Registered Charity No: 1023849
Newsletter September 2019
Welcome back to Pre-school after the summer break. I hope you all managed to find some sunshine somewhere! I would like to welcome Hugo, Robert, Oskar, Caitlin, Zophia, Maytham, Maximus, Alfie, Freddie, Mason and Rudra to our setting.
Focus for this half term: We will continue to ‘plan in the moment,’ reacting and interacting with the children’s play as it happens and therefore directing the teaching at each child’s individual level. Your child’s key person will also regularly update your child’s Learning Journey on Tapestry with observations. Please let us know if you have any problems accessing Tapestry and feel free to add observations of your own from home or on trips out. The children really enjoy sharing their photographs that you put on from home with us and it encourages lots of conversation and smiles! We will also continue to offer a broad focus for more adult initiated activities and we will be learning about traditional stories and rhymes this term, starting with The Three Billy Goat’s Gruff. We will look at different versions of the same story and look at how stories are structured and learn the names of the different characters. We will learn new songs like, ‘When Goldilocks came to the House of the Bears’ and will have focus nursery rhyme sessions every day. We will also use these stories to learn about size and colour. In our creative area we will be using lots of different tools to make marks with, including natural resources like sticks and pine cones as we move on into autumn.
Website: Each week I will be putting the planning linking to these themes on to our website and you will also get it emailed to you. You can find our website at https://bollinbrookpreschool.org/ .
Next Steps: In a couple of weeks’ time, when the children have settled into or back into the Pre-school routine, I will be sending out letters with a short form asking for your input into their next steps. We like to know what your child is interested in and enjoys at home and if there is anything specific you would like us to help your child with in Pre-school. We operate an ‘open door’ policy at Pre-school so you are also more than welcome to have a chat with your child’s key person or myself at any time if you wish too, though sometimes it’s easier to make an appointment if you need more time.
Family tree: We are once again renewing our family tree display in pre-school which has photographs of each child and their families and pets. The children really enjoy looking at this display and finding themselves so if you could all please bring some photographs in? Up to 4 would be fine. It also helps us as we use it to recognise extended family if they collect your child
and seeing the photographs can be comfort if your child is a little unsettled initially.
Weather: If the weather turns cooler and wetter could you all ensure that your child brings a named waterproof coat and wellies to Pre-school as we try to play out in all weathers!
Staff: I would like to welcome Miss Joanne Sellars and Mrs Julie Couchman to our Pre-school staff. Joanne will be our new Business Manager and Julie will join our teaching team as she works towards her level 3 course in Early Years education. Though still the full time Manager of the setting, I will be doing some mentoring work on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and so on these days either Mrs Lafferty or Mrs Humphreys will lead the sessions in my absence. I will still be popping in and out on these days to ensure that I get to see all the children on a regular basis.
Caroline Bickerton Pre-school Manager 4
