Nursery Staff
The management team take immense pride in the staff. Their knowledge, attitude towards our children and their loyalty are the backbone of our nursery. Monkton is a happy place to be and the stability of seeing the same familiar, smiling faces has a hugely positive effect on the emotional wellbeing and security of the children.
The staff at Monkton are carefully selected for being highly motivated, friendly, enthusiastic and professional in their approach, either holding or working towards qualifications in either NNEB or the NVQ Level 3 equivalent. Each individual is highly valued by the management and the nursery consequently benefits from a very low staff turnover. Most members of staff have worked at Monkton for over ten years, and many have over twenty years service!
All of our staff members have a current Paediatric First Aid certificate, which is renewed every 3 years. We regularly access training, both internal and external, to ensure that all staff maintain and extend their skills. Having years of experience with many hundreds of children, the Early Years Practitioners are used to dealing with some of the more negative aspects of children's behaviour, and it is practice to discuss any worries or concerns over individual children. The staff work in a sensitive and positive manner with the children and their families.
They are here to help your child develop intellectually, physically, emotionally and socially, and a number of educational theories are taken into account in planning for this, such as those of Froebel, Montessori and Piaget, all of which acknowledge developmental progression in each aspect of the child's life. Staff are trained in the management of children, and provide them with a framework of acceptable behaviour. Children feel more secure when they are provided with firm boundaries. The love, affection and friendship felt by the staff toward the children is implicit in the individual attention and interaction which takes place every day.
Cherries
Cherries is a natural progression from Apples. Our babies are beginning to move onto the next stage when, as well as enjoying the care, hugs and fun of their first room, they are starting to show a greater sense of adventure, a need to explore and the start of the social connections which turn into friendships as they progress through nursery. They will build on the activities they started in Apples; using different materials to mark make, exploring sand and water and joining in with and starting to dance to stories, songs and music, some which are familiar and others which will become familiar. Their grasp of hand/eye co-ordination will become stronger and the garden will provide plenty of opportunities to develop physical abilities while they are having fun in the fresh air. The children are encouraged and supported throughout the day. They are talked to and listened to; they are helped and encouraged in their journey towards independence, learning to wash their own hands and faces, and showing growing pride in their ability to feed themselves. A developing empathy towards others is strongly encouraged with an emphasis on turn taking and sharing and the boundaries that are in place, with encouragement and support, help to make good behaviour the norm.