21.9.2020

The Ofsted inspection guidance changed back in 2019, putting more emphasis on Quality teaching, assessment and learning outcomes and less of a focus on data and paperwork.

This lesser emphasis on paperwork is great news and means your child’s keyworker will have less formal ‘paperwork’ to complete and more time to focus on playing with, and scaffolding your child’s learning face to face.

Our learning focus is based on these three points;

• Intent
  What we want the children to learn
• Implementation
  How we will help them to progress in their learning
• Impact
  How we know that what we have done, has helped the child to learn? What has the child learnt?

We will still use tapestry to share our photographs and observations with you, and we would love it is you could also upload things from home for your child to share with their friends and staff.  If you need any help with how to access tapestry, or to upload things from home, please ask a member of staff and we can help.

We will no longer be writing termly progress summaries or using the development matters age bands and statements to make assessments, However we will still use the 7 area of learning to help us form a broad and rich curriculum. More information about the EYFS can be found in our ‘links’ section.

We are adopting the ‘Northumberland School readiness passport’ Which will be used to make a summative assessment on whether your child is on track to show a good level of development (GLD) at the end of the  reception year.  Your child’s key worker will make these assessments on the passport at 6 month intervals, If your child is not on track this will enable us to identify any gaps, and put support and actions in place to help tehm make the progress needed. We will also send you a personalised progress summary of what your child has recently enjoyed and what they have been learning.

We believe that you as parents know your children best and therefore ask you to work in partnership with us, and contribute to assessment by filling out an individual learning plan that we will send home each term,  This  will  to help us gain some valuable information about your child’s current interests and achievements and will help form individualised planning.

As always, if you have any questions or queries please get in touch with your childs key worker.

New Term, New Normal

It has been lovely to get back to Pre School this term, we have welcomed lots of new and familiar faces and we can’t believe how much the children have grown since we last saw them.

For those of you who have been following our exciting Crowdfunder project over the summer, we are thrilled to announce we made it through to the final and received £5,000 from the Calor community fund, Bringing our grand total to £9,498 with 180 supporters in 42 days. Here is the article from the Hexham Courant.

We are hoping to get started in the very near future so dig out your gardening gloves and spades and be prepared to get dirty!!

This term we are hoping to reinstate this blog post, as well as regularly updating our facebook page, so please bare with us and keep checking back for updates.

We look forward to settling in all of the children, getting to know their personalities and interests and helping them to feel safe and secure and to build friendships and bonds.

We hope to get out and about as much as possible, We sadly won’t be doing our usual trips to the coop for snack or to the library, however we will still be going for lots of walks in the local area so please can we ask for children to bring a coat and wellies to all sessions, and for all belongings, including lunch boxes to be clearly named.

Here is a copy of the menu for hot dinners for the term, they are provided by Allendale Primary School at a cost of £2.40 and can be ordered each morning.

menu-autumn-2020-hotDownload

Week ending 9th December

What a busy week it’s been! There is only one week left of this term now, it’s all gone very quickly! The children are still enjoying all the Christmas songs we’ve been singing and the Christmas surprises they’ve been making for their families. They decided to build themselves a Christmas shop and have been selling and buying decorations and toys. We’ve been sharing Christmas stories daily as our advent activity too.

This week our bank staff Rachel Allman and Arfona Warrior have been helping out and have been fantastic! The children appear to have really taken to them and have been involving them in their activities. Be sure to give them a big hello when you next see them! Rachel is coming to help out over the next week too, so I’d like to thank them for their help!

Christmas party – below is a copy of the letter you will have or will be getting. In a slight change to what I put in the last newsletter we are not able to do the stay and play session as we have booked Zoolabs UK to come to our party instead!! They will be bringing a variety of animals for the children to meet. I promise we will take lots of pictures to share with you. They limit the number of people to 35, so I am really sorry that we cannot invite family members along to this portion of the party.

I’d like to finish by thanking everyone who was able to attend the Christingle this year, it was fantastic to see so many of you there and the children were absolute stars as always! Sylvia Milburn popped in today to thank the children for their wonderful singing and to leave a bag of jelly babies to share at the Christmas Party!

As always, if you have any questions of comments we would love to hear them so please get in touch.
Many thanks and have a good weekend
Dani

Week ending 25th November 2016

So this was our last week that has focused on shapes, we still talk about them year round so don’t panic! We’ve also been on lots of walks this week to experience frosty and cold weather! Which is always a good opportunity to discuss road safety with the children. All in all we’ve had another busy week and looking forwards to the next couple of weeks we will be looking at Winter and Winter celebrations, traditions and community events Christingle, Christmas, Winter Solstice, carol singing etc
The children will be coming home with a November newsletter over the next week and progress summaries will also be finished of and sent out this coming week.
If your child does not have a tapestry entry this week it will be because their keyworker has been working on their progress summary. It will be back to normal next week.
And just a quick reminder that fees are to be paid by the end of the month, please let staff know if you have paid via bacs.
Have a lovely weekend everyone,
Dani

Week ending 18th November

An apology first for not getting this sent out on Friday, other appointments got in the way.
So last week at Pre-school we continued with shapes and plan to do one final week focusing on shapes.
Amongst other things staff have looked at the following with the children:
Helena has spent time this week looking at the weather, days of the week and the seasons etc which the children really seem to enjoy discussing!
Diane has provided different sensory activities in the tray for the children to explore, rice crispies, glitter, playdough and more.
Hayley has spent a lot of time outside with the children making mud pies in the mud kitchen or playing chase!
I’ve tried to explain children in need and how we can help children less fortunate. All staff have taken part in music and movement and the much loved and requested corners game.

We hope to spend one last week looking at shapes and making a new display, the children have mentioned Mr Maker’s shape shelf so we hope to incorporate that. Also this week Helena, with the support of other staff and committee, will be developing the sensory area next to the office. The office is also due a sort out and rejig so we apologise for any mess you may see!

Thank you to all who helped out in any way with yesterdays Christmas fair, hopefully it was a great success!
Please can everyone let us know their preferred sessions for January so we can start planning numbers and staffing.

Any questions, as always, please speak to a member of staff.
Dani

Week ending 11th November 2016

This week has been all about shapes, we are continuing this theme next week too! So there has been lots of spotting activities, we’ve been for a walk around the village spotting shapes and taking photos, we spotted shapes in the coop when we went to buy snack, and played lots of games finding different shapes. The children have enjoyed lots of craft activities that involve shapes – many that Diane has provided. Helena has done several music and movement sessions this week with the children; we often use the songs from the Sticky Kids – they are also available on YouTube so you too can do the ‘Funky Monkey’ song at home! Just search for the Sticky Kids. Hayley has shared stories and rhymes with the children; Jack and the flum flum tree has been a firm favourite all week with lots of opportunities to spot shapes in the pictures!

I have looked at Remembrance day with the children as many of them have talked about their family members wearing poppies, we have made playdough red poppies and discussed what the children feel the poppy means to them and their families. Cbeebies have produced a short animation that is intended to introduce children to theme of Remembrance day, we have shared this with the children today.
If you wish to watch it with them the link is http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/watch/poppies

Thank you to everyone who has sent in their family photos for the display it’s starting to look great!

Have a good weekend everyone and don’t forget our AGM is on Monday 7pm at Pre-school; it’s an opportunity to hear about what has been going on over the past academic year and what lies ahead for Pre-school. We are always looking for committee members as without a committee Pre-school could not open, if you have any questions please speak to a member of the committee or staff.
Thank you
Dani