Our Annual General Meeting (AGM) gives us the chance to bring together staff, committee members and parents, to reflect on our progress, share our plans and showcase the setting.
Before this year's meeting, held last month, we smartened up the room - and ourselves, by making sure we dressed more formally, rather than just wearing our usual work clothes.
In the room, we created a few displays and laid these out on the tables. One display was our London 2012 floor book, which is always on display for parents but such books can still get missed during busy transition times. Another display was of all the playdough recipes that we like to make, and parents were given the chance to touch our favourite recipe - sensory outdoor 'chocolate' dough! Also on display for parents to read were all the articles that we have written for Nursery World.
In the past, we have invited a guest speaker to share some knowledge about child development with parents - this has worked well and is something we would like to do again. In addition, we have explained how children learn through play and shown parents the benefits of certain experiences, like playing with cornflour and water.
In our manager's report this year, we decided to focus on explaining the changes to the areas of learning in the revised EYFS, and the new Prime areas. We spoke about all the support that we are putting in place in the setting to help children's early communication and language. We also explained how this area of development can be supported at home and gave parents some tools to use to encourage good communication.
WITH THANKS TO ...
The AGM is an ideal time to thank publicly lots of people for their hard work during the year. This year, enormous thanks went to our fundraising team for the large sums of money that they have raised - money that we use to buy all our special pieces of equipment and extra resources. Thanks too went to our new chair who has been fantastic and capable in her role.
At every AGM, we remember to thank all the practitioners for going that 'extra mile' in making, we feel, Oakey Dokeys special. Lastly, and most importantly, we thanked all our supportive parents, because without them we couldn't do the job we love.