Nursery Parents: Questions arising from the welcome presentation

The traffic light system forms part of our positive behaviour management policy which runs consistently throughout our entire Early Years phase. The traffic lights consist of red, amber, green, 3 silver circles and gold and are used to reinforce the children’s positive (expected) choices. The children’s names will move from green, to silver and finally gold when they receive a medal which they will bring home to share with you.

The yellow and red lights are used as visual aids to support the children in being aware of negative (unexpected) choices which we refer to as ‘yellow’ or ‘red’ choices. If the children are moved to yellow, their teacher will have a restorative conversation about their choice and discuss ways the children can modify their choices. This is a very interactive process to enable the children to have ownership and investment in their future choices. As soon as the child demonstrates positive (green / silver / gold) choices, they are moved back to the circle they were on before.

As you will know from the presentation, we support the development of the unique child at DBIS, therefore any restorative conversation is tailored to the individual’s needs and stage of development. However, to give you an idea of the timescale for this, we would not usually expect to spend any more than 5 minutes on this entire process.

Red choices are under exceptional circumstances and would usually require the child to have some quiet, calm time in an area of the classroom in order to self regulate with the support of an adult. Red choices could be the result of a physical action towards another child. The process is the same for a red choice in which the children would be involved in a restorative conversation with their teacher and given an opportunity to talk to the other child (if another child was involved or hurt). The difference with a red choice is that we would almost always contact parents to let them know what has happened and ensure both parents are aware of the situation if there was a physical incident towards another child. If your child’s teacher has any concerns about your child’s development, they will always initiate a meeting to discuss how we can positively support your child.

An important point to note with the positive behaviour management system is that we always talk about the children’s choices and never refer to the child personally as ‘naughty’ or ‘bad’ – these are also not words we would use when describing the children’s choices. In addition, once the restorative process is complete, the children will move back to the circle they had reached before and they always start the next day where they left off. For example, if the child was on the second silver circle, they would start the next day on the second silver circle.

We are mindful the children are going to be engaged with learning opportunities for a great deal longer than they usually would before lunch time (in Nursery lunch time is normally 11:30am – 12pm). We are therefore advising that the children have a hearty breakfast followed by a healthy snack just before they come into school. We will also provide the children with sandwiches and a piece of fruit / vegetable during their outdoor learning time between 10 – 10:45am (each class will go to the dinner hall at an allocated time during this period to sit down and eat their snack under the supervision of an adult).

We will have additional healthy snacks available such as breadsticks and rice cakes should the children become hungry in class. If the children need a snack outside of the designated snack times, they will eat this outside, under the supervision of an adult (we are not allowed to let the children consume food in the classroom). We will never refuse food to a child who says they are hungry, so if they require a bigger snack than their friends at snack time, we will accommodate this. In order to provide a bit of variety to the children, we will substitute the sandwich option with pasta on some days. The children will have free access to their water bottles throughout the day.