twinthinguk

I have just posted a memo with a link to a video of me going through our settling in procedure lol Id love to know which parents bother to read the memo and watch it, I am trying to encourage our existing parents to interact more with Tapestry after such a long gap since March and also encourage our new parents to get into the habit too.

oh wow lol I was 50 last Thursday and 4 out 10 practitioners at my setting are over 50.......lets hope that does not happen x

no sports day for our school leavers and no presentation........no party for the younger ones..........It has been hard for all our staff, we have been open all along for our keyworkers and then from June for our school leavers who out of 38, 34 returned. Staff have been in two bubbles, I have not seen some of my key children since we initially closed and have really missed the last term of preparing them for school even though I have full confidence that my co workers have worked really hard to to this. We have planned a " drive by" as our setting has a large car park. Parents ( walking or driving) have been given time slots to arrive, come into the car park were staff will be lined up to say our goodbyes. We will be decorating the back of the preschool with bunting and banners, we have all created placards to hold and will be having fun with water pistols and the like......its just going to be a very strange send off. We are hoping that perhaps we will be able to invite the leavers back at Christmas to have a proper party then. We are open for a holiday club, still with restrictions in place so it will be nice to see some of the younger children who are attending. Settling in might be an issue, its a case of wait and see. As for September, I am trying not to think about it. Some of our existing parents are going to struggle if they are not allowed in the setting let alone new starters parents. We are holding a walk through morning ( adults only no children) with social distancing and time slots, masks to be worn, for new parents on the days we are not open. Cleaning has been intense and resources limited but outside has been so valuable! I wonder if we will be back to " Normal" by Christmas.... or if we will get a second wave! Down here in West Sussex we are unlikely to get a local lockdown but it is anyone's guess!

I stopped at foundation and did not do the 2 extra years for BA, since starting my course, my husband had sadly become disabled and my daughter had also become in need of more support and I could not commit to any more study. It was definitely the right decision for me. I did my foundation degree over 4 years. I enjoyed studying very much and am very pleased I did it later in life. It seems daunting but you will soon get into the flow of it all. I was very disciplined and timetabled my study to fit around my work.

when I was studying I would use highlighters to pick out key phrases and key quotes, statements and references. I studied with the OU and they have lots of fantastic study hints and tips, I also used you tube to help me with my note taking, there are lots of tutorials on there. I also invested in a couple of helpful guides to studying from amazon. You will find that once your course has started you will be guided in what to read, generally with a focus so that you can narrow down what you are reading into specific topics which helps. I also brought a couple of essay writing books to help, I had not really ever written a proper academic essay so that was daunting so the books were very helpful. Good luck and enjoy being a student again x I did my foundation degree with OU and it took me 4 years.

My setting has a volunteer starting in September, she has asked if employers in our sector prefer NVQ level 3 or VRQ level 3. She has a couple of options for college and has asked, I have no idea! any advice please? thank you

my setting has worn the same colour tabard for many years, we have pretty much given up wearing them over our logo polo shirts and logo summer t shirts now, we have hoodies with our logo and names on the back for winter, the only thing I would say is ours have large pockets on the front which is very useful. Ours come from local supplier of a variety of work wear and they embroider the logos on. Perhaps they are rather old fashioned but I have to admit, some sort of apron is pretty practical.

Thanks everyone, I have just posted a welcome back video for children explaining the changes, now relying on parents to watch it with their children so they can answer any questions they have. I suppose we won't really know if our plans work well until we hit the ground running on June 1st. Until then, all I can do is help prepare the parents and children the best I can.

scenario.......its Tuesday and little Joey has been in his group for a week, 8 children and two staff. He begins to show signs of not being very well. First aider takes his temperature and its a little high but he currently has no other symptoms such as a cough. He obviously needs to go home now. The guidance is followed and he is collected by a parent. They have said they will ring 111 and follow the isolation rules. What do we do? we have no idea if he has Covid, staff are worried and he is under 5 so unless he becomes very unwell and hospitalised, won't be tested. Do we just carry on and open tomorrow or are all the children and staff in that group off to isolation for a week? or 14 days? do we wait to see how he is and get updates from family before letting other parents know???? I have read so much guidance, my brain has literally melted and confusion has set in! these are the type of questions staff have.......what would you do????

We have some sings up ( we put them up before we closed) just extra hand washing symbols on doors coming in and out, parents are not allowed in the setting when we return so they will be more of a reminder for staff. A few weeks before we closed, We printed out local authority advice re symptoms and that is up on our notice board, it will probably stay there along with the other notifiable illnesses guidance.

I just recorded two videos, one with strict instructions for parents on how we are going to proceed, on how they need to help us prepare the children for the changes and how we are going to split our groups and all the other stuff that comes with that! the other is for the children so they can understand how different it is but also about masks and how we are going to keep each other safe and healthy. I will be posting them on our parent's group on Face book and on Tapestry tomorrow. who knows how this will work, but fingers crossed it will be ok.

I have managed to remove all cushions and soft stuff, but I never considered asking for clean clothes! that will help with the snail trail tops and crusty cuffs lol x thank you for sharing x

what sort of group sizes are appropriate? it is 15 for primary.......we have 38 school leavers and I fully expect most of them to want to come back! we are lucky that we have two rooms but will still have more than 15 per group on most days!!!! I have a meeting with the owner-manager this afternoon to finalize our letter to parents....we are prioritizing places to our existing key worker children, key worker children who have not yet attended and then school leavers, but already had parents of younger ones begging for us to take them back!

if class size is 15 for primary schools, what will be our group size???? we have two rooms, do we allocate staff to a group and they stay with them for the day? and a group of 15 in each room, no free flow and no mixing??? if we do swap rooms, does all equipment and resources need to be cleaned before the other group can use the room??? I wonder when our LA will issue us any information.