Sharing Information

[Guest]

we have a few children who attend another preschool as well as ours and i was wondering how i should go about sharing information with them.

 

we are a private day nursery who have just opened in the area and a lot of the parents have transferred from the local nursery to us, but some attend our setting and the local nursery. if you like we are rivals. however we have been discussing it as a setting a think we need to be shairng info, for example we are looking at getting a childs speech assessed.

 

how should we go about it or how and what do we need to do?

 

thanks

[hali]

its very hard if the other nursery are unwilling to share which in my experience they can be !

[Guest]

Hi. We have introduced a Homelink diary which all our children have but for those who attend another setting we are encouraging parents to take it in there too. I contacted the two most prominent ones to discuss the development of the diary with them. One was a bit interested, the other shouted at me down the phone!

 

We currently have a child attending the setting that shouted, and we have this child on the graduated response for various, undiagnosed concerns. We have spoken to our area SENCO about where we stand legally in this case and she is checking it out with the LA legal team as we both feel the other setting is acting against the SEN code of practice by not sharing information with us. We have tried to get the parents to act as go betweens in a way by asking them to point out we all need to be acting in the best interests of the child, but they are not shifting. Until we get advice from LA re legal situation we are a bit stuck, so if anyone else has any comments on this I would also be interested.

[Guest]

Hi northernbird,

 

I think to share any information, the main thing is to get parental consent.

 

We get parental consent by the form of a letter which the parents sign so that I (supervisor) can share information.

 

We explain that any information shared can help transition between one setting to another and any information about the child can only benefit them in each setting they visit.

 

We use the same system when children go to school as I have a meeting with the Reception Teacher during the summer term

 

Hope this helps

 

 

Rachel

[Guest]

Sharing practice comes under a MUST in the EYFS statutory framework

 

Creating the framework for partnership working

1.16 Partnership working underpins successful delivery of the EYFS in a number of different ways.

Where children receive education and care in more than one setting, practitioners must ensure

continuity and coherence by sharing relevant information with each other and with parents.Patterns of attendance should be a key factor in practitioners’ planning.

Close working between early years practitioners and parents is vital for the identification of

children’s learning needs and to ensure a quick response to any area of particular difficulty.

Parents and families are central to a child’s well-being and practitioners should support this

important relationship by sharing information and offering support to learning in the home.

Practitioners will frequently need to work with professionals from other agencies, such as local

and community health services, or where children are looked after by the local authority, to

identify and meet needs and use their knowledge and advice to provide children’s social care

with the best learning opportunities and environments for all children.

 

Page 10.

 

 

I used to have a home / settings link diary for a child who attending both my setting and my next nearest rivals, the fact that we were 'competition' ensured that we both completed 'exceptional' observation notes, as it became a sort of competition who could show who was doing the most engaging, exciting activities with the child. I must admit that the diary was started by the other setting, they originally put in comments like; Arrived happy, ate such and such at snack, enjoyed a story, didn't eat all her lunch, had a toileting accident in the garden in the afternoon, did a painting. However, once I started contributing more relevant and more informative notes, including an evaluation of what the observation showed in terms of learning outcomes and next steps / consolidation needs, they followed and improved their input. All in all a very comprehensive record of the childs time spent with both settings. This record became invaluable when at a future date the child's parent applied for statutory assessment.

 

 

Peggy

[hali]

yep we have a links book and mum does her best but it dosnt get filled in by the other setting no matter how hard we all try!

[Emmawill]

we wondered about this at our settin as we opened nearly a year ago quite near two other preschools one of which 11 children left there to come to us. but some of them attend there for one day a week as they are a day nursery and can accomodate longer hours for workin mums. but due to the rivalry we also wondered how to o about this as the particulat child I am thinkin about has quite selective activities that he plays with at out setting and it would be interesting to know what goes on at the other setting.

[Guest]

Hi All - very interesting topic of conversation - i have a SEN child and I have visited the other setting he attends, and they too have visited us - all settings need to acknowledge with the new EYFS that the CHILD is of the importance not how we all operate. Through the visits we have made, we have all realised that different settings offer differences, our outside play is only a courtyard, at the other setting the child has access to climbing equipment but with us he does not. The other setting only has around 10 children attending, with us we have 26 each day.

 

However, once we put all our observations together we can come to specific particular targets to ensure the childs needs are met. It is also wonderful to see how other settings operate gain ideas and so forth.

 

It would be wonderful if the setting down the road from us did not see us as any competition, but linked up so we could all learn from each other.

 

I am sure that your development worker once informed of a setting not allowing you to visit or share information would have to intervene from September 2008 when EYFS becomes mandatory.

 

Dot

[Elfy]

Hi

 

We are a school nursery and we have about 5 children (varies each term) who share care with the local day nursery, i.e. the drop them off and pick them up from our 2.5 hour sessions. We have recently started meeting semi regularly to discuss the children and come to a shared understanding of where they are and what they are intested in. I had heard lots of information about transition between settings when a child is finishing with one setting and starting with another, but feel that the children who are sharing care almost need our attention more. It was interesting to discuss with the other setting our behaviour expectations, as we share a couple of children who sometimes pose challenging behaviour. For one child in particular we set up a positive book, which is used by both settings and parents - we write down the things that he has done well during the session and share them with him and talk to him about the other entries in the book - reinforcing the good behaviour.

 

Elfy