Information for parents

Free Early Learning

FEL for 2,3 & 4 year olds is the universal entitlement of up to 570 hours of free nursery education per Funding Year that all 3 and 4 year old children and those 2 year olds that meet the criteria are eligible to receive.  Working parents who are eligible for the Working Parent Entitlement 2 year funding need to confirm their eligibility directly with HMRC, they will then be issued with a unique reference number, and this is then given to the provider who can only deliver all or part of the EFE place once eligibility is confirmed with the Local Authority.

Please use this link to apply for new 15 hours for 2 year olds Apply for free childcare if you're working - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Extended Free Entitlement

EFE for 3 & 4 year olds, this gives up to an additional 570 hours per funding year of free nursery education and is based on definite eligibility criteria.  Parents need to confirm their eligibility directly with HMRC, they will then be issued with a unique reference number, and this is then given to the provider who can only deliver all or part of the EFE place once eligibility is confirmed with the Local Authority.

Please use this link to apply for 30 hours Free Entitlement Childcare Choices | 30 Hours Free Childcare, Tax-Free Childcare and More | Help with Costs | GOV.UK. A ‘yes’ decision from HMRC will only be valid for 3 months, after the 3 months parents will be prompted to reconfirm eligibility with HMRC.  If they fail to do so, or if they re-apply and are no longer eligible they will go into the ‘Grace Period’

Date parent receives ineligible decision on reconfirmation:	Local authority audit date:	Grace period end date (child funded until):
1 January – 10 February	11 February	31 March
11 February – 31 March	1 April	31 August
1 April – 26 May	27 May	31 August
27 May – 31 August	1 September	31 December
1 September – 21 October	22 October	31 December
22 October – 31 December	1 January	31 March

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Parents must apply to HMRC for their EFE entitlement before the start of a term, it cannot be claimed midway through a term to start immediately, and if the claim was validated then the funding would start from the term after.

Method of delivery

Nursery will be offering 2 main methods of delivery of the funding.
Standard 38 week option, if a child is sharing their funding between 2 or more providers their entitlement will be allocated over the standard 38 weeks per Funding Year to either their maximum hours of attendance or the amount they have claimed (up to their hours of attendance).

Age of eligibility

A child is entitled to receive the free entitlement no later than the beginning of the funding term following their 3rd birthday.

Date of birthday	Local Authority audit date:
Between 1 April and 31 August	September (Autumn Funding)
Between 1 September and 31 December	January (Spring Term)
Between 1 January and 31 March	April (Summer Term)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hours of delivery

• No more than 15 hours to be claimed per week (30 if eligible for EFE)
• No session longer than 10 hours
• No minimum session length
• Not before 6.30am or after 6.00pm
• No more than two sites in a single day.
• Between 38 and 52 weeks per year including weekends

Holidays/attendance

Funding will be paid for holidays taken during FEL funded weeks, for up to four weeks in a Funding Year.  This arrangement must be recorded in the parental agreement form and the Local Authority will not fund for any additional weeks.   Parents who exceed this limit must either give up their place or come to an arrangement with nursery to pay for the weeks claimed for but not attended.

Children need to attend nursery for the full amount of hours they claim on their agreement form, attending less than the amount of hours claimed could result in the funding claim being reduced and parents incurring the cost of the hours.

Once a parent has completed and signed the Parent / Carer Agreement Form with the relevant details for their claim if any information provided is incorrect, leading to the claim being withdrawn then the parent will be liable to any costs incurred.

If you have any questions please speak to a member of the management team.

• RHH Deputy Office contact number 0114 2268847
• NGH Deputy Office contact number 0114 2266066

HMRC helpline telephone number 0300 1234097 - https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk/

Changes to contract

If parents wish to increase the attendance with us either by adding extra days / sessions to their contract, they need to complete and return a contract amendment form along with the funding paperwork. These are available from the rooms.  Please note completing the amendment form doesn’t guarantee a place is available.

Fee calculations

As funding is provided termly we also calculate the fees per term.  We calculate the fees for the number of funded weeks and the non funded weeks.  This is then added together and divided by the number of months in the term (this is different for each term).  By calculating the fees in this way, the amount parents pay each month will be set for the term.

Payment of fees

Parents are responsible for ensuring they amend any existing payments eg. salary sacrifice, tax free childcare or standing order.  The form to amend salary sacrifice deductions will be on the back of the fee breakdown each term to make this as easy as possible for parents.  Please ensure this is dated the month prior to the change taking place.

Edible finger paints

What you will need:

• 2 cups of corn flour
• 1 cup of cold water
• 4.5 cups of boiling water
• Liquid or gel food colouring

What to do

• Mix the corn flour with the cold water and stir together
• Pour in the boiling water and stir, it will be thick at first but keep stirring as it will melt into custard like consistency.
• Separate into separate pots and add food colouring or gel.

Tip - if the mixture goes to thin just add 1 cup extra of cornflower.

Taking the activity forward

• You could add flavouring, to add to the sensory experience e.g. lemon, orange, strawberry
• You could add texture e.g. oats, cornflakes.

What can children get out of this activity?

Children and babies can use their fingers and tools to mark-making and explore their senses and discovering new textures. This activity covers knowledge and understanding of the world: following a recipe, mixing and stirring, combining materials and mixing colours. This activity also develops fine and gross motor skills along with hand eye coordination.  Adults can encourage language by using language of texture, size and colour. Asking open ended questions and commenting on play.

Clean mud

You will need:

• 1 – 2 bars of soap (dove and ivory soap work best)
• Cheese grater
• Tray or washing up bowl
• 1 roll of toilet tissue
• Warm water

What to do:

• Grate the soap into a tray or mixing bowl
• Tear up the toilet tissue into small pieces and add them to the tray as you tear
• Once all the toilet tissue has been added, add small amount of warm water to the mixture, stir as you add.
• Keep mixing until the mixture is smooth and creamy
• Enjoy it’s time to play.

Taking the activity forward

• You can use soap flakes as an alternative to grated soap
• Add glitter or sequins
• Add food colouring
• Add snow animals to create a snowy scene

What can children get out of this activity?

This is a really tactile messy play experience will all of the texture of mud without the brown mess! Children can explore using their senses (its smells great) and use tools and fingers to make marks in the mixture. This activity is also great for stimulating early talk and imaginative play.

Playdough

What you need:

• 2 cups of plain flour
• 2 cups of water
• Food colouring (optional)
• 1 tbsp. of cooking oil
• 1 tsp. cream of tartar
• 2 cup of salt

What to do:

• Place all of the ingredients in a medium size or large pan.
• Cook slowly on medium-high and stir it until the play dough thickens.
• Pour out and kneed in flour until no longer sticky.
• Keep the finished play dough in a sealed container; this can last for up to 6 months.

This recipe takes less than 10 minutes

Taking the activity forward

• You could Add flavour essences to make different scented play dough
• You could add texture such as glitter and sequins.
• Add cutters, rollers, fabric, netting, ribbons, match sticks and lolly sticks. By adding these items to tactile play it can be squashed, squeezed, rolled, flattened, chopped, cut, and scored, raked, punctured, poked and shredded! Each one of these different actions aids fine motor development in a different way, and develops hand-eye coordination and concentration.

What can children get out of this activity?

The malleable properties of play dough make it fun for investigation and exploration as well as secretly building up strength in all the tiny hand muscles and tendons, children needs to develop fine motor skills ready for, making them ready for pencil and scissor control later on. This activity can also develop concentration, speech and social skills.

Colour fizz

What you need:

• water tray or container
• clear vinegar
• bicarbonate of soda
• small pots
• food colouring
• spoons

What to do:

• Fill your container or pots with a vinegar and water solution. You can add food colouring to make the mixtures different colours. The stronger the vinegar solution the bigger the results.
• Separate the bicarbonate of soda into individual pot.
• Spoon the bicarbonate into the vinegar water
• Watch the fizz explosions

Taking the activity forward

• Reverse the process and pour the vinegar solution onto the bicarbonate soda for a different sort of fizz.
• If you don’t want to fill a water tray with vinegar then this activity still works really well on a small scale, using a tray or small container.

What can children get out of this activity?

This activity can offer high levels or engagement and excitement as the children are able to create their own mini explosions. It’s good to encourage talk and language for explanation as well as developing the concept of cause and effect. You could explore what it sounds like, what colour it is and what colour it turns into. If you mix the solutions together.

Heuristic and treasure bag

What to do:

During a heuristic play session, toddles are able to explore in their own way, with the materials presented to them. They can make connections while they do this – for example, this shell fits into a plastic pot.
Sensory activities build on young children’s desire to learn through their senses. Through sensory materials, babies and toddlers learn about textures, cause and effect and also learn to be independent. Sensory play also promotes babies and toddlers co-ordination and fine motor development. It helps babies and toddlers to concentrate as well as express themselves through sound and movement.

Activity ideas

Let your child feel all the heuristic items, it is important for your child to independently explore these items.
Your child will fill and empty objects using containers, slot objects together, build or balance objects, sort and classify objects, recognise similarities and differences of objects. Talk to your child about the items, use words like smooth, bumpy, shiny, hard, soft, talk about the colours of the items.

Use lots of enthusiasm when talking about items, give them lots of praise.

 

• Teething advice
• Behaviour
• Useful links
• Starting school
• Safeguarding
• Talk PANTS

We understand that choosing a nursery place can be a very big decision. We also understand that you need to feel confident that your child is in a safe environment where they will be nurtured and will develop socially as well as educationally.

To support you in making your choice we very much encourage you to come and visit our settings and see for yourself.

We very much recognise that you as the parent are the child’s first and most enduring educators. We fully recognise the importance of working in partnership with parents and sharing information.
To do this effectively we have two yearly open evenings where you can chat with your child’s key person and discuss their progress and development. However, we also realise that this is not always convenient so we would happily arrange another time for you to meet or a discussion can be held using Microsoft Teams.

We use the Parenta Electronic System through which parents can log on to their own Parent Portal. This enables you to see what your child has been doing, what they have eaten, drank and any toileting information.

In addition to this, parents can see all their child’s reports and we also welcome your home observations which you can send straight to their child’s key person all at the touch of a button, these can be used to build up a picture of your child’s development.

We also like to keep in touch with our parents via email, regularly sharing information, updates, and newsletters but paper copies are available should you prefer.

Northern General Ofsted Report

Sunshine Day Nursery (NGH) - Open - Find an Inspection Report - Ofsted

Royal Hallamshire Ofsted Report

Sunshine Day Nursery - Open - Find an Inspection Report - Ofsted

We pride ourselves on providing good quality food and drink throughout the day. Our menus are devised by liaising with the Trust catering department who support us in ensuring that the children get a wide range of nutritious meals throughout the week.

Our menus always include a vegetarian option, and in the case of a child having a specific dietary need, meals will be produced in specific conditions to ensure there is no cross contamination.

Click here to download the menu

We have a Holiday Club based at the Northern General campus which opens from 6:30am till 6.00pm or 7:00pm (if pre booked) over the school holiday periods set by Sheffield City Council.

We take children aged between 4-11yrs  and can take up to 24 children per day. We welcome children from sheffield, Barnsley, Rotherham, Doncaster and Derbyshire.

There are plenty of fun activities planned for each holiday as well as days out, and we have large outdoor play areas & outdoor equipment.

Here are examples of some of the activities we do:

• cooking • painting
• sewing • making play dough
• play station • hot beads
• board games/football etc • outdoor play
• glass painting • cars and garages
• large connect 4 • elemental play

Here are examples of some of the places we visit:

• Magna • Cleethorpes
• Twycross Zoo • Libraries
• Pizza Hut • Weston Park Museum
• Bowling • Parks
• McDonalds • RSPB
• Heeley City Farm • Roller Skating
• Gulliver’s Kingdom • Pirate Ship

Holiday Club planning is sent to parents prior to each holiday period (6 week before for STH & 3 week before for Non STH).

If you would like to be put on our Holiday Club mailing list or would like more information please contact us on: sth.holidayclub@nhs.net

We believe the safeguarding of children should be everyone’s responsibility and we rely on anyone working with children to take suspicions or allegations of child abuse seriously and act on them appropriately. We must collectively take responsibility for the protection of children against anything that could have an impact on their wellbeing.

Both our sites have Designated Safeguarding Leads (DSL) and Designated Safeguarding Deputies (DSD). Please refer to the display in the entrances to identify who is responsible for this role.

Every day there will also be an assigned Designated Safeguarding Coordinator (DSC) that will take on the responsibility for safeguarding in the absence of the DSL’s or DSD’s.  This will be displayed on the entrance doors as you go into the building and should be taken note of each day. It is your responsibility to be aware of who the DSL/DSD/DSC is for the day.

It is the responsibility of ALL staff to ensure that the wellbeing of the child is paramount. If you have any concerns you MUST alert the DSL, DSD or the DSC who is trained in the procedures to follow.

SEND- Each site has a named Special Education Needs and Disabilities Co-Ordinator who supports the children, staff and their families.

The Sunshine Day Nursery Aims:

• For any concerns raised by parents to be addressed with the key person, staff within the room and the SENDCo. The SENDCo will inform the Nursery Principal of any concerns about children’s development. Meetings will be arranged to talk through concerns and meetings set up with the LEA if necessary.
• To work with parents, to have an open and honest relationship with parents. If staff have any concerns about a child’s development they will observe the child in the area that they may have the concern and then will discuss this with the child’s parents/ carers and the nursery SENDCo.
• To ensure the SEND of the children are met, as far as possible, within the nursery environment.
• To ensure that each child with SEND takes part as fully as possible in the activities of the nursery.
• To provide a secure learning environment in which each child can reach his/her full potential.
• To promote close co-operation with parents and any other relevant outside agencies.
• To support the SEND of the child by providing 1:1 care for children on and Educational Health care plan if informed by the Local authority.