Settling in at Nursery
One of our strengths at Mere Nursery is supporting families as children settle into nursery. This begins from the moment you come to look around the setting; our aim is to help you to feel comfortable and find out about your family’s needs and how we can support you during the settling in sessions. Research shows that children settle into a new environment through a gradual process supported by trusted adults.
Our transitions follow a flexible schedule which allows parents to feel comfortable before children are left in our care:
- During your initial visit to have a look around nursery we discuss your needs, anxieties and talk about your child’s experiences before starting nursery
- Once you have decided you want to place your child with us, we will send you our “Unique Child” document to be filled out – this gives us a great insight into your child and important factors about their home life This helps to plan initial activities to support the settling in process
- About 6 weeks before your start date, we will call you so that we can work together to put a plan in place for the weeks leading up to your child’s start date. The most important thing about this plan is it is flexible – there is no specific amount or length of sessions we offer. This is based entirely on what you think will suit your family. Of course we can offer advice; we have lots of experience in helping to settle new children
- A home visit is normally the first session we offer as part of the settling process. This is a great way for us to see your child in their home environment away from distractions and somewhere the whole family feels relaxed and comfortable. This is a great opportunity for your child’s Key Person to start to form a bond with your child.
You can find out more about home visits by clicking here.
- Parent and child ‘stay and plays’ are the next stage of the settling in journey – we always ask parents to stay for a child’s initial session at nursery. This is a chance for you to get to know your child’s key person, back up key person and the rest of the team here at nursery. It also builds up your baby/child’s familiarity with the new faces and the environment
- The last stages vary dependant on each family’s individual needs and feelings. We carefully observe your child during the home visit and the ‘stay and plays’ and use the Unique Child information to look for signals as to how we think your child will settle once they are left in our care. We can then advise on the next stages for settling in sessions. This may start initially with a short 30 minute session where you can be close by if your child is uncomfortable being away from you and extend gradually to a 2-4 hour session where your child can experience certain parts of the day such as meal or sleep times.
Once your child starts completing full sessions at nursery we make sure that you are regularly updated with how your little one is getting on. We encourage you to call/email as much as you want to and in turn we will make sure we upload regular pictures to your child’s online learning journal so you can see what they have been up to. Alongside this we regularly hold parent events to ensure you are regularly involved with all aspects of nursery.
You can find out more about our online learning journals by clicking here.
What our parents say
I’d like to say a huge thank you to The Mere Nursery team. We have recently relocated from Hong Kong and I was really nervous for my son and concerned with how he would adapt to the change. The team were fantastic, friendly and professional and ensured he had a great summer learning and playing. I can’t recommend the nursery enough! Space is wonderful and a great place for children to explore and grow.
My son has started with Mere day nursery in the last couple of weeks. My husband and I have been extremely impressed with his settling in process and are very happy with the care being provided by the centre.The manager, my son’s key worker and the rest of the team have been focused on finding out about my son and getting to know him as a little person. My husband and I have both had the opportunity to spend time at the nursery and get to know all of the lovely staff.
The level of knowledge of my son’s key worker is a cut above our experience with nurseries in the past and we feel he is being given a lot of personal time and attention.
We are very chuffed with our experience so far and would recommend to people thinking of enrolling their kids.
The Mere welcomed my daughter to their nursery in April this year, the welcome we received from all the staff was more than I expected and it didn’t take her long to settle right in as a result of such a warm welcome. The facilities at the nursery are well equipped for children and I feel that my daughter’s development since attending Mere has flourished.
