News

Swine Flu Update - As you may be aware, there are an increasing number of confirmed cases of Influenza A (H1N1) in Scotland.  At the time of writing, there are no confirmed cases within Dumfries and Galloway. 

The guidance from local public health partners is to carry on as normal at this time, but early years and group childcare providers can prepare for any local cases of ‘swine flu’ by:

• Ensuring that parents’ and carers’ contact details are up to date.
• Encouraging good hygiene.
• Reviewing infection control procedures such as checking that children wash their hands frequently and that there are supplies of tissues and arrangements for quick and safe disposal.
• Encouraging parents to call NHS24 or their local GP by phone if their children show any symptoms, for advice on what action to take.
• Liaising with the local authority on any contingency arrangements.

For more information on the guidance we follow for infection control for schools and early years or group childcare settings click here.

Kids Ahoy Wildlife! - As many of you will have noticed and heard about over the past few months we have been making some new friends at Kids Ahoy!  The nursery topic recently has been Life Cycles and Mini Beasts and the children have enjoyed finding out all they can about many wonderful insects and creatures as well as how to care for them.

As part of these topics we decided to get some caterpillars in to the nursery to watch them grow and change into Painted Lady Butterflies. 

We have also adopted some tadpoles which were kindly given to us by Skye & Eilidh's

parents, straight from their pond!  The tadpoles are coming along nicely and are growing legs and looking more frog-like by the day!

We noticed a little while ago that a Blackbird had decided to build it's nest in our willow tunnel in the garden.  We are delighted to say that over the past few weeks she must have laid her eggs as this week we can actually see the 4 chicks. 

All the animals have become part of the Kids Ahoy family and staff, children and parents are enjoying checking their progress every day.  We have been taking lots of pictures and everyone is talking about the fantastic wildlife at Kids Ahoy! 

Please keep checking the website for more pictures but in the meantime if you would like to know more about our new friends or would like to see more pictures of how they have all grown then feel free to ask a member of staff!

Congratulations Eilidh! We would like to offer Eilidh & Michael a heart felt congratulations on the the birth of their beautiful daughter Lexi who weighed 7lbs 2oz.

 Swine Flu - As you will have heard and seen in the media, Swine Flu has arrived in the UK.  At Kids Ahoy we aim to keep you updated with all of the latest information from the government.  Please click here for more detailed information on what Swine Flu is and how you can protect yourself and your family from the virus.  We would like to reassure you that we will continuously strive to meet our high standards of hygiene and infection control and will revisit all of our practices to ensure all staff are well versed with government guidelines.  Your children's health and safety is one of our prime concerns.

 Sensory Room - Our new sensory room is finished and is being enjoyed by all the children and staff!!  There are more pictures on the Birth to 3 page for you to have a look at.  Feel free to have a look at the room when you are next in Kids Ahoy and try out all the fantastic resources.

2009 Care Commission Inspection Report - Our latest inspection report is now available to view.  You can click here to look at a pdf version or you can ask any member of staff to see it at any time when you are in Kids Ahoy.

Sponsored Walk - We held a sponsored "Doddle doon the Dock" on Thursday 19th Feb, to raise funds for The British Heart Foundation's National Heart month campaign.  It went really well and thank you to everyone who donated towards this great cause.  The total amount raised was £404 which is absolutely fantastic.  Thank you also to all those parents and carers who managed to come down on the day to show your support.  The photos are a testament to the great fun had by all!

Aiming High - All our hard work has finally paid off as we have just been awarded all 5's across every theme inspected by the Care Commission, our regulatory body.  This is the first year of the new grading system so we were delighted to be awarded the high grades of straight 5's when the best grade possible is 6.  This is a fantastic achievement and hopefully our 5's will become 6's next year.

To help you understand more about grading, this is what it is:

Each service is graded against four quality themes at each inspection.  The themes are:

• quality of care and support
• quality of environment/information
• quality of staffing
• quality of management and leadership
• Each of the themes is graded against the following scale:

This means that for each care service there will be four grades awarded after inspection, for example 5,3,4,6.  We received 5,5,5,5!!!

The full report is available to view online by clicking here.

Elizabeth, the proprietor would like to say well done and thank you to everyone who has made this possible!

Newsletter The latest edition of our newsletter is available to download by clicking here