Pre-school

Curriculum

At St. Helen’s we are committed to developing the whole child through a broad and balanced curriculum. We ensure that we cover all areas of the Early Years Outcomes.

Supporting Learning at Home

We recognise the extremely important role that parents play in their child’s education. We want to work in partnership to help parents develop their skills supporting their child’s learning at home. If parents would like any support with developing home learning please see Mrs Orwell.

What you can do to help

Talk to your children about daily activities so that they hear language all the time. Children learn language very quickly if they are using it all the time.
Take your children to the park and allow them time to socialise with other children of a similar age.
Read a story to your child at bedtime every day.
Talk about letters and numbers on posters that they see in the environment or on buses.

Home –School Library

We have a small library available for children and parents to choose books together for reading at home. You and your child change the book on a weekly basis.

Learning Library

We also have a learning library, where you can borrow activities to enjoy together with your children at home. We ask that when your child is using borrowed items that a parent or carer works with them to enhance learning and avoid them from getting damaged or losing pieces.
The Learning library includes puzzles, games, painting equipment, drawing equipment and play dough equipment.

Parental Engagement

At the end of the Autumn and Spring terms parents are invited to our coffee morning. This is an opportunity to look at your child’s work and observations and to speak with the Pre-school staff.

Pre-school Expectations and Assessment

There are 2 types of assessments carried out during the children's time in Nursery using the Government non-statutory guidance materials - Development Matters and Birth to 5. Firstly, there's Formative Assessment which is on-going, the staff do this on a daily basis through observations and conversations with the children to make decisions about what they have learnt or can do already so as to help them move on in their learning journey. Secondly there are Summative Assessments, these are carried out at certain points of the year and are used to track attainment and progress.