We believe that children benefit most from their early Years education when parents and
settings work together in partnership. Our aim is to support parents as their children’s first
and most important educators(parents) by involving them in their children’s education and
their life at the nursery.
When we refer to ‘parents’ we mean both mothers and fathers; these include
both natural or birth parents as well as step-parents and parents who do not live with their
children, but have contact with them and play a part in their lives. ‘Parents’ also
includes same sex parents as well as foster parents. Some parents are less well represented in early
years setting, including fathers, parents who live apart from their children but who still play a
part in their lives a well as working parents. By carrying out the following procedures, we aim to
ensure all parents are included.
‘Parents responsibility ‘ is all rights, duties, power and responsibilities
and authority which by law a parent of a child has in relation to the child and his property.
In England and Wales, if the parents of a child are married to each other at
the time of birth, or if they have jointly adopted a child, then they both have parental
responsibility. Parents do not lose parental responsibility if they divorce and this applies
to both the resident and the non-resident parent. This is not automatically the case for
unmarried parents. According to current law, a mother always has parental responsibility for
her child. A father, however has this responsibility only if he is married to the mother
when the child is born or has acquired legal responsibility for his child through one of
these routes:
- • By jointly registering the birth of the child with the mother( from 1st December
2003)
- • By a parental responsibility agreement with the mother
- • By a parental responsibility order, made by a court
https:// www.gov.uk/parental-rights-responsibilites/who-has-parental-responsibility
Procedures
- • The manager, key person or buddy is always available for discussion with parents. An
appointment can be made if preferred.
- • We inform all parents about how the nursery is run and its policies through written
information and regular informal communication and check to ensure parents understand the
information given to them.
- • We encourage and support parents to play an active part in the nursery.
- • We offer parent’s evenings and stay and play sessions on termly basis.
- • We provide opportunity for parents to contribute their own skills, knowledge and interests to
the setting.
- • We provide information about opportunities to be involved in the setting in ways that are
accessible to parents with basic skills needs or those for whom English is an additional
language.
- • We aim to ensure that all parents are included, using different strategies for involving all
parents.
- • We inform all parents on a regular basis about their children’s progress.
- • We involve parents in the shared record keeping about their children and ensure parent have
access to their children’s written records- ‘My Learning Journey.’
- • Information about a child’s day is available to parents on a daily basis either verbally
or in the child’s online diary.
- • We provide opportunities for parents to learn about the curriculum offered in the nursery.
- • News letters are sent home every term to keep parents up to date with any information about
the nursery.
- • If we have a concern about a child during the day every effort will be made to contact the
parents/ carer or their emergency contact.
- • Parents are asked to keep us informed about any changes to personal details such as change of
address, phone numbers, Doctor, emergency contact detail, medical or dietary needs. We check and
update personal details on a regular six monthly basis.
- • Parents are asked to keep us informed of any circumstances which may affect a child’s
emotional wellbeing, this information will be kept confidential and treated on a strict need to
know basis.
- • We welcome the contributions of parents, in whatever form these may take.
- • We inform all parents of the systems for complaints or suggestions and check to ensure these
are understood.
