Family Partnerships

We place a huge amount of importance on family partnerships. Young Friends Kindergarten is here to provide superb care and education for your child, and to do that we need to work alongside you.

When your child joins us, you’ll be introduced to your ‘key person’ and ‘key buddy’ who will be in your child’s pod and will be your main point of contact while your child is with us. They’ll get to know your child and your family, and you’ll get to know them.

Our key person system enables your child to develop strong bonds. You’ll have the reassurance that we really know your child, and that you have someone you trust, and feel comfortable talking to about anything and everything to do with your child.

It’s called the care triangle – your child, their key person, and you – and the stronger it is, the more your child will thrive.

When the time comes for your child to move to the older pod, they will go gradually, starting with play visits with their current key person and their future one. They will also move with a group of similar-aged children from their current pod.

The family/keyperson relationship has benefits for everyone. For you, it gives reassurance that we really know your child and are keeping a close eye on their development. You also get to know and trust your child’s key person, so you can feel comfortable enough to discuss anything about your child with them.

At Young Friends Kindergarten, we:

• recognise and acknowledge parents or guardians as their child’s first and most important educators.
• involve families in our nursery community and encourage friendships and connections with others.
• provide families with support and guidance around ‘at home learning’.
• are always there for you with a warm and welcoming open-door policy.

When your child is spending a lot of time with us, it’s natural that you’ll want to keep up with how they are getting on, and what they’re doing.

Your child’s key person will give short verbal feedback about their wellbeing at the end of every session. Famly, our online journal system (accessed through the parent portal), is also designed to keep you informed every step of the way.

It’s easy to use, and keeps you up to date you with observations and assessments of your child’s learning and development.

We post an overview on Famly at the beginning of each month to let you know what we’re planning to focus on, and our parent information board will let you know what your child has done each day.

You can expect weekly group activity photos of the fun children are having within their pods and quarterly individual photos from their key person. The EYFS states: Assessment should not entail prolonged breaks from interaction with children, nor require excessive paperwork. So our photos and reports are kept to a minimum.

We also post regularly on our Young Friends Kindergarten Instagram page.