Keypersons

[Buttercup]

please convince me that keypersons are a great thing.

 

We are preschool 3 full time staff 2 partime. approx 45 children. generally each keyperson has their own children for observations. learning journals are filled out by all staff. one person normally me or deputy great children as they come to hallway then they go into main room where other 2 staff are. other member generally comes in after children arrive. when children go home again one person meets parents. we had two new children turn up at same time today same keyperson so keyperson and other member of staff had to show them where everthing was.

 

regarding nappy changes all staff do any children depending on what they are doing.

 

how do other people use there keypersons and does it work well?

 

hope this makes sense

 

angela

[Cait]

That was unfortunate, having them both turn up together. In this instance, the manager or deputy would have taken one set of parents but made sure the KP spoke to them at the end of the session to introduce herself.

 

These groups are excellent, and with a spread af ages of children are like family groups where children learn how to look after each other too

[Shiny]

We have 2 members of staff as 'parent liase' each day. This is on a rota so most parents get to see all 6 of us over the week. If a parent wants to speak to the key person they can after all the children are handed over. At the beginning of term we have lots of new children start (16 on our first day!!) so unfortunately the key person isn't able to greet all new comers, but they do get to meet all of us when they come and visit so we are all familiar any way.

 

We have always had key groups with key persons since I have worked at my setting (9 years). I don't know any different, but it works really well for us. We are a large preschool 2.5 - school age, with up to 40children per session and 60+ on books.

[hali]

we have 52 children with 7 key staff members - can be tricky but generally works well

[rachelllps]

Hi,

 

We are tiny compared to the rest of you! (16 on the books at the moment, but only registered for 24 in a church hall) so for that reason we tend to stagger visits and start dates with support cover.

 

However due to our rural village setting we all get to know the children, so parents feel that they can talk to any of us. Key people generally fill out the home school diary when they are in, but other staff comment if the key person isn't present or if anything needs to be shared.

 

We tend to plan next steps etc and observe our key children and usually they pick us to take them to the toilet!

 

Hope this helps a little

 

Rachel

[lynned55]

Angela, your set up sounds very similar to ours. We have 2 staff members meet & greet in mornings, with rest in main part of hall & for safety reasons same when they leave. including myself we have 5/6 staff per day I am manager and have no keyworker children.

All staff change nappies/do toilet runs etc, etc. KP's do formal obs on their children but all staff do informal post it type notes and plan for all children, plus run activities for all children. It's the KP a parent would speak to if any problems and hen they come for their initial visit it's the KP they would be greeted by and chat to.

With some staff not workng every day and most of our children doing 5 sessions it was inevitable that with staggarred start dates some would start without their KP. It was only a cuople though and didn't cause any problms. We have been running a keyworking system for around 8/9 years now and have lways found it works well.