FAQ'S

Yes, an appointment will need to be scheduled for a viewing to take place, especially in line with our covid-19 rules and regulations. We love meeting and showing round potential parents and children and take pride in given in-person tours! Once an enquiry has been submitted, we’ll be in touch with you as promptly as possible and in this process, we will be more than happy to schedule in viewing for you on a suitable day and time.

At Sparkling Minds, we ensure that we stick to the government and Ofsted recommended ratios. You can find our ratios below. Little Sparks (under 2’s) 1:3 Magic Sparks (2-3 years) 1:4 Shooting Sparks (3-5 years) 1:8 (This ratio may be higher if there is an Early Years teacher present)

We take pride in ensuring that we employ the best staff to nurture our children and allow our children to thrive. We have a thorough recruitment process and ‘safer recruitment’ policy in place to support this. Although we are entitled to recruiting both qualified and unqualified staff, we always ensure that if staff members do not hold qualifications, that we promptly provide quality training and support to ensure that they provide a high standard of care. We also value helping and serving our local community, therefore under some circumstances we may accept work experience and apprentice candidates.

Please complete the enquiry form, following this one of our team members will be in touch and provide you with the registration form. We are currently offering free registration, so take advantage before this time expires!

Yes, at Sparkling Minds, we highly value settling and transition, and therefore ensure that we do all that we can to ensure that our children settle as quickly as possible and have a smooth transition with us. We value the fact that all children adapt and cope with transitions differently, so partnership with parents is key during these phases. We offer 2 settling periods, one with a parent/carer and one without – each an hour along and then with parents will discuss how we will ease their child’s official start dates with us based on how they cope and the hours which they will be receiving.

Yes, we do offer funded places at Sparkling Minds. The Government offers a variety of ways to support childcare costs and they have a website that allows you to see what might work best for your family. All 3- and 4-year-old children are eligible for the 15 hours of Nursery Education Funding (NEF), sometimes known as Nursery Education Grant (NEG) or Early Years Free Entitlement (EYFE), the school term after their 3rd birthday. The process for claiming the additional 15 hours of childcare is different than the first Universal 15 hours. You can use the link below in order to seek further support regarding this.

Our nursery is open 50-51 weeks a year, during which time full fees are payable. On Bank Holidays and over the Christmas and Easter period we will have closures. We also close for our staff Training Days. Fees are still payable during closures.

We are aware of the difficulties that may arise with parents work schedules and drop off/pickups. As a result, we offer early starts and late finishes, with an extra half an hour either side. Our general opening hours are 8am-6pm. Our early drop off is at 7.30am, and late finish at 6.30pm.

Yes, as well as more formal curriculum planned trips, we also try to take our children on regular local outings– such as local and sensory walks and park trips. These trips will help extend your child’s learning and, in many cases, well planned. You will always be notified if children are leaving our premises. We believe that it is important for our children at Sparkling Minds to develop a relationship with their local and outer environment as part of the development and understanding of their outer world.

All children will be allocated to a key worker within their first few weeks with us. At the end of the day, your child’s key person will feed back information about your child’s day. For the babies and younger children, this will include information about their sleep times, mealtimes and nappy changes. The key person will feedback information about activities and experiences that your child has been involved in. If the key person is not there, another nominated staff member will be available to share that information with you. Additionally, we also use an app/ website called Parent Zone to provide regular updates throughout the Nursery Day which all parents can access instantly regarding what your child has eaten each day etc, we will also provide progress observations through this application and special moments that may occur! https://connectchildcare.com/software/parentzone/ Our children will also have a learning journey book which will have a range of pictures and samples of their work which parents will be able to take as a precious souvenir at the end of their child’s time with us. We also will have a google drive of which you can access some useful information regarding the topics we are covering termly and some long-term planning.

We will be able to supply your child with most required items, however, we require parents to provide spare clothes in a bag, all items including each shoe/sock and the bag itself will need to be clearly named, we also require water bottles to be provided.

We request that your child does not bring personal items including toys and electronic games into the nursery. This is because it can cause problems with sharing and security. Furthermore, we are unable to accept liability for loss of, or damage to any property that is brought onto the premises without their knowledge. If children do bring in items, we will ask them to be surrendered and given back to parents on collection unless it is essential or helps with a child’s comfort or transition.

Yes, most definitely! At Sparkling Minds Nursery, most of the day is structured with free choice/ play, where the children can choose what activities, they would like to take part in both indoors and outdoors. We play outside at least once every day throughout all ages of the nursery and encourage children that may not necessarily naturally choose outdoor activities to play outdoors at some point each day also. We appreciate learning and experience outdoor play in all weathers and conditions, and as a result suggest that parents dress their children appropriately for the weather and the different seasons of the year. The only time we will not allow children outdoors, is if if weather is terrible all day, or is a risk / health and safety issue and we feel the children are not going to gain anything positive from the experience. We use the outside area for many different activities including bikes, scooters, team games, role play, sand pit, physical challenges, free play, water play. Outside is an extension to our provision and still offers lots of learning experiences.

We ask that when your child is sick you do not bring them to nursery this is crucial in preventing the spread of infection. We will not accept a child into nursery who is running a temperature and all children’s temperatures are taken daily upon arrival. When the cause of illness is sickness or diarrhoea, we ask that you child is kept at home for at least 48 hours after the last bout of illness. For specific illnesses we have a set of infection control guidelines that advise us of exclusions, and we follow these. Unfortunately, we are unable to refund any fees due to your child being ill.

Yes, we ensure that children with any allergies are well cared for, and care plans will be put in place in order to ensure that they are kept safe. We expect to be informed of any allergies, so that the necessary care and plans can be made to keep these allergens away from the child. One of the many ways in which we ensure this and make all individuals aware of this, is by providing children with personalised dining mats which would clearly highlight any allergies and/or dietary requirements. We strive to ensure that every child is safe while at nursery so we will prepare separate snacks and meals keeping in with the child’s diet. All meals are prepared freshly on site and our cook will be clearly notified and aware of all children’s dietary requirements and allergies.

At Sparkling Minds, safeguarding and health and safety is of paramount importance to us and an aspect that is highly regulated by Ofsted and the local authorities. We believe that everyone has a role to play in order to promote the best safeguarding and welfare for our children. All staff undergo regular safeguarding training, and we have a Designated Safeguarding Person who also takes on the responsibility of auditing all our safeguarding procedures. These procedures include everything from recruiting staff, greeting visitors at the door, ensuring passwords are in use to making sure the equipment is safe to use. All of us have responsibilities in this area and the best form of safeguarding for children is always combined vigilance. Although risk assessments are no longer mandatory, we ensure that we regularly complete these to ensure that our environment is as safe as possible for our children.