Revised EYFS

The Department for Education has released a new version of the EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage) that will be effective from September 2014. Main amendments are to the Safeguarding and Welfare Requirements and the requierments for several polices have been removed.

Staff Training will be part of the Safeguarding requirements. This ensures that all staff are up to speed on all areas of training to ensure that children are safe and cared for in all areas. This is something that we take very seriously.

Surpisingly, there will no longer be a requirement to have a Health & Safety Policy in place. This is not something that sits well with us as we need to ensure that children, staff, parents and visitors are all kept as safe as possible on a daily basis. We will continue to have this policy in place.

The need for a Risk Assessment Policy has also been removed and replaced with 'take all resonable steps to ensure staff and children are not exposed to risks'. As well as long term Risk Assessments, we carry out daily Risk Assessments to the Nursery to ensure that we are identifying and minimising or eliminating any risks that may be present. We will continue to have our Risk Assessment Policy in place as we feel that it is an integral part of the running of the Nursery.

There is also the requirement to remove parental permission to take children on outings. In our application pack we have permission forms and one refers to outings. As a parent not seeking permission for my Son to be taken on an outing is un-acceptable. We will still continue to seek permission for this and infom parents when dropping off that we will be leaving the Nursery that day as circumstances do change and parents my forget to update their details.

We are fully compliant with the EYFS and pride ourselves on providing a safe and homely environment. We will be keeping all of the above in place as we feel that it strongly contributes to making our Nursery as safe and secure as it can be and as a parent I want and expect the best for my Son George and wouldn't feel comfortable with him attendnig a Nursery without these policies and procedures firmly in place.