Prospectus

Elm Court, 363 Mutton Lane, Potters Bar, Herts, EN6 3BP Email: office.littleelms@gmail.com

Web: http://www.little-elms.com

Welcome

Dear Parent/Carer,

Thank you for taking the time to read our prospectus, which will answer your questions about our Nursery and what a Montessori-style education can offer your child. The nursery previously achieved the ‘OUTSTANDING’ rating at the Ofsted inspection carried out in 2022. We aim to keep our practice at the highest standards possible.

I took over this setting in 2023 and have made significant positive changes to strengthen our relationship with the parents. Little Elms has an excellent reputation with local schools, both state and independent, for providing children with excellent preparation for their school life. We have access to a hectare of natural grounds at the rear of our nursery and our own fully equipped private playground containing a wide range of age-appropriate outdoor equipment. This beautiful space provides wonderful opportunities for ample outdoor learning during our regular Montessori-enriched, hands-on outdoor sessions. Our building is welcoming, child-friendly and secure with ample car parking. The amount of space available by the Nursery is a considerable bonus and provides the children room to grow and learn about themselves and their environment.

Our experienced Montessori staff aims to provide quality care in a safe, happy and well-structured environment. The children receive high-quality care and attention, due to our high ratio of qualified staff to children. We provide care and education for children between the ages of 2-5 years, and our

opening hours are 7.30 am to 6pm. The Nursery is open all year round for 50 weeks and follows the local schools opening dates as closely as possible.

Little Elms Montessori Nursery uses the Montessori Method of early education. This is a child-centred approach, in which each child can learn and develop freely at their pace, following their interests and inclinations.

Little Elms Montessori Nursery aims to plan a curriculum using Montessori methods within the framework of the Early Years Foundation Stages, providing the children with learning experiences of the highest quality. This method considers both the children’s needs and achievements, and a range of learning experiences that will help them to make progress towards and, where appropriate, beyond these goals.

We work in partnership with parents to help children learn and develop, offering children and their families a service that promotes equality and values diversity.

If you would like to visit the Nursery, please feel free to contact us.

If you would like to enrol your child, please complete the Enrolment Form which can be emailed to you on request, and return it to us with a payment of £170.00 to cover your child’s Enrolment Fee and Refundable Deposit.

We look forward to hearing from you and showing you around our Nursery.

Yours sincerely Nishrin Alibhai

Director/Manager

Contents Page

What is Montessori? Page 5

Classroom Activities and Montessori Materials Page 6-7 Provision of the Early Years Foundation Stages (EYFS) Page 8 Learning Outcomes Table Page 9

Daily Routine Page 10

Current Fees Page 11-13

Key Policies: Page 14-16

• Safeguarding

  
  

• Key Person

  
  

• Children’s Development & Learning

  
  

• Learning Journal

  
  

• Parent Partnership & Involvement

  
  

• Equality and Values

  
  

• Special Educational Needs (SEN)

  
  

• Positive Behaviour

  
  

• Snacks & Meals

  
  

• Health

Coronavirus (COVID -19) policy Privacy Notice & GDPR

Terms & Conditions

What Is Montessori?

Dr. Maria Montessori (1870-1952) was born in Italy; she founded the Montessori Method of education in 1907. Her ideas and theories revolutionized education and were recognized worldwide.

Montessori was the first woman to graduate from the University of Rome La Sapienza Medical School, becoming one of the first female doctors in Italy.

Maria Montessori felt that children should be sensitively guided, rather than controlled, through activities. It is important to observe individual children and plan the activities around their interests and continue to develop their existing skills.

Montessori schools encourage children of different ages to work together as a social group and do not normally split children by sex or age. Montessori realised that it was natural and very easy for the younger children to learn by watching and listening to the older children and actively supporting and helping each other.

Children are natural learners, Little Elms Montessori Nursery sees that the overall happiness, self-confidence, and self-discipline are improved when they are allowed to follow their natural development. Children only stop loving to learn when they are forced to go against their natural impulses. Therefore, we believe that each child is an individual and should be encouraged to work at the pace that is right for him or her. There are no grades or tests, children are never in competition with each other, therefore do not have any added pressures.

The Montessori Method allows the child to learn in totally free play using specially designed materials and equipment through the medium of a carefully prepared environment. Materials through which the children can develop their skills for independence and academic knowledge.

For example, the material known as the pink tower is made up of ten pink cubes of varying sizes. The preschool-aged child constructs a tower with the largest cube on the bottom and the smallest on top. This material isolates the concept of size. The cubes are all the same colour and texture; the only difference is their size. Other materials isolate different concepts: colour tablets for colour, geometry materials for form, and so on.

Classroom Activities & Montessori Materials

At the core of the Montessori Method is a carefully structured classroom in which the children can choose amongst individual, purposeful activities or join in group activities. The trained Montessori teacher helps the children by showing them how activities are performed, observing their work, and individually introducing new challenges when a child is ready for them. At all times, the teacher is careful to encourage freedom of choice and expression. Gradually the children reveal qualities for which they are not usually given credit, such as intense concentration and surprising attention span, a sense of order, self-discipline and respect for others.

The environment is set up as a bridge between the home and the wider world. Montessori called this place a Casa dei Bambini or Children’s House.

In each classroom we have low-level shelving so the children are able to select materials of their choice, this encourages independence. The materials have been specifically designed to use the children’s senses to learn naturally. The classrooms are all arranged in five main areas:

1. Practical Life Activities

   These are designed to build skills in everyday activities which the child may be familiar with at home. Practical life activities promote independence, coordination, and fine and gross motor skills. These also prepare the child for later mathematical and language work, whilst developing the child’s concentration span.

   
   

   Examples: threading, polishing, dressing frames (buttons, zips, poppers), pouring, spooning, sorting, dusting, sweeping up and carrying a chair.

   
   

2. ​Sensorial Activities

   These attractive materials are specially designed to heighten the child’s awareness of the world around them by broadening and refining each of their sense. They help prepare the child for many later Montessori activities, especially the Maths and Cultural work.

   
   

   Examples: pink tower, red rods, cylinder blocks, sound cylinders, rough and smooth boards, tasting drops, colour tablets and baric tablets.

3. ​Language Activities

   Early language experience is gained through books, storytelling, poems, and songs with props. When interested in letters and reading, the child is introduced to Montessori language materials. First, the sounds and shapes of the letters are taught a few at a time in individual lessons. Then reading and writing are introduced through various structured activities.

   
   

   Examples: sandpaper letters (used to learn letter sounds and shapes), moveable alphabet (cut-out letters that the child can use to write words phonetically), object boxes (toy-sized things with three-letter names that the child can read phonetically) and reading folders (packed showing alternative spellings of common word sounds).

   
   

4. Maths Activities

   Early number experience includes counting, sorting, weighing, matching, and pairing, particularly in the Sensorial activities. When ready and interested in numbers, the child is introduced to a variety of maths activities, progressing from the simple to the complex and from the concrete to the abstract. Arithmetic, for example, is learned through the use of beads that come in ones, tens, hundreds, and thousands.

   
   

   Examples: Number rods, sandpaper numbers, numbers and counters, spindle box, addition/subtraction bead and fraction circles.

   
   

5. Cultural activities

These activities are usually conducted as group work, to promote social interaction. They cover all aspects of learning that make a culture rich and interesting. Each term, special projects are run in nature, science and history, including ongoing cultural work.

For art, an easel is always up in the classroom so the children can paint when they like, and there is a daily art/craft lesson such as painting, sticking, printing, modeling, collage, and sculpting.

For dance, the children are encouraged to join in with movement to music which promotes body awareness, gross and fine motor control, rhythm, balance, and coordination. During music, the children are introduced to songs, rhythms, and different instruments).

Yoga is a new method combining Montessori and Yoga, taught by a specially trained teacher for children to build confidence and self-esteem, improving balance, senses and memory skills.

Drama is taught by a professional Drama and music teacher, with an emphasis on fun and role-play using the language.

Football: We have Nicky Barnes, a well-known professional coach coming in every week to teach our children various football skills. Football is extremely good for their gross motor skills and helps children develop their coordination and concentration

Provision of the Early Years Foundation Stages

1. Early Years Foundation Stage

   The Early Years Foundation Stages begin from birth. Children aged between three and five are constantly encountering new experiences and seeking to understand them in

   order to extend their skills. The Early Years Foundation Stages outlines early learning goals that most children are expected to achieve by the end of their reception class year at school.

   The seven areas of learning are as follows:

   • Problem-solving, reasoning and numeracy

   • Physical development

   • Creativity

   • Knowledge and understanding of the world

   • Communication, language, and literacy

   • Personal social and emotional development.

   -Expressive arts and design

2. Planning

   The areas of learning will provide the basis for our planning.

   1. Each term the nursery decides which topics will be covered throughout the term; the planning and activities will also be shaped and initiated by the children’s interests.

      Parents are advised of the areas that are intended to be covered by way of the notice

      boards and newsletters and are encouraged to help their child to find items from the home to support the topics/shapes and colours being studied.

   2. The topics are then broken down to show which activities will be offered to cover each of the six areas of learning. The plans for the activities may be shown as a spider chart

      or in some other form to enable ideas to be discussed, selected, and sorted.

   3. The activities are then broken down again into weekly and daily lesson plans to show which goals are being encouraged from the six areas of learning.

   4. To give an idea of how the nursery provides for the foundation stages and some of the learning outcomes that are encouraged a few examples are given in the table overleaf.

      
      

3. Learning through Play

Our toys, resources and activities help to encourage the development of children in different areas so that even when children seem to be just playing they are learning at the same time. All the toys and activities put out at Little Elms have been planned to cover certain areas of a child’s development within the Early Years Foundation Stage as shown above. During the nursery session, the staff present the activities/equipment to the children to encourage the planned learning outcome. The children are observed continuously and the information gained to assess each child’s development against the predicted ages of attainment.

Example of Activities for each area and Learning Outcomes

For each area, the level of progress that children are expected to have attained by the end of the Early Years Foundation Stage is defined by the Early Learning Goals. These goals state what it is expected that children will know, and be able to do, by the end of the reception year of their education.

Daily Routine

We organise our sessions so that the children can choose from, and work at, a range of activities and, in doing so, build up their ability to select and work through a task to its completion. The children are also encouraged to take part in adult-led small and large group activities, which introduce them to new experiences and help them gain new skills, as well as learn to work with others. Outdoor activities contribute to children's health, their physical development and their knowledge of the world around them. The children have the opportunity and are encouraged to take part in outdoor child-chosen and adult-led activities, as well as those provided in the indoor playroom(s).

The routine below shows a sample of a typical day at our Nursery:

Morning Session

7.30am Breakfast Club available (optional)

8:00 am Doors will be opened and children welcomed in, children settle down

8.15 am Morning Circle / Registration

8:35 am Montessori work cycle commences, a free choice from all areas of learning & music session

10.00am: Snack time

10.30am: Football/Drama / Yoga 11:00 am: Outdoors play

11.45am: Storytime

12pm: Lunch

12.40pm: Goodbye circle time 12.50pm: Home time

Afternoon session

1.00 pm: Doors will be opened and children welcomed in

1.10 pm: Afternoon circle / Registration

1.30pm: Montessori work cycle commences, free choice from all areas of learning, 2.00pm: Outdoors play

3.00pm: Snack time

3.30pm: Music session

4.45pm: Cold tea

5.30pm: Story time and Goodbye Circle time 6pm : Home time

Our Fees

When you enrol a non-refundable registration fee of £70 is required to hold a space for your child. When a place is available and has been accepted, a refundable deposit of

£100 is payable. This deposit will only be refunded if a terms written notice has been given in advance, please see our full Terms and Conditions policy which includes deferring.

A child starting at the Nursery will be expected to attend for a minimum of three sessions per week for the first term, rising to more sessions for subsequent terms if required. By the time a child is three years old, we recommend that your child attends Nursery a minimum of five sessions per week.

Once we have agreed with you what sessions have been allocated to your child for the term, those sessions cannot be varied and so if your child misses a session, for whatever reason, that session cannot be replaced with one on a different day.

Little Elms Montessori Nursery offers a number of grants and schemes please see below if you are eligible, or for more information please contact Hertfordshire County Council at www.hertsdirect.org

Fee structure-

7.30 -8.00am Breakfast Club(optional)

Breakfast Club(7.30am-8am) – Breakfast consists of either Jam and toast, Cereal or Fruits and Milk (£10)

Included in our price

Snack (10am-10.30am) –Choice of fruits, breadsticks, milk, yogurt, and milk slices. Milk is available every day.

Lunch (12pm-1pm) – Fresh, organic, hot lunches provided every day. We cater to the child’s diet and needs and the menu will be shared with you on a termly basis

Cold tea(4.00pm-5.00pm) -Sandwiches/wraps rolls/pasta and yogurt

Children in Receipt of the free early education grant for three- & four-year olds

All three and four-year-olds are entitled to 15 hours per week of free early education for up to 38 weeks of the year from the term following your child’s 3rd birthday. This applies until they reach compulsory school age (the term following their fifth birthday). These places are subject to availability.

Funded hours

When can my child access a free 3 or 4-year-old-funded place?

Classrooms

The 15 free early education entitlement can be taken flexibly within the following limitations:

All children can attend morning, afternoon, or full-day sessions. Their 15 free early education entitlement can be taken for either morning or afternoon sessions.

We accept 30 hours of funding too

30 funded hours are allocated to children depending on their date of birth. These children will be offered a 30-hour funding place from 8am to 6 pm for any 3 days in a week. Additional days will be charged at our session rate. We are open 50 hours a week so we also offer stretched funding hours. Please speak to us to discuss further.

Lunch and snacks will be charged £3.50 per day for funded children

All Nursery fees must be paid and cleared in advance by the last day of the previous Term by BACS or cash to hold your child’s nursery place. Fees should be paid by the date given to avoid occurring a late payment fine of £50 in the first week of term. We reserve the right to withdraw your child’s place if the balance is not paid, or the place is confirmed. Please discuss any issues with us as soon as possible *

If the nursery must close, due to Bank holidays, emergencies, Coronavirus (Covid-19) or any other pandemic, weather conditions, Government advice or any other unforeseen circumstances, the nursery term will not be extended nor will any part of the fee be refunded.

Childcare Vouchers

Please ensure that your Childcare Voucher provider includes your child’s name as a reference, so we can identify who the payments are for. These are some of the companies we work with Care Four, Busy Bees, Computershare, SodexhoPass Ltd, Edenred/ Childcare Vouchers Ltd, Kiddivouchers, Early Years Vouchers, Fideliti Childcare vouchers and many more…

Uniform

The uniform pack may be purchased from the Nursery for £70. The nursery pack consists of :

Jogger pants Nappy bag Book bag Sweatshirt Polo-shirt

All About Me Book

Children will also need to have in the nursery a pair of soft indoor shoes, a pair of Wellington boots, waterproof trousers, a full set of spare clothes and depending on the season, a coat, sun hat etc. All items brought into the nursery should be clearly marked with your child’s name.

Children need to wear their uniforms every day. We recommend at least 2 sets of trousers, sweatshirts and Polo T-shirts, as children get very messy. All children should wear clean uniforms every day

Consumable charges(per term)

We request a small consumable charge of £40 per term which merely comes to merely around £0.30p a day. This small charge goes towards our Montessori materials, cooking ingredients, resources, events, cleaning materials, and other miscellaneous expenses at the nursery. We strive to maintain a high-quality childcare at Little Elms and your small contribution helps us to run the nursery efficiently

Little Elms Montessori Nursery Key Policies

The setting's policies and procedures are available for all to see at the setting. Our policies help us to make sure that the service provided by us is a high-quality one and that being a member of the Little Elms Montessori Nursery is an enjoyable and beneficial experience for each child and their families.

The staff and parents of the setting work together to adopt the policies helping us to make sure that the policies are enabling the setting to provide a quality service for its members and the local community.

Safeguarding children

Our setting has a duty under the law to help safeguard children against suspected or actual ‘significant harm’. Our employment practices ensure children are protected against the likelihood of abuse in our settings and we have a procedure for managing complaints or allegations against a member of staff.

Our way of working with children and their parents ensures we are aware of any problems that may emerge and can offer support, including referral to appropriate agencies when necessary, to help families in difficulty. Our Designated Safeguarding person is Nishrin Alibhai.

Key Person and Your Child

We want your child to feel happy and safe with us. Our setting uses a key-person approach. This means that each member of staff has a group of children for whom she/he is particularly responsible. Your child's key person will be the person who works with you to make sure that the childcare we provide is right for your child's particular needs and interests. When your child first starts at the setting, the key person will help your child to settle and support them throughout their time at the setting, to enable them to benefit from the setting's activities.

Children's Development and Learning

We assess how young children are learning and developing by observing them frequently. We use information that we gain from observations, documenting their progress and where this may be leading them. We believe that parents know their children best and we ask them to contribute to assessment by sharing information about what their children like to do at home and how they, as parents, are supporting development.

Online learning Journey

The key person is responsible for completing the online observations, assessments, and reports carried out as part of our everyday practice, taking account of the views and contributions of parents and other professionals. We use Tapestry at our nursery for sending out observations, emails and newsletters which enables the parents to be in touch with the nursery at all times even if they are not physically present here

Parent Partnership and Involvement

Our setting recognises parents as the first and most important educators of their children. Parents are valued, respected, kept informed and involved, consulted and included. All of the staff see themselves as partners with parents in providing care and education for their children. There are many ways in which parents take part in making the setting a welcoming and stimulating place for children and parents.

We have an open-door policy that welcomes parents to drop into the setting, to see the children’s learning journals and to speak with the staff.

The setting has a parent support group who are part of the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA). In our setting, we share with this group, some of the tasks involved in event planning and fundraising. Our PTA depends on the goodwill of parents and their involvement to keep going, parents help to shape the service we offer. This is an important link between the families and the Nursery and building friendships with other parents in the setting.

Equality and Values

We actively promote inclusion, equality of opportunity, the valuing of diversity and British values. Under the Equality Act 2010, which underpins standards of behaviour and incorporates both British and universal values, we have a legal obligation not to directly or indirectly discriminate against, harass or victimise those with protected characteristics. We make reasonable adjustments to procedures, criteria and practices to ensure that those with protected characteristics are not at a substantial disadvantage. As we are in receipt of public funding we also have a public sector equality duty to eliminate unlawful discrimination, advance equality of opportunity, foster good relations and publish information to show compliance with the duty.

Special Educational Needs

As part of the setting's policy to make sure that its provision meets the needs of each child, we take account of any Special Educational Needs a child may have. The setting works to the requirements of the Special Educational Needs Code of Practice (2015). Our Special Educational Needs and Disability Co-ordinator is Nishrin Alibhai.

Positive Behaviour

Our setting believes that children flourish best when their personal, social and emotional needs are met and where there are clear and developmentally appropriate expectations for their behaviour. Positive behaviour is promoted at all times by all staff through praise, rewards and encouragement according to the child’s age and stages of development.

Meals and Snacks

Little Elms Montessori Nursery regards snacks and mealtimes as an important part of our day, a social time at which children and adults eat together within their class bubble groups.

We aim to provide children with healthy and nutritious lunches and teachers will be there to support and encourage children at mealtimes. We would like to remind you that we are a nut-free nursery so please be mindful of the food you provide your child at nursery –

e.g. no nuts, or chocolate in any form Health

All children who attend the setting must be in good health (please see our Coronavirus Policy). We have implemented a good hygiene and cleaning regime which will significantly reduce the spread and transmission of viruses. We promote health by identifying allergies and preventing any contact with allergenic substances. For any child in need of regular medication a medical healthcare plan must be completed – please visit the office to do so.

We look forward to hearing from you soon

THANK YOU