The Cedars Neighbourhood Nursery achieves a nationally recognised Quality Assurance
In 2005, we completed a training course called ‘Involving parents in their children’s learning’. The training encouraged us to consider ways of working with parents in different contexts. It is a knowledge sharing approach where practitioners honour the knowledge in the home. Two members of staff from the Cedars attended the training, Corinna Marvin and Carly Voaden. The Pen Green framework really inspired us and we came back buzzing with ideas and plans, the next step was to complete an audit of current practice and we fully involved the whole staff team. We found reflection was key to the whole process; families will become involved in different ways and staff at the nursery reflected on how they work with parents and thought about how to extend current practice and ideas to include more families.
On completion of the training we decided as a staff team to take the experience a step further and enhance practice within the nursery to gain a nationally recognised Quality Assurance with Pen Green. In 2008 we felt ready to take that next step. On the 5th of March 2008 Dr Cath Arnold visited and assessed the nursery. She was very impressed with the quality of our provision.
‘The staff team at Cedars are working hard to engage with children and parents. Ideas about the 4 key child developments are embedded in practice and regularly used to analyse and understand children’s development and learning. I recommend that Cedars is awarded the Pen Green Quality Assurance Award’. (Dr Cath Arnold)
On the 5th of June Corinna Marvin and the room leads, Carly Voaden, Mary-Jane Potbury and Kimberley Kitts were invited to Penn Green to take part in their national conference ‘Knowledge Sharing between Parents and Workers: Observing, supporting and extending children’s interests at home and in their early year’s settings’, Key speakers included Dame Gillian Pugh, Dr Margy Whalley, Kate Hayward & Andrea Layzell. The presentation looked at the many successful ways that we work with parents and share information between home and nursery and showed the development of methods to suit parents’ needs. We included video footage of parents talking glowingly about these methods and the positive impact this has had on the child both at home and in the setting.
The Pen Green model has had national recognition over the last 10 years they have worked with various local authorities in the UK. Many areas, such as Devon, have employed network support workers to develop the programme locally, with great success. Lesley Lake who developed the programme locally stated, ‘Corinna and I worked on a presentation which looked at the many successful ways the Cedars use to work with parents and share information between home and nursery. Cedars have developed a range of methods to suit parents’ needs but have been clear that information sharing is a priority. We also included video footage in the presentation of parents talking glowingly about the methods and the positive impact this has had on the child both at home and in the setting’.
On completion of the training we decided as a staff team to take the experience a step further and enhance practice within the nursery to gain a nationally recognised Quality Assurance with Pen Green. In 2008 we felt ready to take that next step. On the 5th of March 2008 Dr Cath Arnold visited and assessed the nursery. She was very impressed with the quality of our provision.
‘The staff team at Cedars are working hard to engage with children and parents. Ideas about the 4 key child developments are embedded in practice and regularly used to analyse and understand children’s development and learning. I recommend that Cedars is awarded the Pen Green Quality Assurance Award’. (Dr Cath Arnold)
On the 5th of June Corinna Marvin and the room leads, Carly Voaden, Mary-Jane Potbury and Kimberley Kitts were invited to Penn Green to take part in their national conference ‘Knowledge Sharing between Parents and Workers: Observing, supporting and extending children’s interests at home and in their early year’s settings’, Key speakers included Dame Gillian Pugh, Dr Margy Whalley, Kate Hayward & Andrea Layzell. The presentation looked at the many successful ways that we work with parents and share information between home and nursery and showed the development of methods to suit parents’ needs. We included video footage of parents talking glowingly about these methods and the positive impact this has had on the child both at home and in the setting.
The Pen Green model has had national recognition over the last 10 years they have worked with various local authorities in the UK. Many areas, such as Devon, have employed network support workers to develop the programme locally, with great success. Lesley Lake who developed the programme locally stated, ‘Corinna and I worked on a presentation which looked at the many successful ways the Cedars use to work with parents and share information between home and nursery. Cedars have developed a range of methods to suit parents’ needs but have been clear that information sharing is a priority. We also included video footage in the presentation of parents talking glowingly about the methods and the positive impact this has had on the child both at home and in the setting’.
