Transitions

St Aidan's implement the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). The EYFS recognises that children develop at a different and unique pace and therefore have very broad phases of development with age overlaps recognising the uniqueness of every child. St Aidans mirror these phases on their age ranges for the rooms. This policy outlines how and when children move from one base room to a new base room and what we do to make the transition as enjoyable as possible for both parent and child.

The St Aidans rooms and the age range for those rooms.

The EYFS broad phases of development are:

• Birth - 11 months
• 8  –  20 months
• 16 – 26 months
• 22 – 36 months
• 30 – 50 months
• 40 – 60+ months

In line with this, below are the rooms we operate at St Aidan's and the age ranges of the children we typically have in those rooms.

New Baby Room From -      6 weeks to 14 Months

Baby Room From -              6 Weeks to 26 Months

Toddler Room -                   24 months to 40 Months

Preschool Room -                36 Months plus

Please note these guidelines are just that, if we feel it is appropriate to move a child up before or after these recommended ranges, the room supervisor will discuss this with the nursery Manager and the parents. If required, we may have to make changes to incorporate an individual child’s needs.

Things we consider when planning room moves are:

Age – This is the most common way we decide which child is “moving up” next

Availability – Children can only move to a new room if there is a place available. Therefore, sometimes a younger child may move before an older child because the sessions they attend come available before the sessions of the older child.

Ability – We often have requests from parents to advance a child to the next room. However, ability only gets taken into account if in the view of the team that child’s behaviour is being affected by needing the ‘challenge’ of the next room.

Very gifted children are often more than happy in their room. It is unusual that a child’s behaviour will start to become an issue because they need more challenge, but when this happens, we will endeavour to move them up as quickly as we can. All our staff are familiar with the full age range of children and we make sure that every rooms is resourced for appropriately.

Friendship Groups – We are often asked to keep “friends” together. We will do our best to accommodate this although it can often require the older friend to wait for the younger friend rather then the younger friend being accelerated up.

Where friendship groups are larger than three, we suggest splitting the group when they move to the next room to encourage new friendships and wider interaction.

Communicating Rooms Moves with Parents

The nursery Managers hold a meeting each month to discuss room moves and agree which children will be moving to a new room in the following month. After this meeting, nursery Managers will communicate these suggestions with the parents whose children we suggest will be ready to move soon. No forward commitments can be made more then a month in advance.

Once a room move is agreed, parents should be taken on a visit to the new room and introduced to the child’s new key person. They should also be asked to review their consent forms, child information exchange forms and read and sign the Transition Form.

Settling in Visits

Settling in sessions will be arranged for the child to go on visits to their new room to familiarise them with the routine, other children and team members. Some children need lots of visits, some children never look back, so the number and duration of visits will vary depending on the child.

A new Key Person will be agreed and the existing Key person will complete the Transition Form and will share with the new Key person information relating to the child’s individual achievements, needs and requirements. This will happen before any settle begins.

When a child goes on a settle, a “transition box” containing the following will go with the child:

• Coat / Bag
• Learning Journey
• Dietary Card
•  Comforter
•  Blanket
• Favourite Toy / Book from room

Transition from Toddlers to Preschool

St Aidan's recognise that the transition from toddlers to preschool can be a big one and we make this easier by having ‘group transitions’. We have found that when children move up in groups with their peers and friends they settle better. There will also be a member of the Toddler team to support the children on the settles in preschool. Transitions will take place as and when required and children will be taken for ‘group settles’ over a period of 2 weeks; however, some children may need more or less settles which will be taken in to account.

Transition to School

St Aidan's welcome the opportunity to work with all feeder schools to ensure the smooth transition from nursery to school. How we work with the school depends on the school.

As a minimum we will provide each school with a Transition form (from the child’s Key Person), an “About me” form (from the Early Years Teacher) and a copy of the child’s tracking sheet. This provides the school with lots of useful information.

We also encourage the school to visit us and small groups of children to visit the school. Please discuss with the nursery’s Early Years Teacher what arrangements we have with your chosen school.