Bookings and Payments

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Confirmation of your booking will be sent by email. You will receive a booking form that must be completed and returned before your child's session. (A printed version will form will be available to sign at the session, otherwise please send a photo of the completed signed form). 

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Full payment is due to secure your booking. Bank details will be provided. When paying by bank transfer, please provide your child's name as a reference.

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Refunds and Cancellations

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If you cancel your booking:

• More than 21 days prior to your child's session- you will receive a full refund or credit note

• Between 3 and 21 days- you will receive a credit note

• Less than 3 days notice- you will lose your payment

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In the event that we need to cancel a session (ie. due to extreme weather, thunderstorms, lack of turn up to sessions) we will inform you at the earliest opportunity and and refund your payment.

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Sickness

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If your child has had vomiting or diarrhoea within 48 hours of the session, please tell us. We do not offer refunds for sickness but a credit note will be given. Credit notes last for 12 months. 

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Accident and Incident Policy 

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The safety of your child is paramount and every measure will be taken to ensure they are protected from hurting themselves. However, accidents do happen and the following information details how the incident will be dealt with:

• We will comfort and reassure the injured child while making sure that the other children in our care are safe.  

• We will assess the extent of their injuries and will carry out any first aid procedures that are necessary and that we have been trained to do.

• If necessary, we will call for medical support/ambulance. We will inform you so that you can accompany them or meet them at the hospital, depending on the circumstances. 

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All other children within our care who were not involved in the accident / incident will be kept safe at all times. 

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After every accident, however minor, we will complete a report in the 'Accident, Incident & Medication' Folder, this will include full details. We will ask you to sign a copy of the entry and if requested can be copied.

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 Health and Safety Policy

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The Health and Safety of your child is very important to us and we have therefore documented the following procedures that we have in place to support this.

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We have risk assessed our environment, both inside and out, taking relevant action to make these areas as safe as possible. We have also risk assessed the activities which we will be providing for your child. These can made available to you on request.

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All equipment will be checked and cleaned regularly to ensure they are safe for your child to use. Any broken or hazardous equipment will be removed immediately. Children will only be offered equipment and resources that are suitable for their age/stage of development

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• We do a quick risk assessment of the premises inside and out before the children arrive to ensure that it is a safe environment 

• All plug sockets not in use have socket covers

• We have procedures in place in the event of a fire (see separate policy)

• We do not permit smoking in the centre.

• We have strict Child protection guidelines in place (see separate Child Protection policy)

• We will restrain a child if they are putting themselves or others in danger

• We will teach the children about safety issues 

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Safeguarding Children Policy

 

Our responsibility is to ensure the safety and welfare of all the children in our care. This is in line with the procedures laid out by the local Safeguarding Children’s Board.

 

We are trained in Safeguarding Children (Child Protection) and are aware of the signs and symptoms of child abuse, physical, emotional and sexual, and those of neglect. We have had lots of experience in safeguarding children in our current roles at nursery school. 

 

If we have reason to believe that any child in our care is being abused in any way we will report the matter to the Duty Social Worker for Hertfordshire Social Services, Child protection Team. Under these circumstances we will not be able to keep information relating to your child confidential, but will need to share it with Ofsted, Social Services and the Police if requested.

 

We will keep a factual record of the concern and will ask you for an explanation, providing it would not put the child at risk and will call First Contact if we feel the child is at risk.

 

If a child tells us that they or another child is being abused, we will:

• show that we have heard what they are saying, and that we take their allegations seriously

• encourage the child to talk, but we will not prompt them or ask them leading questions. We will not interrupt when a child is recalling significant events 

• explain what actions we must take, in a way that is appropriate to the age and understanding of the child

• write down what we have been told using exact words where possible

• make a note of the date, time, place and people who were present at the discussion

• report my concerns immediately to the duty social worker who has the experience and responsibility to make an assessment of the situation.

 

Some helpful numbers

 

Contact Hertfordshire Safeguarding Children Partnership

 admin.hscp@hertfordshire.gov.uk

Hertfordshire Safeguarding Children Partnership Team

Room 152

Postal Point CHO116

County Hall

Hertford

SG13 3DQ

01992 588757

 

NSPCC Helpline service: 0808 800 5000

Ofsted General helpline: 0300 123 1231

 

Children’s Services Out of Hours Service (SOOHS)

Tel: 0300 123 4043 (out of hours)

Specially trained reception staff are on hand to deal with all calls from 8am to 8pm Monday to Friday and 9am to 4pm on Saturdays (except public holidays). Outside these times, calls are automatically diverted (except textphone/minicom, callers need to redial 01992 632150) to an agency, who can contact the SOOHS on your behalf.

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Behaviour Management Policy

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If your child misbehaves, we will inform you on collection. We will do this out of earshot of the child, as the incident will have already been addressed with them. We will also inform you of how the matter was dealt with. There may be occasions where we need to physically intervene or restrain a child to prevent or stop an incident taking place. We will explain to the child, according to their age and understanding that their actions are unacceptable.

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Bullying Policy 

We do not permit any form of bullying. Bullying can be:

·      Physical: pushing, kicking, hitting, biting, etc

·      Verbal: name-calling, sarcasm, rumour spreading and teasing

·      Emotional: excluding, ridicule, humiliation, tormenting

·      Racist: taunts, graffiti and gestures
 

In order for all children to feel valued in our club and to enjoy their time here, it is important that everyone (including grown ups!) understands our rules regarding bullying. We will NOT tolerate:

·      Name calling and verbal abuse

·      Fighting

·      Physical attacks of any kind

·      Threatening behaviour

·      Racial or discriminatory remarks

·      Exclusion of one child by another
 

If we have any concerns that your child is being bullied or is bullying another child or other children, we will discuss this with you immediately. 

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Equal Opportunities Policy 

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We will give all children in our care the opportunity to reach their full potential. This means adapting an activity to the child's ability and stage of development; providing additional resources or giving one child more attention and support than others during a particular activity or routine if necessary.

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All actives will be inclusive to all participants.

 

No child in our care will be discriminated against in any way, whether for their skin colour, culture, gender, ability or religion. We will challenge any remarks that we feel are inappropriate.

 

We will encourage the children to develop a healthy respect of each other’s differences and to value everyone as an individual.

 

Special Educational Needs

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We are aware that some children may have special needs and will be proactive in ensuring that appropriate action is taken. If we are caring for a child with special needs, we will ensure they are included by:

 

Valuing and acknowledging children's individuality and help them to feel good about themselves. 

 

Adapting activities to enable children with special needs to take part. 

Consider any risk factors. 

 

Encourage children's confidence and independence. 

 

The Equality Act 2010

Under the Equality Act we have a duty:

• not to treat a disabled child ‘less favourably’

• to make ‘reasonable adjustment’ for a disabled child

 

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Late Collection

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Please arrive promptly to collect your child. We need to charge £8 for every 20 minutes of late collection.

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Alcohol, Drugs & Smoking Policy 

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We have responsibility for your child whilst they are in our care therefor it is vital that we are alert to any dangers and are able to protect your child. In order to do this effectively we must not be under the influence of alcohol or any form of drugs (including some prescription medication.)

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If you arrive drunk or drugged to collect your child and we believe you’re not capable of caring for your child safely you will need to arrange for another responsible adult to collect your child. If you are unable to, we will contact your emergency contact(s) we have on file for your child, which you have already given authorisation to collect.   In the case where we can’t get hold of any of emergency contacts, we will contact the police and social care for someone to care for your child.

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Smoking

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In accordance with the EYFS Welfare Requirements produced by the Department of Education and Skills there is a no smoking policy on site including the car park.

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Children

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Drugs and alcohol are now more readily available to younger children. If we have any concerns that your child may be drinking alcohol, taking drugs or smoking we will discuss the matter with you immediately.

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General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Policy 

 

To provide a quality childcare and comply with legislation, we will need to request information from you about your child/ children. Some of this will be personal data.

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We will ask your permission and require you to sign if you agree with your child’s photo either to be used for promoting the Colourful Creators Club, using in house, or no photos at all. 

We take families’ privacy seriously, and in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), we will process any personal data according to the seven principles below:

1.       We must have a lawful reason for collecting personal data; and must do it in a fair and transparent way. We will be clear about what data we are collecting, and why.

2.    We must only use the data for the reason it is initially obtained. This means that we may not use a person’s data to market a product or service to them that is unconnected to the reasons for which they shared the data with us in the first place.

3.       We must not collect any more data than is necessary. We will only collect the data we need to hold in order to do the job for which we have collected the data.

4.       We will ensure that the data is accurate.

5.       We will not keep data any longer than needed. We must only keep the data for as long as is needed to complete the tasks it was collected for.

6.       We must protect the personal data. We are responsible for ensuring that we processes the data and store it securely.

7.       We will be accountable for the data. This means that we will be able to show how we are complying with the law.

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Subject access

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Parents have the right to inspect records about their child at any time.

 

Storage

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We will keep all paper-based records about your children securely locked away. If we keep records relating to individual children on the computer we will store the information securely on a password-protected computer which is not used by other members of the household. Firewall and virus protection software are in place.

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Information sharing

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We will not share any information with anyone without parents’ consent, unless there is a child protection concern. 

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Record keeping

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We record all accidents in an accident folder. We will only share information if it is in a child’s best interests to do so. For example, in a medical emergency, we will share medical information with a healthcare professional. If we are worried about a child’s welfare we have a duty of care to follow the Local Safeguarding Children Board procedures and make a referral.

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Safe disposal of data

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We have a review plan in place and ensure that any data is disposed of appropriately and securely. 

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Suspected breach

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If we suspect that data has been accessed unlawfully, we will inform the relevant parties immediately and report to the Information Commissioner’s Office within 72 hours. we will keep a record of any data breach.

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