Shaping Learning For Life
Welcome to our pre-school class, Kingfishers!
We are delighted to welcome you to this new section of our website which represents a really exciting venture for Stockbridge. The merging of the pre-school and school in September 2016 provided a golden opportunity to bring under one roof the care and knowledge of children in our area from 2 years old right through to 11 years old but specifically in Kingfishers class from 2 – 4 years old.
Getting to know both you and your child widens their social network and gives your child the opportunity to be fully integrated into a broad community giving them confidence and a self-worth that comes from being well know and well loved.
Getting to know you as a family from an early starting point means that we can, over time, build a community that is uniquely available to suit the needs of the people in Stockbridge and surrounding areas to ensure that your children have the very best start possible to their educational and life journey.
Teacher led
Our setting is teacher led by Mrs Jefferies, Headteacher at the school and she works closely with Mrs Evans who has has worked with pre-school children for more years than she may care to remember! Mrs Evans joined us from an outstanding nursery and has brought outstanding practice and a core drive to ensure every child’s needs are met and they get the best from our setting. She works closely with the Year R staff in school to design the curriculum and ensure strong progression so that children are best placed to achieve well and meet all early learning goals.
Throughout the pre-school, we will talk to you about ‘readiness’ for the next steps in their learning and development – your child having the right skills to best prepare them for the future and Mrs Evans is supported by a brilliant team of practitioners who are very experienced in Early Years from 2 through to 4 years old.
Care and close supervision
We are in a very lucky position to be able to provide low adult: child ratios which are far better than those required of the setting. With 3 adults almost full time in the pre-school we are well placed to be able to provide the very best care and close supervision for your child.
Key workers have small groups of children who they are responsible for but the adults in the setting know each child well and very often, children are happy to go to any adult for help or support or to get them to play a game!
We run a social group and several little phonics groups for our nearly 4 and 4 year old children and these small groups of 4 or 5 children have dedicated staff time where their current needs and next steps in the important aspects of life.
Terrific Twos!
We have the capacity to take eight 2 year olds with or without 2 year old funding (please see sessions and fees page) although we do like to limit this to 4 in a session to maximise adult:child ratios. 2 year old children are divided amongst the key workers to ensure we all remain skilled in providing for their unique needs.
We want your 2 year old to have the best experience possible and run a prolonged settling in period for them that is tailored specifically to you and your child. We will always do a home visit before you join us and we undertake the 2 year old check, in conjunction with the Health Visitor where possible, by the end of their first full term with us once we have gotten to know them well.
Parent partners
You know your child best. We may only see them for a few hours a week or for a substantial amount of each day but regardless of this, we defer to your knowledge of them to make informed judgements on their progress and the best provision for them. Each morning or afternoon when you drop your child off with us, we invite you to come and do Busy Bees with us to help them settle and give us an opportunity to catch up with you about anything relevant.
At the end of the session when you collect your child, you are most welcome into the setting to talk with a member of staff, in most cases their key worker, about how your child’s session has gone, what they’ve eaten, any nappy changes etc.
We also hold termly parents meetings with key workers and encourage you to update your child’s tapestry account (online learning journal) so that we can make reference to home experiences in the setting and you can reciprocate with school to home.
A strong partnership between home and pre-school/school leads to really happy, secure children who come to us and home to you looking forward to all that they are about to experience.