Welcome back to Blackberry House Day Nursery Newsletter! In our monthly issues we will be letting you know of the achievements and beautiful learning opportunities that children engaged in that month from across our four settings. We will also be providing you with two articles that will keep you informed within the sector and might even provide some helpful information! In this month’s issue we are reissuing our articles on Parent Zone as well as the importance of working together – Parents as Partners!
Thank you for your continued support and enjoy reading!
March 2025
This month the children continued to be our super explorers! We observed the weather changing once again and saw the amazing spring changes happening in our environments around us. The children enjoyed participating in our events including Pancake Day, Mother’s Day and Red Nose Day celebrations. We continued to have visits from People Who Help Us and explored a real tracker and a fire engine!
Some of our settings were also able to have a visit from chicks and understand more about their life and how to look after farm animals Children absolutely loved making their Mother’s Day decorations and were super proud of their creations! Our Forest School explorers continue to learn about the outdoors as we looked at making various of pretend dishes in our mud kitchens. What a fantastic month!
Under 3's
Our youngest children continued to use their senses in our sensory learning opportunities. We looked at the different textures of certain foods as we explored them through tasting them and feeling them. We also focused a lot on our Physical Development where our youngest played with a variety of balls and practiced catching, lifting them, rolling, kicking and throwing. We also engaged in some baby yoga where the babies were able to relax and enjoy their time with their key person! With the weather improving, we were able to spend more time outside with our youngest enjoying having snack in our gardens and playing on our nursery equipment. The babies loved our swings the most!
We also continued to explore the animals around us as we participated in many themed activities including observing real chicks at our nurseries. The babies loved the sounds that the chicks made and enjoyed being able to see a real chick. What an experience this was!
Over 3's
Our older children enjoyed exploring the outdoor and indoor environments in our changing weather. We were able to engage in Forest School a lot more and adapt our routines to enjoy the sunshine! We continued looking at the different animal themes as we loved dressing up for Red Nose Day. We all participated in some amazing and creative role play to further support our Expressive Art and Design as well as Person, Social and Emotional Development.
Our children were also super busy making pancakes for their friends as they turned into Little Chefs to make the yummiest pancakes ever! They thoroughly enjoyed learning about the ingredients and how to replace eggs as we extended the learning through introducing different recipes. The children also enjoyed building and creating as we engaged in construction activities outside. Our mothers were also invited over to spend some time together in celebration of Mother’s Day. It has been a truly amazing month!
Links to Development Matters
Working Together – Parents as Partners
As your child begins to settle into nursery, the bonds and relationships develop. These relationships are vital for your little one to feel safe and secure in our setting for their learning to be enabled. As practitioners, we do our best to provide an individual and personalised approach to allow all children to settle in at their own pace. It’s very important for practitioners to develop a relationship with the parents as well to ensure we are all fully able to support your child on their educational journey.
Parents and carers are always the first educators each child will have. It is from parents that children learn the first sense of care, love and nurture, as well as first levels of early education, without the parents always realising it! Research suggests that the biggest and most important predictor of a child’s future outcomes is the learning environment at home. As a nursery, we ensure that we scaffold the foundations set and further any learning that has already taken place on top of our educational programmes and curriculums. Working together as a team allows us all to have a better understanding of the needs of the children allowing for the appropriate level of support both at nursery and home.
How does Blackberries’ Group work with parents?
At the start of every journey, we gather as much information as possible to allow our staff to have the best foundation to build a relationship and the educational foundation for your child. We start the journey by having our ‘All About Me’ document that talks about anything and everything your child prefers and dislikes, as well as their interests and skills. Parents are kept up to date with the signing up process before scheduling a settle in session that we offer. During our settle in session, your little one will come to meet the team and the children, as well as familiarise themselves with the environment before fully starting with us. All children under 3 have their own diary that is being filled in on a daily basis by both parents and the practitioners. The diary allows for constant and fluent way of communication on top of our daily handovers during drop offs and collections. The diary also allows us to stay in touch with those parents that aren’t always able to see us due to number of circumstances.
We are very proud to also be using a platform that allows us to share your child’s learning journey online. iConnect allows practitioners to submit learning observations and entries on a regular basis which are sent directly to parents. These entries are normally a summary of your child’s learning and their progress, and you should be receiving at least one observation per week. We use these entries to have a better understanding of your child’s learning progress and their development, which is also shared with the parents. This way, all parents and carers, as well as practitioners are kept up to date with the child’s learning and their needs.
Blackberries also offer a variety of community projects and activities outside of our curriculum to ensure we are involved in the important things that are around us.
As part of our relationship building, we also check in with the parents on a regular basis. Having longer handovers, finding out about the new puppy, home phone calls and looking at family pictures only supports the bond building that is vital for us to provide the best foundation for your child’s learning.
To allow parents and carers to stay up to date with Blackberries Group and their children’s nursery, we also offer family events that you can come along to and celebrate with us.
Keep an eye out for our next event 😊
Role of the Key Person
At the start of your child’s journey they will also be allocated a key person that will work to establish a relationship with the family. It’s a great privilege for our staff to have key children and all practitioners take pride in having amazing bonds with both children and parents. As every child is different, it’s important to recognise that families are different too. Your child’s Key Person will be able to learn all about your family customs and traditions and use the information to celebrate your child’s background.
As practitioners, we always love hearing about the family trips, celebrations, holidays and events happening in our children’s lives and homes, as this helps us secure that bond and relationship with them and allow us to gain new insights and information that is used to support the child’s progress and development.
Please ensure you keep us up to date with any new information that is relevant and important to your child.
ParentZone – Frequently Asked Questions
What is ParentZone?
ParentZone is a smartphone app that brings you closer to your child’s development in nursery. At blackberries it is important for us to communicate with our families regularly, ParentZone gives us the ability to give you instant access to the activities your child takes part in, and will give you an insight into what they have been involved in during the day.
How do I get ParentZone?
You can download the app for iOS or Android on the App Store or Google Play. You can also access ParentZone online at www.parentzone.me. You as parents/carers will be sent a link to your emails during the onboarding process to sign up for ParentZone.
Can I change my password and details?
It’s easy to change your password and even add security questions for extra security. We suggest you change your password every three months to make it even more secure.
What is a ‘Day In The Life Report’?
A Day In The Life Report shows you an overview of your child’s day at nursery. You will see their sleep times, nappy changes and meals, as well as any accidents and observations that have taken place that day. We at blackberries are in the process of developing this section of our ParentZone, but we do also supply daily diaries for children under the age of 2 in our care.
When this is fully rolled out you will be able to access this from the ParentZone home screen, select ‘Day In The Life Report’, which you will find underneath your child’s photo. Then select your chosen dates and the report will be emailed to your registered address.
How safe is my data?
All data on ParentZone is protected by a 256-bit, Transport Layer Security (TLS) certificate. Typically, your Internet banking will have 128-bit security, so ParentZone is twice as secure.
Where is my data stored?
Your data is hosted on secure UK-based, highly resilient servers. The secure data centres are certified to international ISO27001 standards, meaning they are tested against a strict security standard.
Who can view information on ParentZone?
You can decide if you would like other family members or carers to view information, but log ins can only be created by the Nursery Manager. Your data on ParentZone, including photos and videos, can only be viewed by you and designated family members or guardians, and our staff. Our Nursery Manager can set permissions for staff so that they can only access data for their key children. Staff can only log in within their working hours. If they need to log in out of hours, they have to get a pin number from our designated safeguarding officer.
Will my child’s photos end up on Google?
No, all data is securely stored and is only accessible via a secure log in, no search engine or external source can access it.
Can I delete my data when my child leaves?
Once your child leaves Blackberry house day nursery you will not be able to access ParentZone anymore, therefore any pictures you would like to keep will need to be downloaded before your child’s last day.
As a requirement of Ofsted, we need to keep certain data for several years. If you would like any data removed, please speak to the Head Office team.
Parents as partners
We at blackberries utilise ParentZone to connect with our families. We welcome parents to add to their children’s learning journey by adding observations from home, these can include pictures of what your child has been doing over the weekend or holidays, or updates on milestones for your child’s key person to see. This supports the team here at Blackberries to understand what your child is interested in and will mean we can incorporate that within the setting. You are also able to add comments onto the observations that have been uploaded to have an input to your child’s learning and development during their time with us.
What to expect from ParentZone?
We at Blackberry house day nursery group will give you a weekly update on how your child’s learning and development is progressing through observations. These observations may include pictures, but will always include links to the development matters and a description of the activity your child was involved in. Whilst we understand that parents love these updates, we expect our practitioners to produce a minimum of one observation a week. We have found that this provides parents with regular updates and allows our practitioners to have a good balance between spending time with the children in their care and the paperwork attached to that responsibility. We are in the process of introducing the daily reports which will detail your child’s day from their meals and nappies to their sleep.
Please contact your nursery if you are struggling with ParentZone and they will be able to help you out!
