On Monday 6th March, all our staff from Rainbow Day Nurseries spent an exciting training day focusing on developing our approach to sustainability in the Early Years. The session was led by trainers from London Early Years Foundation (LEYF), who shared good practice, and gave us lots of handy tips and information to improve upon the small changes that we have already been making in our nurseries. Sessions included understanding about the three pillars of sustainability and how this impacts the nursery environment, biodiversity and sustainable gardening, nature deficit disorder, and ways to actively work towards being a zero-food waste nursery. This training day will have a bigger impact on the way we educate the children by developing a stronger emphasis on how and why we must respect and care for the environment. We want to ensure that that our actions do not harm this wonderful planet, we hope that the children and their families will join us in embedding daily sustainable practices.
We watched a short but poignant video by Wangari Maathai that made us realise that if we all make small changes, these changes will have a big impact on the world around us. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT98uQ74X1c You too could be a hummingbird!
Staff Awards 2023
Apprentice of the year:
Hayes Road: Sophie Dennington
Langdon Road: Leigha Wilson
Petts Wood: Ellie Vander
West Wickham: Alana Moore
Practitioner of the year:
Hayes Road: Chloe Lister
Langdon Road: Lacey Nutt
Petts Wood: Shavonne Ginn
West Wickham: Lucy Lynch
Exceptional Practice Award:
Hayes Road: Vicky Taylor
Langdon Road: Kiera Cotter
Petts Wood: Ruth Irvine
West Wickham: Sarah-Jane Powell
Resilience Award:
Lisa Bance
Room of the year:
West Wickham: Elders – Preschool
Service awards:
5 years: Talisha Goatley, Roberta Wells, Nicola Johnston, Georgina Cloono,
10 years: Marita Martinovic
Charity update:
Taking risks outdoors and indoors. These activities are important for developing self confidence and allows our little ones to take risks and understand boundaries.
Every year we hold a fun day locally for our children and parents across all three nurseries. The event is free for all to attend. We have a variety of stands with different activities including raffles, tombola’s, face painting and tattoos. Last year our Cook’s ran the drinks stand and we had a Hog Roast for all!
Any money raised during our annual Fun Day’s are donated to our charity of the year.
Our nurseries visit the local residents homes, Bertha James and Ashglade retirement homes.
In February 2022 some of our Rainbow Team took part in Mental Health First Aid training. A group from across all Rainbow sites attended the training which means that as a wider group we can work together ensuring that the advice and support given is the best course of action.
The company MHFA England has been offering training for over 10 years working with people to increase their knowledge in mental health and the confidence to recognise signs of mental health and the ability to providing the support that people may need.
As a team we feel more able and confident to approach people we feel are struggling or suffering with mental health. As a result of an increase in confidence we can support our staff team in their individual needs. We now have an increased understanding across a range of mental health areas and resources to use to be able to extend the help needed.