Wilbury CentralThe staff magazine for Early Years Childcare Issue 64 November 2010

Early Years Childcare staff celebrate runner up at the NMT Awards

We were shortlisted for three award categories:

Nursery Team of the Year – Haywards Heath

Nursery Cook / Chef – Nicola Simonds (Hove)

Nursery Trainee – Rebecca Markham (Lewes)

We waited with baited breath to hear one of our entries announced as the winner however it was not our night, and we were left empty-handed. Once each of the awards had been presented the evening continued with a disco, and we danced into the early hours of the morning. Although we didn’t win any awards this time it’s strengthened our resolve to

The eighth annual Nursery Management Today (NMT) awards took place on Friday 26th November at the Hilton London Metropole. We arrived at the hotel in anticipation of an exciting evening, and all donned our posh frocks before gathering in the foyer for pre-dinner drinks. When we went through for dinner the room was laid out like one of the awards nights that you see on television, with a huge stage at the front of the room and seventy or eighty tables, each laid out beautifully with crisp white tablecloths and flowers in the middle.

A delicious three course dinner was served and then during coffee the host, actor and presenter Ortis Deley (The Gadget Show) came onto the stage. Ortis began with a hilarious comedy routine before proceeding to announce each award and the person who would be presenting the award. This person then came on stage and announced those short-listed in each category, before then announcing the winner. The winner of each award then had to make quite a daunting journey being cheered on through the hundreds of people, up onto the stage to collect their award.

be successful in the next awards event that we enter.

Once again praise and congratulations to our fantastic runners-up. We hope that you enjoyed the night despite coming a very close second.

Head Office charity party

Cookie Monster’s birthday

On the 2nd November our Horsham nursery celebrated the Cookie

Monster’s birthday.

The Cookie Monster is one of the characters on Sesame Street, covered with blue fur and possessing a pair of googly eyes. He has an insatiable appetite and, as his name suggests, his primary

craving is cookies!

With all this in mind, the children

created blue sparkly collages of the

Cookie Monster and baked lots of

different flavoured cookies.

News Roundup

On Thursday 28th October Head Office held a Jamie at Home charity party, arranged by Kim. The party gave people a chance to see the ‘Jamie at Home range’, allowing some Christmas shopping to be done with the added bonus that 20% went directly to the Rocking Horse Appeal.

We are extremely pleased to let you all know that a grand total

of £100.10 was raised for the Rocking Horse Appeal! A big thank you to everyone who donated and to Kim for organising such a successful event.

Greenwich celebrates Diwali

Badgers family room at Greenwich have recently been celebrating Diwali, the festival of light.

It is a festival celebrated by Hindus and Sikhs. Diwali means “rows of light “ and the children made candle holders out of clay and put tea light candles inside them to mimic diyas, which are small oil lamps. People place them around there homes during the celebration days.

Isher’s mum in Badgers visited and painted Mendhi patterns on the children’s’ hands, which is traditional during Diwali. The children also had the opportunity to taste traditional Indian sweets.

New outdoor activities

Children at Worthing have been trying out their new garden equipment. Spheres of different sizes and textures were hung in the trees at different heights, encouraging the children to stretch to reach them. The children loved feeling them and swinging them back and forward, exploring the differences between them.

News Roundup

Greenwich recently held a free movement session celebrating Black History month. The children got to take part in a range of fun activities. This included babies and toddlers participating in traditional Nigerian dance, baby massages and yoga. The family rooms enjoyed role play with multicultural dress, music and

flag making.

One of the Senior Practitioners, Sam, got the chance to wear clothing from the Ibo tribe in Eastern Nigeria. This was brought to the nursery by Madeline, from the toddler unit, and the material was chosen in Eastern Nigeria and made into an item of clothing by a tailor there. The outfit is traditionally worn for parties and going to church.

New website address

We have changed over to the eyc.co.uk domain. This means that we now have a much shorter web address (www.eyc.co.uk) and email addresses.

There are a few reasons behind switching to the new domain, including the fact that it is easier to spell/harder to misspell, easier to market/brand and easier to remember.

The old website address and email addresses will remain valid for the foreseeable future, so don’t panic about business cards, headed paper, signage etc. having the old details on. When new stationery is required we will order it with the new details on.

Please feel free to contact Adeline or John if you have any further questions.

Dont forget EYC is on twitter! Send

any tweets to marketing@eyc.co.uk

and follow us at www.twitter.com/

EYC_plc for up to date news and

info on whats going on...

Crawley have poems published!

A selection of children from our Crawley nursery have had their poems published in the next

installment of ‘My First Poem’.

Children from Crawley wrote about

their favorite person, TV program,

toy or animal. The imagination,

energy and creativity that went

into writing the poems is clearly

reflected when reading them.

Black history free movement

session

Bonfire Night at Lewes

Lewes recently held a Bonfire Night

free movement session. Some of the

children wanted to draw pictures

of the Bonfire Society jumpers that

they either wear or have seen. They

had a very enjoyable time, getting

creative & using their imagination.

Announcements

Festivals & Celebrations

Congratulations!

New Starters

Promotion & Change of Role

Ellie Czucha – Hove – EYA

Jessica Downing – Lewes – EYA

Laurence Bealing – Basingstoke – ASC Driver

Robert Poynter – Basingstoke – ASC Driver

Catherine Peers – Basingstoke – EYP

Tanya Sweatman – Basingstoke – EYP

Ann-Louise Brotherston – Head Office – Trainee HR Advisor

Natasha Richardson – Head Office – Marketing Co-ordinator

Stefanie Moore – Lewes – EYA

Danielle Bedford – Crawley – EYA

Julie Vickery – Basingstoke – Nursery Manager

Sian Juden – Haywards Heath – Early Years Assistant

Fern Dolby – Haywards Heath

– Bank to EYA

Lucy Swerling – Haywards Heath – Bank to EYA

Catherine Holdaway – Hove – Senior Practitioner (Mat Cov) to permanent Senior Practitioner

Sarah Goldsmith – P/time Trainee Advisor (Mat Cov) to perm p/time Quality & Development Advisor

Kimberly Vickers – Haywards Heath – Bank to Trainee EYP

Claire Cresswell – Basingstoke – EYP to Team Leader

Angela Vint – Horsham – Bank to Lunchtime Support

We are very pleased to announce

that Sally-Anne Webster from

our Brighton nursery gave birth to

a baby boy called Harry on the

4th November weighing 7lbs 5.5 ozs.

Caroline Soghmanian from

our Horsham nursery also gave

birth; to a baby boy called Ashton

on 2nd November weighing 6lbs.

30th Nov – St Andrews Day - patron saint of Scotland

2nd Dec - Hanukkah starts - Jewish festival

6th Dec - St Nicholas Day -

7th Dec - Hijra Muharram - first day of the Muslim new year

‘Quotes of the Month’

This month we asked children at Haywards Heath & Hove...

‘What is your favourite thing about winter?’

These are some of the answerswe got...

‘Making a snowman with my mummy and daddy’ Eleri

‘Playing in the snow and throwing snowballs, I like that’ Josh

‘The windy bit’ Holly

‘Eating hot cakes’ Henry

‘I love jumping in the big puddles’ Oliver

‘Playing in the snow and getting presents from Santa Claus’ Lewis

‘Throwing snowballs’ Toby

‘Snow’ Ed

16th Dec - Beethoven’s birthday

21st Dec - Winter Solstice - shortest day of the year

24th Dec - Christmas Eve

25th Dec - Chrsitmas day - Christian celebration

26th Dec - Boxing day

27th Dec - St Stephens day -traditional celebration