Meet our ‘Swan’ Team

Cygnets Preschool has a team of qualified and highly experienced early years educators. The team share a love and respect for children, and create an environment which is safe, fun, and educational. We are committed to the development of children and believe in a gentle, loving, and nurturing environment. Our team is dedicated and believe in constant self-improvement through team development and further study. Staff co-exist in a learning environment that encourages their personal and professional development. Our team respects individual levels of knowledge and experience as well as encouraging active participation in open communication. Reflective practices are encouraged and used by all, and staff understand all developmental levels which enables them to meet individual and group needs through a variety of means.

Children become attached to significant adults within reliable, respectful, warm, and loving relationships which are essential to thrive. Children experience wellbeing and contentment when their physical and emotional needs are met, and their feelings are accepted.

Our Early Years Educators/key persons help a child to feel known, understood, cared about, and safe. This experience of being cared for by reliable adults who meet their physical needs and remain attentive and playful, affectionate, and thoughtful allows children to form secure attachments. Such a grounding provides a “secure base” from which children feel confident to explore the world and form other relationships. This involves a “triangle of trust” with the child and family. A key person approach is a way to ensure that all children and families have one or more persons within the setting with whom they have a special, nurturing relationship. The presence of a key person helps the child to feel emotionally secure when away from home and provides a reassuring point of contact for parents.

A key person has special responsibilities for supporting a specific group of children and building relationships with them and their families. The role involves close physical and personal care for a young child. It is therefore important that parents feel able to share vital information about their child’s intimate care preferences, likes and dislikes, motivations, and interests, and how they feel about being away from home. Parents might want to talk about their child’s feelings or development. The key person’s role includes, but goes far beyond, administrative, and operational activities such as keeping records or communicating about the child with parents or other professionals. It is an emotional, reciprocal relationship.

Our early years educators, guide, and shape young children; they create a sense of friendly co-operation and set clear rules and limits. This shows that they value each child as an individual and help each child to live and learn alongside others. They play and have conversations with children. This is how our early years educators help your children to manage and enjoy being a group, share and take turns. Children will learn new vocabulary and knowledge across all the different areas of learning. They learn to decide what they want to do, and how to solve different problems along the way. These experiences help them to develop skills which will benefit them throughout their education, and the rest of their lives.

Every child attending Cygnets deserves to have a special relationship with someone at our preschool and our key person approach effectively celebrates this.