Pre-school

Pre-school

Miss Cascayan is suported by Ms Logan and Miss Dezynska.

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 Miss Cascayan

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.

Pre-school Expectations and Assessment

Each child in pre-school has their own individual portfolio called their Foundation Stage Profile. This portfolio will be built up over the year and will include photographs, observations, and the children’s work.

The profiles are located in the classroom and we encourage parents to view these at parents’ meetings and make contributions to the parents comment’s section of the profile. This is so that staff can be aware of what your child has been doing at home and work on activities in pre-school to build on this learning for continuity.

We also use a programme called Target Tracker to capture the children’s learning opportunities.

The children in Pre-school are assessed in line with Development Matters age bands to ensure all children are making good progress. We would expect the children to leave Pre-school having been assessed at ‘beginning’ in 30-50 months in all 17 areas of the curriculum.

To read the ‘What to expect when’ guide for parents click here

Photos and News

Pre-school has reopened and the children have been excited to return to us. They have missed their friends and the adults in Pre-school and have been ready to start their learning.

Their return has been met with some fun outdoor learning in Forest school with Miss Morgan. Rekindling their friendships and thirst for adventure by climbing their way around the woodland area and having fun hanging around on the rope swing.

We also had a special little visit from our friend Cash. He came by to welcome the children back to Pre-school on a nice sunny day. They children were so excited to meet him and made sure they looked after him and made him feel loved.

We have also been talking about our Mum’s and how much we love them. The children prepared some special gifts for them to celebrate Mother’s Day! They decorated tasty gingerbread Mums for them and also made a lovely hand print sunflower card for them too. Our Mum’s are amazing and our love for them will always grow.

In Pre-school the children made poppy flowers and decorated poppy biscuits to celebrate Remembrance Day.

We are looking at the book "Bedtime for Monsters" by Ed Vere. The children went looking for some monsters during our Forest School lesson to see if they could be friends.

 The children prepared a treat for their families. They made a pear crumble to bake at home and enjoy as dessert for all to make them happy.

Mrs Venn brought in some 'Boom Whackers' and bells for our music lesson this week. The children explored the Pre-school to discover the new sounds they could make with them.