Early Years

We are a community in our own right, and our sense of a collective identity is important to us. We strive to maintain a balance between our combined and individual needs in order to maintain a positively-connected community, but we are also members of the wider community. Regular visits to Redland Green, the Downs, the local library, and the flower shop, as well as the play space provided by Skyboat Café, ensure that we build on and value these wider important connections. We also visit our local bakery and fishmongers, collecting the food required for some of our meals and delivering it back to our chef in our own kitchen. Our sense of belonging to a wider community also extends to our connections with other Early Years providers, as well as universities, colleges and schools through which we continue to engage with future and current colleagues, and future and current ideas and policies that impact on young children and their families’ lives.

All food is carefully prepared by our own chef who cooks and serves hot meals twice a day. Our menus provide a range of delicious and nutritious meals using locally-sourced ingredients. There is also a snack table available for children to visit; they can have fresh and dried fruit, rice cakes, oat cakes, breadsticks, milk (or alternatives) and water. Children often help prepare contributions to the meals and snacks, cooking as well as shopping locally for ingredients. We have three vegetable patches outside in which the children grow various herbs, fruit and vegetables used for cooking. At meal times children and adults lay the tables together, counting out the cutlery, glasses and plates needed for each table. Flowers, collected by the children from the local florist, are placed at the centre of the table on the tablecloth. Our meal times are important to us - they are a chance for children and adults to sit together in small groups, providing a social opportunity to discuss the day’s events as we eat.

The Red House Children’s Centre believes in the importance of a sound and committed understanding of the right that every child has to live ‘free from discrimination whatever their race, religion, abilities; whatever they think or say, whatever type of family they come from’, as stated in Article 2 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989).

The Red House seeks to provide an environment which celebrates and values differences in identities, cultures, religions, abilities and social lifestyle. The Red House recognises the impact of discrimination and social inequalities and their effect on young children and their families. The Red House therefore continually strives to value children and adults for their individuality to ensure a sense of belonging is created that will promote and develop self-esteem. All staff working at The Red House will demonstrate their respect for where children come from, what they achieve and what they bring to the learning situation. The Red House will also seek to promote a learning environment that openly acknowledges that very young children recognise differences and variations, and will in response to this actively take responsibility for the development of anti-discriminatory practice with due regard for an awareness that children seldom make value judgements without the influence of adults.

The Red House remains mindful of all current legislation that supports an inclusive approach to all aspects of Early Years Care and Education, in respect of this:

• The ground floor and gardens at The Red House are accessible to all

• We endeavour to have paper communications translated wherever possible. Please ask if you need this offer

• We offer individual family inductions to discuss individual children’s needs. This includes any support needed relating to all aspects of a child’s holistic development and the effectiveness of their access to all aspects of provision

• For further information about aspects of the provision in relation to specific individual needs, please contact us.