Staff wellbeing is very important to us as we believe work plays a crucial part in people’s lives and their wellbeing and not just with providing an income. We really ensure that the work environment is welcoming as some of us are at work more than with families.
As we know working with children can be stressful, the Monkey Puzzle Harrow team ensure we value and listen to the staff needs to work together positively and perform to their best. We have an open-door policy for all staff to come and speak at any time.
We offer a variety of fun activities to the staff for them to destress, build a good relationship with their colleagues and with the management team.
Throughout the year we offered the following to all our staff to make them feel valued:
A spa day : We had a spa day where staff had the options of head and shoulder massages, they were able to get a manicure and pedicure with a lovely spread for some yummy brunch.
Afternoon Tea: We put this on to show the staff that we appreciate their hard work and say little thank you for everything that they do.
Throughout the year we have also given staff little pamper treat hamper, gift vouchers, coffee shop gift cards to treat themselves.
We also had a few brunch/lunch outings to support team building and welcome new staff Monkey Puzzle Harrow.
A few of our staff recently attended the Level 2 Mental Health First Aid training to support staff better and get a deeper insight into Mental health and to understand different ways that people may be going through something. We have an open-door policy which allow the staff to come to the management team and openly talk about their personal life or work issues. Working long hours and long days can sometimes have a negative effect on staff’s mental health However, it can have a very positive one as well. We strongly believe Monkey Puzzle Harrow offer a supportive, inclusive work environment to the staff.
Parent Partnerships at Monkey Puzzle Harrow
We believe involving parents and carers in children’s learning is so important, we believe having great parent partnership enables children to do well in our setting. We opened our setting during COVID and lock down and we noticed that children and also the parents were very anxious and a little behind on their social and emotional development. We believe we helped the parents and the children to overcome this by offering short hours and longer weeks of settling in sessions, we update the parents regularly, especially in person and on the famly app. We involve the parents by offering a parent library where parents can borrow books to read at home with their children, we give Marvin the Monkey to the children to take on outings on the weekend.
We’ve had many activities take place in our setting which helped us to build strong relationships with the parents and carers and encourage the parents to be more involved in their children’s learning. Monkey Puzzle harrow offer a range of opportunities for parents and carers to become more involved.
For example
Sports Day: Each room had a day where the children and parents worked as a team to win a race. We had a range of activities such as the egg and spoon race where the children and parents worked together.
Father’s Day Afternoon Tea: Fathers were invited for an afternoon tea session where they enjoyed some food and arts and craft activities with their children
Mother’s Day Flower arrangement workshop: During Mother’s Day celebration, we had our children’s mothers and Grandmas in the setting where we had a professional florist who helped the children and mothers to arrange some flower bouquets to take home.
Picnic in the Park
Every new term, we invite the parents and the children for a picnic day in the park with some snacks and drinks to meet with the staff, other parents and make new friends, this enabled parents to get to know staff better and get to know other parents and plan play dates and see their children making friends and playing together with other children.
Working in partnership with parents and carers is key to the early year’s foundation stage. We believe strong family engagement plays a big role in children’s development and wellbeing.
