First Class Kids – The History
Calthwaite Nursery has been operating since 1989. Up until September 2006 we were housed in the Calthwaite School Hall, had 12 places for pre-school children and only operated for 2.5 hours a day, Monday to Thursday. The number of sessions were restricted due to the availability of the school hall. The Committee conducted some research in 2004 which showed a greater demand for nursery places than we could cater for. For the next 2 years the Committee and staff worked hard to raise funds to move out of school and have our own space. This became a viable proposition, when in summer 2006 The Old Post Office became available to rent. Over this period we raised over £50,000 to convert the house and purchase a huge variety of equipment and consumables.

Calthwaite Nursery, which now trades as First Class Kids became a Company Limited by Guarantee (No: 5261501) in 2004 and formed a new Charity (1108840) soon after.

Once settled into The Old Post Office we were now able to provide full day Nursery with 16 places. Shortly after opening we applied successfully for some grant monies to set up breakfast and afterschool clubs, this was followed by Holiday club which started in Easter 2007. To complete our facility, we added a 6 place Baby Unit to our services in April 2008.

We are still planning for the future, the barn behind First Class Kids is currently being converted into another play area for our children. There is a “phased” approach to the conversion – so far we have raised approx £30,000 and continue to search for funders to help us complete the project.

First Class Kids is managed by the Trustees. This voluntary management committee consists of two parent Trustees and two Calthwaite School Governor Trustees which reflects our close working relationship with Calthwaite C of E School.

The management committee meet regularly and encourage parents to attend the meetings and also to join the committee just as an interested parent or to have a formal job as a Trustee. We always welcome help and new ideas from all our parents.

The dates and venue of the meetings are displayed on the Parents notice board.

If you have any issues of concern please feel free to speak to any of the management committee.

The Staff

Sue Teal Manager Diploma in Pre-School Practice, level 3. Sue has successfully managed a Nursery for 10 years. Sue joined the Team in April 2009	Caroline Bowe Nursery Supervisor NNEB and Certificate in Childcare and Education Caroline qualified in 2001and joined our team in 2007 She specialises in nursery aged children Her son attends our baby unit	Gill Cubby Baby Unit Supervisor GNVQ Advanced in Health and Social Care Gill qualified in 1997 and joined our team in 2008 Gill has been working with the under 2’s for the last 12 years Her youngest son attends our baby unit
Anna Robinson Play Assistant BTEC National Diploma in Early Years Anna qualified in 2003 and joined the team in 2008 She specialises in babies and children with special educational needs	Lucy Petrie Play Assistant NNEB Lucy qualified in 2001 when she first joined First Class Kids Lucy is currently working towards a Foundation Degree in Childcare and Education	Monika Macakova Play Assistant Diploma in Teaching Monika joined the First Class Kids staff in April 2009
	All staff working with the children have been recruited in accordance with the National Standards and have Enhanced Disclosures from the Criminal Records Bureau

Policies and Procedures
First Class Kids Policies and Procedures are available for parents. We recommend you take the time to read them, there is also copy that can be removed from the facility for a short time.

Our policies cover the following:

Ofsted
We are Ofsted regulated, our Ofsted Reference No: URN EY337410. We were last inspected in September 2009. We achieved an overall “Good”

For more information on our Ofsted Inspection please visit www.ofsted.gov.uk Click on “Inspection Reports” and put our URN number in the box.