Our Under Two provision

We have one staff member per three children in every session and this staff member will be your child’s individual key person.

Our room is developed with the children in mind. All resources are on a level that is fully accessible which enables all of the children to explore and access any resources they wish to. We have plenty of opportunities for the under Twos to cruise, pull themselves up and walkers to assist them when they want to take their first few steps. When our under Twos have mastered their walking skills, we offer a variety of equipment to enable them to develop their skills further, such as climbing frames and wheel along toys.

We are very conscious that from 6 months up to 24 months children establish ‘object permanence’. This means they become more aware of the presence or absence of their parents or primary carers. This can make separations much more distressing and difficult between 6–24 months. Therefore, we ensure we have a strong and well-established key person approach that runs alongside ways to calm the children. We achieve this by gaining as much information from you as a parent/carer before your child starts at our setting. We ask you to complete a detailed ‘all about me profile’. This gives us in depth information about your child such as how they like to be comforted, when they sleep and eat, what makes them happy or sad, what they like and dislike. This allows your child’s key person plenty of time to plan for and support your child once they start the setting. We also ask each family of a child to send lots of pictures of family members and familiar toys from home, so we can create a ‘Home Book’ for each child. We have found this really helps children regulate themselves, whilst getting comforted by their key person if they become upset.  

We have a high regard to the under twos and their communication and language skills. The staff continually narrate your child’s day and expose them to language rich experiences such as action songs, daily reading, and lots of gestures to support the children’s communication skills. We have introduced Makaton sign language into our setting and ensure it is regularly used within our under twos room as a form of communication. We teach all our children basic signs such as ‘please’, ‘thank you’, ‘more’, ‘help’, ‘drink’, ‘food’. We then build on these signs and relate our weekly sign to something current within the under two provision.