Crowthorne Village Pre-school
Parish Hall
Heath Hill Road South
Crowthorne Berkshire, RG45 7BN
Tel: 07779 899978
0r 01 344 774338
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Crowthorne Village Pre-school Prospectus

Crowthorne Village Pre-school

Introduction

Welcome to Crowthorne Village Pre-school. For more than forty years many happy children have passed through our doors. As a parent you will wish to be sure that experienced and qualified staff will care for your child. Members of staff are all DBS checked, have paediatric 1st aid training and have in safeguarding children. Staff attend regular training programmes offered by early years agencies and hold qualifications in childcare up to graduate level.

The aims of the pre-school are to:

  • Provide high quality care and education for children below statutory school age
  • Work in partnership with parents to help children learn and develop
  • Add to the life and well-being of the local community
  • Offer children and their parents a service which promotes equality and values diversity

As a member of the pre-school your child is:

  • In a safe and stimulating environment
  • Given generous care and attention, because of our high ratio of adults to children
  • Has a chance to join with other children and adults to play and learn together
  • Helped to take forward their learning development by building on what they already know and their interests
  • Has a personal key worker who makes sure your child makes satisfying progress
  • In a pre-school which sees you as a partner in helping your child learn and develop
  • In a pre-school in which parents help to shape the service it offers

Crowthorne Village Pre-school is a registered charity. Ofsted carry out periodic inspections of the pre-school and assess compliance with the Early Years Foundation Stage.

Management and funding

The pre-school’s charitable status means we have a committee. The members are elected by parents of children who attend the pre-school at an Annual General Meeting held each spring. The committee is responsible for:

Managing the pre-school’s finances

Fundraising

Supporting the managerial team

Ensuring policies are adhered to

Ensuring there is a strong partnership with children’s parents/carers

Our committee comprise of mums and dads like you who don’t have any special skills, other than an interest in their children’s life at pre-school. If you are interested in joining the committee, then you can approach any of the staff members to gain further information.

The pre-school receives funding for older children from Bracknell Forest Borough Council. This just covers salaries, rents and other overheads. In order to offer a stimulating variety of activities we need to raise additional funds through fundraising. We also receive donations from local businesses and organisations. The money we raise funds the purchase of items such as books, toys, art/craft materials and other equipment for the children.

The Service Offered by Crowthorne Village Pre-school

We operate Monday to Friday 9-15 am – 12-15 (term times) with an optional lunch club twice a week.

We provide care and education for young children between the ages of two and five years. You can register your child by completing a registration form. Places are offered on a first come first served basis.

A half term’s notice in writing is required if a child leaves the pre-school, except when leaving to attend primary school.

The learning provided by Crowthorne Village Pre-school

Children start to learn about the world from the minute they are born. The care and education offered by the Pre-school continues this process by providing all the children with interesting activities that are suitable for their age and stage of development. We treat every child as an individual capable of achieving great things

The pre-school provides this by following the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) guidance, which is used by those who work with this age group and designed to provide a single quality framework to support children’s learning and development from birth to five years (end of child’s reception year) and endorses the Every Child Matters outcomes. More information can be found here

The early Years Foundation Stage covers seven key areas of development:

Prime areas (to support the under threes)

Personal, social and emotional

Communication and Language

Physical

Only if a child is sound in these areas are they able to fulfil their full potential.

Specific Areas (for progression through the latter stages of the foundation stage)

Literacy

Mathematic

Understanding the World

Expressive arts and design

For each area there are early learning goals, which are what most children should know and be able to do by the end of their reception year in school.

We track each child’s progress in a learning journey to help us provide the right activities and help each child move towards achievement of the early learning goals.

Characteristics of Effective Learning

We measure how effectively children are learning by observing how they play and explore, how active and involved they are and how they think and learn to do things for themselves.

Personal Social and emotional development

This area of covers:

  • Making relationships
  • Self confidence and self awareness
  • Managing feelings and behaviour

Communication and Language

This area covers:

  • Listening and attention
  • Understanding
  • Speaking

At two the pre-school will undertake a review of development known as The Two Year Old Progress Check. This identifies how development is progressing, plans for future activities at pre-school, suggests things that can be done at home to support the individual child and highlights any areas of concern. Parents can then share this with their health visitor.

Children who establish these skills are well placed to progress towards the specific areas.

Literacy

This area covers:

  • Reading
  • Writing

Mathematics

This area covers:

  • Numbers
  • Shape, space and measure

Play underpins EYFS and enables children to participate, enjoy and achieve a rich play based experience, which fosters their physical, social, emotional and intellectual development.

Children decide how they use each activity and adults support this providing a lead if required and encouraging participation.

Working together for your children

Our pre-school has a high ratio of adults to children. This helps us to

Give time and attention to each child

Talk with children about their interests and activities

Help children to experience and benefit from the activities we provide and

Allow the children to explore and be adventurous in safety.

How parents take part in the Pre-school

Our pre-school recognizes parents as the first and most important educators of their children. All staff see themselves as co-workers with you providing care and education for your child. There are many ways in which parents take part in making pre-school a welcoming and stimulating place for children and parents such as:

  • Exchanging knowledge about their child’s needs, interests and progress with the staff
  • Helping at sessions
  • Sharing their own interests with the children
  • Helping to provide, make and look after equipment and materials used in pre-school
  • Being part of the pre-school committee
  • Taking part in events and informal discussions about activities
  • Joining community activities in which the pre-school takes part
  • Building friendships with other parents in the pre-school
  • Shaping and supporting pre-school policies

The parents’ rota

The pre-school has a rota that you can sign if you would like to help at a particular session or sessions. Helping enables you to see what the day to day life of the pre-school is like and to join in helping the children get the best out of their activities. However, it is not compulsory to help. Some parents have come in to demonstrate their jobs for example fire fighter, police officer, flight attendant, shop keeper etc. which is always popular with the children and appreciated by the staff.

Do feel free to drop into the pre-school, if you would like to see it at work or speak with the staff.

Key Persons

We operate a key person system. This means that each member of staff has a small group of children for whom they are individually responsible, whilst sharing collective responsibility of the team for all children at all times.

We keep learning journeys, which record the achievements of each child and every term we review this and inform parents/carers about how their child is progressing and make plans for future learning activities.

Staff update their knowledge on a regular basis for the benefit of the children. This included ongoing training both internally and courses outside the pre-school environment.

The Pre-school’s timetable and routines

We believe that care and education are equally important in the experiences we offer children. The routines and activities that make up the pre-school sessions are provided in ways that:

Help each child to feel they are a valued member of the pre-school

Ensure the safety of each child

Help children to gain from social experiences of being part of a group and

Provide children with opportunities to learn and help them to value learning.

The pre-school session

We organize sessions so that children can choose from and work at a range of activities and in doing so build up their ability to select and work through a task to completion. Children are also encouraged to take part in adult led small and large group activities, which introduce them to new experiences and help them gain new skills as well as supporting them in working with others.

Outdoor activities contribute to health, physical development and knowledge of the world around them. So everyday we go outside to play. Sometimes we also visit local shops, the library and the local recreation ground to build and understanding of the local community.

Each session includes a variety of activities such as free-play, storytelling, snack time, PE and singing. Each day there are a range of activities set up with structured activities, which enable children to choose what they want to play with such as dough, water, sand, bricks, paint, interactive toys, and dressing up. There is always a book corner and small seats to encourage children to have a quiet time.

Policies

Copies of the pre-school policies are in the information box and are always available for you to look at. They are also available on our website and facebook page.

These help us to make sure the service provided by the pre-school is high quality and being here is an enjoyable and beneficial experience for children and parents/carers.

The staff and parents work together to produce policies which are reviewed every year or sooner if a change is required. The policies ensure that we meet legislative procedures and conform to government policy.

As parents you will be asked to adhere to the pre-school policies

Fees

At the time of printing fees are £10 per session, payable half termly in advance. £12 from September 2016Fees must be paid if children are absent. If your child has to be absent for a long period of time please speak to A member of staff. The term after your child’s third birthday you will be able to receive nursery education funding for up to five sessions a week for your child. To enable us to do this we will require sight of your child’s birth certificate. You might be entitled to 2 year old funding please ask us for details.

First days

We want your child to feel happy and safe at pre-school. To make sure this is the case, the staff will work with you to decide how to help your child settle into pre-school. A copy of our settling in policy is available on the website and facebook page.

Clothing

Although the pre-school provides protective clothing for messy play sometimes children will opt not to wear overalls likewise when we play outdoors in the garden they may become dirty and surfaces can be slippery so we encourage children to attend wearing functional clothing and sensible footwear. During wet weather a pair of Wellington boots for outdoors and a pair of soft shoes for indoors would be useful.

Getting dirty is all part of a purposeful childhood!

We encourage children to be independent and look after themselves. This includes taking themselves to the toilet so clothing which is easy for them to manage will help them to do this.

We hope that your child enjoys being a member of Crowthorne Village Pre-school and that you find taking part in our activities interesting and stimulating. The staff are always ready and willing to talk with you about your ideas, views and questions.

The Crowthorne Village Pre-school Staff teamWelcomes you!

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