Breaking News
March 2010:
NVQ 3
A massive well done to Kelly Moyle and Shawna Bridges in sucessfully qualifing as Nursery Nurses by passing their NVQ level 3 in Childcare Learning and Development.
February 2010:
Food safety in Catering Level 2
Well done Natalie, Kelly M and Clare for completing their certificate for food standards
January 2010:
Happy Birthday!!
The Nursery celebrated its 12th birthday on 5th Jan. The Nursery opened its doors for the first time in 1998, Lisa starting work as Officer in Charge with a handful of children and Nikola as manager and nursery assistant. We have come a long way since, now employing 12 staff and expanding the Nursery to include the upper floor giving off road access to the building. Its been a fabulous 12 years caring for hundreds of wonderful children. x
Food Safety in Catering Level 2
Well done to Lisa and Jane in completing their certificate for food standards.
December 2009:
Woman's Aid
Woman's Aid Torfaen were overwhelmed by the gifts donated by the staff, friends and parents of the nursery to help women in need and their children over the Xmas period when domestic violence is usually at its worst. The gifts included food, chocolates, toiletries and new toys. Thank you to all who donated X
October 2009:
NVQ4
Well done Jane on completing her NVQ4 just after Lisa, all the hard work was worth it.
WELL DONE JANE!!!!
Food Safety in Catering Level 2
Nikola completed this certificate with Learn 2 Serve. Well done
September 2009:
NVQ4
Lisa has just completed her NVQ4 in Child care Learning and Development after months of hard work, Jane will complete hers very soon
WELL DONE LISA!!!
August 2009:
Visa
Due to many parents requests we have just had a visa payment machine installed at Nursery and is able to take all major visa and debit cards.
July 2009:
CSSIW Inspection
Our yearly annual inspection has been completed with excellent results, the report will be made available ASAP.
Carnival
Lisa and I were happy to see many families at this years Pontypool Carnival on the 11th July. We provided the under 3's play area complete with toys, sand play, Punch & Judy and story telling by Pontypool Library. Fortunately, as the Lost Child Area, we had no lost children to deal with and had a great day dodging the rain and talking with the community.
April 2009:
BEEL Award
A big well done to all the staff involved in the BEEL accreditation which we recently passed for a second year. The BEEL award—Baby Effective Early Learning, assesses the quality of care and education given to all the children under 3 years, where a quality standard has to be met via inspections and evidence building. We feel this is a very important accreditation to compliment our ESTYN accreditation which looks at the quality of care and education for the children over 3 years. CSSIW are still responsible for inspecting the Nursery on a yearly basis on an un-notified basis but these awards along with the Investors in People Accreditation give the Nursery extra assurance to parents that the staff work tirelessly to give outstanding care and education to your precious children.
Well done girls!
Brain Injury fund-raiser
On Thurs 30th April we hold a fancy dress day to raise money for the Brain Injury Centre which provides essential care for individuals with brain injury.
December 2008:
Women's Aid
Torfaen Women's Aid benefited from a massive boot load of goodies donated by staff and parents to help women in need and their children over the Xmas, period when domestic violence is usually at its worst. The gifts included food, chocolates, toiletries and new toys. Thank you to all who donated.
September 2008:
Lisa Marries!
On Sept 17th Lisa married her partner darren in a ceremony in New York followed by a lovely party celebration in Cwmbran on their return to Wales.
August 2008:
First Aid
All staff attended a Paediatric First Aid course held at the nursery over two saturdays. staff from other settings also attended and were impressed by the peaceful surroundings.
July 2008:
Fire fighters
Fire fighters from New Inn fire station came to meet the children and showed them their uniforms, fire engine and told the children stories
Teddy Bears Picnic
The nursery took part in this years PPA teddy bears picnic in Cwmbran where Nikola helped nearly 100 children decorate cakes to eat. Other activities included face paining, art, food stalls and punch and judy.
June 2008:
NVQ Level 4
Owner, Nikola Masters has completed and passed NVQ4 in Child care Learning and development.
May 2008:
CSSIW Inspection
We had our un announced inspection by CSSIW on 14th May 08 which went exceptionally well. The report will be available very soon both at the Nursery and on line - watch this space.
April 2008:
Gardening with Melin
We have created links between the Nursery and Melin Homes by going over to Aneurin Bevan Court to build up relations between the elderly and young people. Karen Green the co-ordinator for Melin thought that asking nursery age children to help with gardening at the complex would benefit both the elderly and the children. Clare and Lisa took four children over and they really enjoyed planting flowers and drinking lots of squash and eating lots of biscuits. All the children were excellent and made a really good impression, a couple of the residents will be coming into Nursery in May to help with activities and hopefully this will go well too.
March 2008:
Nursery awarded BEEL Quality Assurance
We are very pleased to announce the Nursery has just been awarded the Baby Effective Early Learning Quality Assurance Mark. The quality mark pays tribute to the outstanding work the staff do with the children to help progress their learning and through observations of the children adapt the environment to suit the children and their needs.
This quality mark is reviewed and inspected on a regular basis to ensure compliance and its certificate will be displayed alongside our Investors in People quality mark, ESTYN accreditation, CSSIW inspection certificate and Healthy Early Years Accreditation.
Well done everyone !
Ball pool open !!
Our soft play room has been open for two months and the children absolutely love it. The ball pool has been built this weekend to compliment the room and was a big surprise for the children when they came back today after their easter break. The room has been a great success and easily the best addition to the nursery in years!!!!
January 2008:
Soft play room opened today - 8.1.08
The nursery children now have lots of indoor space to jump about and play with the ball pool in our new soft playroom which opened today. The playroom was constructed over the last few weekends and looks fantastic, the children think it is amazing and really enjoyed their very first play. An inflatable ball pool is in use at the moment until we are able to build our permanent ball pool.
Open Day and Birthday Bash 12 January 2008
We are holding an open day for everyone to come and see the fantastic renovations which has made our Nursery complete with new baby and tots room, office, staff room and disabled access.
We are also celebrating our 10 year anniversary of opening. We opened our doors on 5th January 1998 occupying the lower floors and garden only, with the Scala Cinema operating in the evenings above us. The cinema has since left and the whole floor and roof have been totally renovated, giving us a new internal staircase linking the two floors.
The changes are fantastic and we would like to invite everyone to see the Nursery. It doesn't matter if you have children or not - all we ask is come and have a coffee and tell all your friends about us!
December 2007:
Baby and tots floor now open !!
We are really pleased to announce that our new floor is now open ahead of schedule!!
The new floor boasts a fantastic new playroom, cot room, staff room and reception. The lower floor is still operating as usual with the children over 2 years however the old baby and toddler rooms are under going refurbishment at the moment.
For details of children's spaces available please give us a call soon to avoid disappointment - 01495 752234
Open Day 12 January 2008 10am - 4pm
We are having an open day to celebrate our past 10 years and the new expansion. Everyone is welcome and we really look forward to seeing all our children we have cared for over the past 10 years!
We are very close to opening the new baby and tots room!
The new floor above the nursery, formally the Scala Cinema, has been totally refurbished and is fast becoming a beautiful extension to our Nursery.
The babies and tots - children under 2- are eagerly waiting to move up to the top floor as soon as all Inspections have been passed by CSSIW, Fire Officer and Environmental Health Dept. As soon as we are registered with the expansion we will have many new spaces available for children from birth to 5.
November 2007:
ESTYN Inspection passed
We are extremely proud to have passed our ESTYN Inspection(Schools Inspectorate).
The inspection took place on November 20th 2007 and involved an inspector spending 5 hours observing the education we provide for our 3 year olds as well as looking at all the supporting evidence we hold such as past planning and evaluation of educational sessions and photos. The Inspector spoke to the children to get their views and looked at all the wonderful feedback we have from our current and past customers. The day went very well and the feedback session was extremely positive. The full report will be available soon on line and a link will be attached to the site.
August :
10th Annual Inspection passed on all counts
We are very pleased to pass our 10th annual inspection by Care & Social Services Inspectorate Wales (CSSIW) which took place on August 1st 2007.
The CSSIW Inspector assesses the Nursery on many points covering all areas of child care, protection, staff and premises. We passed all areas with no requirements needed, which is a great tribute to the hard work the staff put in to their job on a daily basis.
The report will be available in about 4 weeks time and will contain four minor recommendations which were put forward by the inspector as a way of improving the good practice already held - we are always open to new good ideas.
Well done everyone involved and thank you for your hard work.
A copy of the report can be found on the CSSIW website.
July :
Award ceremony held for achievers of Healthy Early Years Award
The Nursery worked really hard this year to achieve this award as we believe in the importance of healthy eating and life styles.
The scheme is run by EYDCP - Early Years Development and Childcare Partnership - and encourages Nurseries and Schools to look at many areas not just centred on healthy foods. The Nursery chose to look at Healthy Eating, Circle time and Road Safety.
The whole Nursery took part in sessions teaching everything from good and not so good food, fruit and veg portions, how to cross the road and safety awareness. We then looked at our policies and daily routines to ensure they were up to the expected standard and implemented changes, reflected in the introduction of lower fat foods, at least 3 portions of fruit and veg a day and the reduction in squash at meal times.
The ceremony was attended by many groups and our award was collected by Lisa James our Officer in Charge - photo below
JUNE :
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We have just passed Investors in People reassessment for the
3rd time
- with FLYING COLOURS!
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As a small business we are extremely proud to have achieved this very high standard of business award and recognition of our staff development programme and business systems.
The re evaluation takes a few meetings to complete. The first consisted of an examiner coming to the Nursery to assess our paperwork and evidence of how we run the business, develop staff and adapt for continual improvement for our customers. The second meeting consisted of the examiner having in-depth discussions with all staff and managers to gain further evidence on how we are developing the team and using their experiences to the maximum to help with business development.