About Us
Welcome to The Purple Playhouse
The Purple Playhouse offers children a safe, stimulating learning environment. Children learn through being actively involved in enjoyable, stimulating and absorbing play-based activities with well qualified and motivated staff who promote happiness and a love of learning.
- We have a team of very dedicated and experienced staff that all have a good understanding of early year’s education and provide high quality care.
- We work in partnership with parents and carers to help children learn and develop.
- We provide a simulating environment which allows all children to feel valued and secure.
- We promote equality and value diversity.
Nursery Manager – Linda
Deputy Manager – Jackie
Nursery assistants –
- Sarah-Jane
- Lynette
- Jo
- Kelsea
- Amy
- Ellie
- Bethany
Amy is also our SENCO coordinator (Special Educational Needs Coordinator).
At The Purple Playhouse we offer SENCO, English as an additional language alongside many other forms of support.
We keep all staff up to date with all relevant information and offer new training opportunities throughout the year. All staff have a current Paediatric First Aid and Safeguarding qualifications as well as many others. Please speak to a member of staff if you would like to hear more. Linda and Jackie are the Designated Safeguarding Lead. (DSL).
Opening hours and sessions available
We offer full day care as well as morning and afternoon sessions. We provide care for children age 2 up to 5.
We open 5 days a week, Monday to Friday apart from 1 week over Christmas, 1 week in August and all bank holidays. We do offer flexibility during school holidays and if you choose not to send your child during the school holidays there will be no charge, please speak to a member of staff for more information.
As a member of The Purple Playhouse, your child;
- Is in a safe and stimulating environment.
- Is given generous care and attention, because of the high ratio of adults to children.
- Is helped to take forward her/his learning and development by building on what s/he already knows and can do.
- Has a personal key person who makes sure your child makes satisfying progress in all areas of learning.
Children start to learn about the world around them from the moment they are born. The care and education offered by our nursery helps children to continue to do this by providing all children a wide variety of interesting activities that are right for their age and stage of development.
The Early Years Foundation Stage is the framework that all nursery staff use to track your child’s development and is statutory requirement . It sets the standard for learning, development and care for the children from birth to five.
The learning and development requirements are divided into 7 areas of learning.
Personal, Social and Emotional Development (prime area)
Children’s personal, social and emotional development is crucial to lead happy and healthy lives, and is fundamental to their cognitive development. Underpinning their personal development are the important attachments that shape their social world. Strong, warm and supportive relationships with adults enable children to learn how to understand their own feelings and those of others. This is promoted through circle time, key group time, playing turn-taking games, show and tell.
Communication and Language (prime area)
Communication and Language underpins a child’s understanding, speaking, listening and attention skills. Communication and Language is developed through rhythm and rhyme time, messy play, show and tell, group time, small world play and 1:1 key person time. The development of children’s spoken language underpins all seven areas of learning and development. Reading frequently to children, and engaging them actively in stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems, providing them with extensive opportunities to use and embed new words in a range of contexts , will give children the opportunity to thrive.
Physical development (prime area)
Physical activity is vital in children’s all-round development, enabling them to pursue happy, healthy and active lives. Gross and fine motor experiences develop incrementally throughout early childhood, starting with sensory explorations and the development of a child’s strength co-ordination and positional awareness. Physical development is encouraged in lots of ways including; obstacle courses, garden games (spatial awareness), mark making, puzzles, small world activities and small tools.
Literacy (specific area)
Literacy is the foundation of learning to read and write. We support literacy development through story time and mark making. It is crucial for children to develop a life-long love of reading.
Mathematics (specific area)
Developing a strong grounding in number is essential so that all children develop the necessary building blocks to excel mathematically. Children should be able to count confidently, develop a deep understanding of the numbers to 10, the relationship between them and the patterns within those numbers. You will find mathematics in our water play, cooking, puzzles and sequencing activities.
Understanding the World (specific area)
Understanding the world involves guiding children to make sense of their physical world and their community. The frequency and range of children’s personal experiences increases their knowledge and sense of the world around them for example visiting parks and libraries to meeting important members of the society such as police officers, nurses and fire fighters. We support understanding the world through small world play, computer play, science experiments, music time and celebrating festivals
Expressive arts and design (specific area)
Expressive arts and design develops imagination by exploring and using media and materials through construction, role play, exploring materials, musical movement and creative activities. The development of children’s artistic and cultural awareness supports their imagination and creativity. The quality and variety of what children see, hear and participate in is crucial for developing their understanding, self-expression, vocabulary and ability to communicate through the arts.
These goals establish expectations for most children to reach by the end of the reception year. Some children will be working towards some or all of these goals by the time they leave us, other children may have exceeded them.
The nursery has a key person system which means each member of staff has a group of children for whom they are responsible. They will support your child in all areas of learning particularly focusing on emotional and social skills through carefully planned group activities. Your child’s key person will be the person who works with you to make sure that what the nursery provides is right for your child’s particular needs and interests. When your child first starts at the nursery they will help your child to settle and this person is usually your first point of contact if you have any queries or concerns. Throughout your child’s time at The Purple Playhouse, their key person will help them to benefit from all the nursery has to offer. The key person will also keep a record of your child’s achievements and next steps through a secure online application call Tapestry. Your child’s record of achievement is a lovely way to see what your child has been doing at nursery and what next steps we will be putting in place to progress learning.
Tapestry is set up through your email account with secure passwords. Only you and nursery will have access to this information. Please speak to a member of staff for more information.
We encourage parents/carers to take an active role in your child’s learning and development by uploading information about activities your child enjoys at home. Sharing artwork, day trips, family celebrations or enjoyed activities through tapestry. This will help us to plan appropriate activities that will be of interest.
Nursery is run by a voluntary management committee. The committee is made up of parents and carers of children who currently attend or have previously attended the nursery. Other interested parties, who are not parents or carers, can be co-opted onto the committee.
If you would like to hear more please speak to Linda or attend the AGM which will be held in early November.
Polices
The policies of the nursery help us to make sure that the service provided by the nursery is a high quality one and that being a member of nursery is an enjoyable and beneficial experience for each child and their family. Our policies are under constant review and can be read by all at any time. Please ask a member of staff if you would like to look at any of our policies.
Starting at the nursery is an exciting time but can also be scary for some children and parents. Making this as easy as possible is important to us. We will work with you and your child to make this new transition as smooth as possible.
Nursery offers a uniform of a white polo shirt and purple sweatshirt with our logo embroidered onto it. You can purchase these from the nursery office, this is optional. Please talk to Linda or Jackie for more information.
We hope that you and your child enjoys being a member of The Purple Playhouse. The staff are always ready and willing to talk with you about your ideas, views, or answer any questions you may have.
We look forward to getting to know you all.
The Purple Playhouse team.