Parents As Partners

Parent Involvement

At Scallywags, we believe that children’s needs are met through a strong partnership with parents/carers, and these partnerships are a major factor in children's learning, confidence building and self esteem. We see parents as children’s first educators; their involvement in pre-school ensures that home-based learning and learning opportunities at nursery reinforce one another.

Our families come from a diverse range of cultures and offer a rich variety of life experiences for the children to gain from.

Parents As Partners

On joining Scallywags, parents undertake a sustained induction period where they become knowledgeable of the day-to-day working life of the setting by undertaking shadow shifts to establish themselves in being part of the early years team.

During this period, parents spend time becoming familiar with our policies and procedures, such as health and safety, child protection, behaviour and healthy eating requirements and routines, along with environmental standards.

They learn from working alongside our qualified staff who facilitate good quality practice in the effective delivery of Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) in practice.

How Parent Shifts Work

In order to keep our fees affordable and inclusive and to ensure parents are partners in their child's early learning experiences, we ask parents to work play and/or food shifts alongside qualified staff.

All parents are placed on a termly rota and the number of shifts you do depends on the number of days your child attends the nursery. It is very manageable and the children love to see their special people at their special place.

We provide new parents with relevant induction training from our experienced members of staff. Parents continue to shadow staff and one another in activity and food shifts until they feel confident to do them independently. Several parents have gone on to train with us to achieve qualifications in early years. We have also fostered strong relationships with the local LEA, frequently taking on students.

What parents say about our nursery and the recent OFSTED report:

Scallywags is more than a nursery. Debbie creates an environment where children are heard and noticed, encouraged and loved. It’s like a family of kind, joyful, wise, helpful and gifted people who not only understand children and their needs but each person has a heart of gold. They act with love, care, gentleness and attention. They take time to listen and to notice. I have enjoyed watching my son develop, grow and blossom in the safety, trust and love he feels there which has had an enriching effect on him and also on our whole family.

A pleasure and a privilege to have found this special place for these crucial early years. We have also made wonderful friends with other families through the valuable volunteer contributions of time, care and skills of each other. Very thankful.

Lucinda