Key Person

Each child will have a key person at Wem Playmates which changes as they move rooms. This is a designated member of staff that your child will spend the majority of the time, whilst also being encouraged to build positive relationships with all other members of nursery staff.

Your child’s key person is responsible for monitoring your child’s progress throughout their time at nursery, as well as maintaining your child’s online learning journey on Tapestry. We believe that the relationships between parents and nursery staff are of utmost importance to ensure your child’s happiness and that continuity between home and nursery can be best achieved through regular communications. We encourage the parents to share home interests that the children have outside of the nursery by uploading photos on to Tapestry. You are informed of your child’s key person and we invite parents to meet them and discuss their Learning Journals.

Staff are available throughout the day to share information with you. However, there are other forms of communication such as:

Optional meetings with your child’s key person who will inform you of their progress
Regular newsletters
Committee meetings
Parent Information Boards.

Crawling Caterpillars

Our Crawling Caterpillars Room can take babies from 3 months to 18 months. Our great staff will make sure your baby feels safe and nurtured during their time at Playmates. To help with this, we encourage you to join us for some settling in sessions.

The room has been designed to help your baby settle into nursery in a relaxed environment. Activities are carefully planned to suit their development and keep inquisitive minds and hands busy.

We have a separate quiet area where the children can sleep, and we aim to establish a great relationship with the parents and continue to be guided by your routine.

Photos and entries are added on Tapestry and we will complete your child’s care diary daily.

When your child is ready to move to our Busy Beehive Room, we will make sure they have visits to the room prior to the move, so that they are ready for the next stage where a whole experiance awaits. In our outside area there is a safe crawl area for the babies to explore.

Busy Beehive Room

The Busy Beehive Room takes children from 18 months 2.5 years and has lots of areas to keep them busy including both educational and fun activities. There is plenty to explore and materials for painting and crafts to allow them to be creative. We tailor our activities to suit each child’s own development.

As part of their day, the children have time outside in our outdoor play area, where they can ride the bikes or help with the fruit and herb garden in the Summer. When our children start in the Busy Beehive Room, they continue their online learning journals with their new key person, which is used to complete child moments, take snapshots daily and track development. We like to encourage parents to be a part of their child’s learning journal by adding photographs from home, and commenting on what their child does whilst in nursery.

Penguin Paradise Room

As children move into our Penguin Room, they will take part in more focused activities to prepare them for the transition to primary school. Skills learnt from activities such as role play, simple number work, alphabet, reading, writing and creative activities will encourage then children to develop different skills. We develop their independence by encouraging them all to put on their own coats to helping prepare their own snack, and by communicating with their peers by working in groups and completing child-initiated activities.

The Lion's Den

The children move into the Lion’s Den for the year before they start their next adventure at primary school. There are more adult led activities in this room and the children do jolly phonics daily in preparation for learning to read and write.

We still follow the EYFS and follow the child’s interests, completing these both inside and outside and we encourage them to be as independent as possible.

Swimming if offered to all children in the Lion’s Den. We go to Wem swimming pool every Monday morning where a qualified instructor teaches the children from the pool side, and Playmates staff are in the water to help support the children.