Staff Profiles

At Little and Shooting Stars our recruitment process will promote and offer equality of opportunity and anti-discriminatory practice, ensuring that every applicant is considered equally and not disadvantaged because of their ethnicity, culture or religion, home language, family background, learning difficulties, sexuality, gender or ability.

Positions will be offered according to the applicant’s suitability for the post. The position will then be offered, subject to the candidate being able to meet the requirements of the safe recruitment procedures or vetting and barring scheme. All staff, students and volunteers are carefully recruited. An up to date, DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) will be obtained for all persons who work directly with children or who work on the premises where the childcare takes place when the children are present.

Our Safeguarding Children Policy details the rigorous steps we take to ensure that all of the adults who work with your child are suitable to do so. Qualifications and references are checked and enhanced Criminal Records Disclosures are in place. Continuous Professional Development (CPD) is recognised as an essential element of ensuring that we maintain high quality practice within the nursery and the out of school club. It enables all staff to reflect on their own practice and to have opportunity to influence improvement and development.

All staff are given a personal folder, where policies are filed for reference and training certificates are kept. We aim to ensure that all staff have regular access to CPD training. This is either internally led, in order to cascade good practice, or externally provided. Annual Performance Management (APM) meetings, with mid-year reviews, give every member of staff the opportunity to discuss their individual training needs and future aspirations. Following APM meetings, an annual training plan is devised and courses accessed on a planned basis, ensuring that staffing is maintained at a stable level, while CPD is undertaken.

We believe that children settle best when they have a key person to relate to; who knows the child and their parents well, and who can meet their individual needs. Research shows that a key person approach benefits the child, the parents, the staff and the setting by providing secure relationships in which children thrive, parents have confidence, staff are committed and the setting is a happy and dedicated place to attend or work in.

Two way communication is at the heart of our philosophy and the key person will work in close partnership with you, sharing day to day information, development and progress. The ratio of staff to children will follow the legal requirements in the statutory framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage.