The pre-school is situated in a separate building.
A variety of activities are available to this age group and they will work towards the early learning goals
for the under 5 years and enhance their development in all ways. Creativity and imagination are encouraged through the “messy
play” room and we provide a separate outdoor play area to promote physical development. Social skills and independence
are emphasised to enhance self-confidence, self-esteem and to facilitate the integration into school. Children are also intellectually
prepared for school in our learning room- preschool reading, numeracy and literacy skills are taught. The pre-school curriculum
follows the early year foundation stage and all activities incorporate the “desirable learning outcomes”, which
relate to the stepping-stones of development. Each child’s progress is recorded for parents to view, ultimately keep
and can be discussed at length at our summer parents’ evenings or at any other time.
We now have an Early Years Education Co-ordinator working in our pre-school unit. She works 1.30pm - 5.30pm
everyday except wednesdays and has introduced a 'learning time' to our daily routine from the requests of many of our parents.
At some point in their day at pre-school, your child will be given the opportunity to step out of the usual
daily activities and participate in some ‘learning’ time activities. In order to accommodate the numbers of children
and not disrupt the usual daily routine of preschool, there will be six groups of children in which each group will have 4
or 5 children of similar abilities. When they have finished their activities they will simply rejoin the others.
Each group of children will have a time block of 30 minutes in which to do their ‘learning’. Some
of you may feel that 30 minutes is not enough time. We have chosen this amount of time, as we do not wish to take over the
emphasis of learning through play by having too much structure. We must also remember that our little angels don’t always
like to sit down for too long at this age. Therefore, we hope to slowly encourage your children to learn how to sit for longer
periods of time in which to do their learning activity, ready for when they start school. Learning time will not disrupt any
meal or snack times and we must stress that if your child does not wish to take part in these activities, they will not be
forced to.
Most of your child's work will be kept and added to their development profile but you will have the opportunity
to see it at the end of the day when you collect your child. Some pieces of work may go home with you. Some of the activities
might not involve any written or paper evidence but we have a digital camera, which we will use to photograph the children’s
progress and involvement. These photos will go into your child’s profile.
There are four areas of learning, which we will focus on in the learning room, these include Knowledge of
the World (split into sub sections of science and humanities), Communication, Language and Literacy, Mathematics and Information
Technology. Every day we will focus on one of these four areas. Mainly, so we are not over stimulating your child’s
mind! As Learning time runs off a four weekly rota (a copy of which is on the wall) this ensures that every child, whatever
sessions they do, will always get the opportunity to experience activities in each of the four areas.
Please be aware that the daily routine of preschool still incorporates all the 6 areas of development stated
in the Dfes standards and these are integrated into the routine with the emphasis on play. The weekly play plans are on display
in the lobby. The learning time environment is our provision of that slightly more structured learning opportunity that many
parents have expressed a wish to have and is offered in addition to the usual routine, not instead of.
