support of our own fully qualified Early Years Teacher who is based at our Tottington nursery. Outside we have just created a vegetable patch where the children can now learn about plants, vegetables and the staff can encourage an interest in healthy eating.
We achieve high standards aided by effective communication, meaningful procedures, routines and policies. An efficient nursery structure enables individual children to be cared for in a loving, professional manner. Quality assurance of our workforce means we are seen to address all issues affecting the standard of care and activities for children in the nursery. Nursery nurses take observations of children at play and activity at different times of the day to enable staff to plan effectively and to involve and liase with parents both with verbal and written progress reports. To ensure that high standards of staff competency are maintained, experienced Heads of Unit make observations of their practice and overview children's work records and general progress.
The nursery works with children using a key-worker approach. A named member of staff is allocated specific children for their key-worker group. This role is important when a child initially starts in a unit as they record a child’s progress and maintain written records for parents. Consistency of care helps to settle a child into the unit until they become familiar with all the unit staff.
The government has now introduced the Early Years Foundation Stage (E.Y.F.S.) curriculum and from September 2008 it will become mandatory in all schools and OFSTED registered nurseries. The main aim of the E.Y.F.S. is to help all young children achieve the five Every Child Matters outcomes of staying safe, being healthy, enjoying and achieving, making a positive contribution and achieving economic well being. These outcomes are achieved through the positive relationships with carers / parents and by treating all children as equals. We have been proactive and introduced the E.Y.F.S. in September 2007. We have had a number of meetings to get feedback from the staff and to review all of our paperwork, planning methods and children’s files. We are happy with the new legislation and feel confident that our practices are in line with the new national requirements. This was confirmed by our ‘Outstanding’ Ofsted inspection at our Tottington nursery in March 2008.