Welcome to The Sunshine Centre Childcare

At The Sunshine Centre childcare, we devote our energies to offering a fun and nurturing environment whilst delivering the best in childcare and education. Our friendly and highly trained staff are focused on providing fun, care and learning. They work to ensure your child develops as an individual, whilst helping to nurture and encourage learning through discovery and enjoyment.

The Sunshine Centre Childcare is open all year round, 8am to 6pm except for bank holidays, INSET days, the days in-between Christmas and New Year and a maximum of five in service training days. We will give you one month’s notice for our training days.

2024 INSET DAYS:

Friday 24th May

Monday 15th July

Monday 2nd September

Friday 25th October

2025 INSET DAYS:

Monday 6th January

Friday 4th April

Friday 20th June

Please do not hesitate to call in at The Sunshine Centre or telephone us on 01295 276769 for more information.

Childcare Pathways

Two Year Old Funding: The government will fund children to attend childcare for 15 hours per week (term time only) if the caregivers meet a certain criteria. We can check eligibility for you. You may also receive a letter from Oxfordshire County Council advising you of your eligibility. If your child is eligible this funding will start the term after your child’s second birthday.

Nursery Education Funding: All children are entitled to 15 hours nursery funding after their 3rd birthday.

30 Hour Funding: For working families in England, with 3 and 4-year-old children. 30 hours of free childcare or early education for 38 weeks. A total of 1,140 hours per year. Apply for a code on line –  https://www.gov.uk/30-hours-free-childcare

Childcare Choices: Open an online account, the government will add £2 for every £8.00 you pay in up to a maximum of £2000.  Childcare fees are paid from this account. Apply to https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk

Feepaying: We offer a choice of sessions and contracts, please speak to us.

We work with you to enable you to use your hours, giving you the flexibility to meet your childcare needs as far as possible. For example, spreading your weekly hourly over the year to enable your child to receive continuous care throughout.

Grow, Explore, Discover

 We know that your priority is to find childcare that offers the right care and environment for your child and one that you have confidence in. Children are very precious to us as parents and we feel honoured that you are thinking about sharing your child’s care with us.

At The Sunshine Centre Childcare we devote our energies to offering a fun and nurturing environment whilst delivering the best in childcare and education. Our friendly and highly trained staff are focused on providing fun, care and learning. They work to ensure your child develops as an individual, whilst helping to nurture and encourage learning through discovery and play.

The Sunshine Centre Childcare is open all year round, 8am to 6pm with the exception of bank holidays, the days in-between Christmas and New Year and a maximum of five in service training days. We will give you one months notice for these days.

Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)

Play is essential for children’s development, building their confidence as
they learn to explore, relate to others, set their own goals and solve
problems. Children learn by leading their own play and by taking part in
play which is guided by adults.

Your child’s time in Sunshine Centre Childcare will be carefully planned and monitored by their key person with support from other staff. Your child’s development is guided by the EYFS guidance. This framework informs both practice and policies across the age range 0-5 years.

Our childcare day is carefully planned to give a balance of adult led and child led activities. We try to adapt the planned activities to individual children in order to reflect their particular skills, interests and development needs.
Forward planning of activities in each room is informed through the children’s identified next steps and their current interests.
We want to foster curiosity and retain a sense of awe and wonder so that our children are enthusiastic about new experiences

Partnership with Mums, Dads and Caregivers

You want the very best for your child and we will work in partnership with you to achieve this. It is important to us that we build a trusting, open and honest relationship with you and use your knowledge of your child to help us provide the best care possible.

It is not easy to leave a child in childcare and we aim to ensure that Mums, Dads and Caregivers share in their children’s successes and development whilst in our care. We appreciate the support we receive from you and are happy to share the knowledge and experiences of our trained staff with you as your child goes through their stages of development.

There will be time at the start and end of the day for informal discussions with staff.

Healthy Smiles

We are working towards our healthy smiles accreditation by ensuring The Sunshine Centre supports and encourages positive dental health, engages families in good oral health practices, provides tooth friendly snacks and food based activities and encourages hand washing and teeth cleaning at meal times.

If you would like further information on our tooth friendly practices please call us on 01295 276769 or email community@sunshinecentre.org.

Information from The Food Standards Agency on Raw Flour

Flour doesn’t look like a raw food, but all flour is raw. That means it hasn’t been treated to kill germs that cause food poisoning, such as Escherichia coli (E. coli). You can get ill if you eat unbaked dough or batter made with flour containing bacteria. Flour is a raw ingredient and should be cooked or baked before eating to make it safe.

It is particularly important for vulnerable people, such as children under 5, those with compromised immune systems and older people, to not taste or eat raw dough or batter. This is because their immune system may not be able to fight off infections as easily.

You can treat flour by heating it to make it safe. You can then use it to make foods like raw cookie dough or in dough for crafts. The Food Standards Agency do not recommend using a microwave to sterilise flour, as there can be a risk of uneven heating. We also don’t recommend using an air fryer, as the air circulation makes it unsuitable.

Read more about the use of raw flower on the Food Standards Agency website.

Our Commitment To You

Our Commitment to you

  • We are committed to providing a healthy, secure, caring, warm, vibrant and happy, child centred environment for all children entrusted to our care.
  • We are committed to provide the highest standard of  professionalism.
  • We are committed to recognising the needs and individual expression of all our children and to plan and provide activities accordingly.
  • We encourage children to initiate their own activities and make their own choices thus developing their independency.
  • We will introduce children to different festivals, cultural religions, social heritage and special occasions which reflect and value our cultural diverse society.
  • We are committed to work in partnership with Mums, Dads and Caregivers.
  • We are committed to be inclusive in all of our practice.
  • Using the EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage) children benefit from a rich and varied environment, with high quality care supporting their learning and development through meaningful play.
  • Through play children learn new skills, develop new interests,  encounter new experiences and build on previous knowledge.