“Forging forces to give children the best start in life.”

Context

Rebecca Cheetham Nursery and Children’s Centre were formally part of a hard federation with Ranelagh Primary School, brought about by the late Executive Head Teacher of both schools at the time. Through initial partnership work with Curwen Primary School, The Tapscott Learning Trust was created, named in honour of Executive Head Teacher Angela Tapscott.

Whilst maintained nursery schools cannot academise, we did not want to put a stop on the wonderful partnership that had naturally formed with the Trust and we continue to work collaboratively together in raising standards and providing opportunities for our pupils, families and staff.

This collaborative work has allowed us to share and develop practice and experiences with children but also provides opportunities to reduce cost and retain staff across the group. One of the most attractive features of working in partnership with The Tapscott Learning Trust is that we can work as a collective but keep unique characteristics and adaptations needed to allow the schools to meet the needs of their local and wider communities.

We also work collaboratively with the Newham Nursery Schools in developing and disseminating good practice to other nursery settings, the PVI sector and primary schools. We are very proud of the development of the Newham Nursery Schools Annual Early Years Conference which commenced in 2016 and has attracted key notes from Ferre Laevers, Richard Hirstwood and Dame Alison Peacock. The Newham Nursery Schools also collaborate to work alongside the Local Authority supporting the PVI sector.

Aims

• Respect children as fellow human beings, and ensure they have right of access to human and physical resources within the centre.
• To acknowledge and celebrate the unique and varied social and cultural diversity that exists in our school and children's centre.
• That children have the right to achieve their full potential. We, as staff, enable this by focusing our energies to that end.
• That each child brings a wealth of home and community experiences. This creates an enriching environment, which can be shared, celebrated and built upon.
• That by having knowledge of each individual child, we, as staff, are responsive to their developmental needs and interests. Through this we facilitate achievement.
• To celebrate inclusion and ensure that all children are given equal opportunities.
• That care and education are inseparable and that we provide an environment in which 2,3 and 4 year olds thrive alongside each other.
• That children should have constant access to the outdoors environment. They should be able to use the valuable resource alongside the indoor play space.

 Vision

"Forging forces to give children the best start in life."

Preparing children to become Reception Ready is not a task we can do alone. It is essential that we work in partnership with parents/carers and the various health, educational and statutory services within our community to ensure that children achieve their best and make excellent progress. We are in a unique position to be offering nursery education and children centre services from the one site and it is this partnership working that leads us to believe that we are “forging forces to give children the best start in life.” All our children will have the right to an outstanding nursery education irrespective of social, economic or demographic factors. Rebecca Cheetham children will be given opportunities to be curious, inquisitive, empathetic and caring. We will provide them with a wide range of experiences to ensure they are exposed to a broad and balanced curriculum. We will support parents/carers to give them the best advice on how to help their child make good progress through experiences and inquisitive play and utilise them as the first educators of their children in order to inform our own assessments.