We are open Monday – Friday 9:00am – 3:00pm with lunch clubs everyday. We offer morning sessions from 09:00- 12:00, afternoon sessions from 12:00-3:00 or full days from 09:00-3:00. The pre-school is open term time and sets its dates from Bucks County Council. We will have a maximum of 5 INSET days for staff training. Wherever possible these will be tagged onto the beginning or end of a half term holiday.
Parking is strictly at:
The Walled Garden, Chorley Road
(they offer free parking for drop off and pick up) Preschool is short walk across the hill.
High Street (please avoid parking outside the shops)
Parking on Church Lane is strictly for residents and businesses. Parents must not park here at any time; failure to comply may result in termination of the pre-school place.
The children come in at 9:00am and find their own name on the registration board. They can then choose an activity to play with and parents leave. Once all children have arrived and parents have left we sit for a circle time. During this time we do a quick registration with our mascot Daisy Pre-school and sing our Hello song. The children then go and play with a range of activities set out by the staff from our weekly planning sheet. There is a mix of free choice play and focus activities set up for the children each day. Our garden is open all morning for the children to access and we regularly go for walks in small groups around the village. We pack up all together at 11:50am and then have a 10 minute mat time. We then enjoy circle games before singing our goodbye song and going home.
Children attending afternoon session will play upstairs or in the garden whilst their friends go home. At 12:30pm we wash hands and sit down to eat our packed lunches in the two upstairs rooms or the kitchen.
After lunch we enjoy a range of activities including structured adult led activities and free play. We access the garden as we would in the morning and enjoy walks around the village. Some of our friends need to leave early to collect siblings from school so we have this group get ready for home time and sing our goodbye song at 2:40pm and then repeat at 2:50pm for children who will be going home at 3:00pm
We have 6 staff members in each day with 30 children. We prefer to keep our ratios as low as possible so we can have more quality time with the children.
We understand a parents concern when getting children ready for school. However to make the experience less daunting for the children we choose to focus on this for the Summer Term before they go to school. We have sessions where we ask the children to bring in their school uniform and invite all teachers from the children’s schools in for a play session. We liaise very closely with all neighbouring Primary Schools including ones from the surrounding villages. We follow the Early Years Foundation Stage and Early Learning Goals but in addition to this we ask the teachers which skills are important for the children to focus on. All children will leave us with an end of year report which is sent to their Primary School and we devise with parents next steps to work on at home. We work hard to ensure children learn constantly through their play and feel confident about their skills and knowledge when they go to school.
Only ever if they are developmentally ready and show an interest in this themselves. Even then we are simply showing the children the basics of letter sounds before school. We believe it is important for the children to learn about letters through fun games and songs and we then go on to nurture any further interest they have. We follow Jolly Phonics and sing the songs with the children regularly and teach them the actions to each sound. We then teach the children the initial phonic sound in their own name and names of interest to them such as M for Mummy. Many children leave us knowing the phonic sounds in their own name and are beginning to form some simple letter shapes. However there is no pressure put on them and the key is to ensure the children enjoy their learning and have lots of fun with it.
We offer healthy snacks to ensure good oral health. We provide seasonal fresh fruit and vegetables including apples, pears, bananas, cucumber, tomatoes, carrots, plums, grapes, melon, blueberries, strawberries, sugar snap peas and peppers. We also offer wholegrain cereals, whole-wheat toast, breadsticks, cheese, crispbreads, pitta breads and rice cakes. We use our café as an opportunity for children to explore new foods such as Chinese noodles, Humous and Jamaican Banana Loaf. The children are offered milk or water to drink. We keep a list of which children have accessed café during the morning and always encourage children to have a drink throughout the session.
Yes. We have nappy changing facilities at Pre-school and changing nappies or potty training is not a problem. To provide continuity of care your child will be changed by their keyperson each time. When you are ready to begin potty training we follow the same routine/ care practice that you do at home. Children will need to bring with them a couple of nappies, wipes and nappy sacks or lots of spare clothes and shoes, wipes and nappy sacks if potty training.
Potty training at pre-school has its challenges. The children are having so much fun they may not want to leave their play to go to the toilet/potty. Their keyperson will regularly encourage them to go on the toilet and will look for natural pauses within their play to remind them. We are always happy to use the same methods as you i.e. reward charts or stickers.
Yes. We are more than happy for children to come to pre-school and will find a way to ensure that allergies are managed in an effective and nonintrusive way to your child. If medication is required we can keep this safely at pre-school and all staff are fully trained to administer medication such as epi-pens.
Your child will need a named bag with changes of clothes, spare shoes and weather appropriate outdoor clothing i.e. wellington boots, coat, hat and gloves or a sun hat and sun cream. We encourage all children to keep & wear indoor shoes at pre-school. If in nappies they will need at least 2 nappies, a pack of wipes and nappy sacks.
Definitely. Our pre-school is committee run and cannot survive without the dedicated parents who help to shape our setting. The preschool is run by the manager but overseen by a committee of parents. Some committee members have roles such as secretary or treasurer whilst others get involved with all of our fundraising events to ensure they are as successful as possible. All funds raised by the committee go straight back to the pre-school and go a long way to continually improving the opportunities we are able to provide for the children. Please do come along and get involved