Committee/Staff Update

Spring Term 2012        

This is the information update from the committee and staff for all parents/carers of children in attendance at Chapel Lane Pre-School.

 Dates for Your Diaries - Reminders

13^th – 17^th February – Half Term

10^th March – Mozart Concert

24^th March – Spring Floristry Workshop

30^th March – Cake Sale

30^th March – Spring Terms Ends

Committee Secretary

Welcome to all our new pre-schoolers and their parents/carers and welcome back to all our Rising 5’s and their families. By now all parents/carers of our new pre-school children should have been introduced to their child’s key person. Each key person is responsible for the children within their group’s day to day care and well being. They also work closely with parents/ carers to monitor progress and development and to ensure that the individual needs of each child are met. If you are still unaware of who your child’s key worker is, then please contact a member of staff who will be able to advise you.

Pre-school clothing.

Please could all pre-schoolers come to pre-school with a spare (full) set of named clothing in their bags. 

Also, in order that the children can enjoy the outside area & the learning opportunities that it provides in all weathers, please could your child come to pre-school, every day with a named, waterproof hooded coat in their bag or put on their peg.

Contact Books:

By now all pre-schoolers should have been issued with a contact book which is kept within their pre-school bag and should be brought with them to pre-school every day. This book is for any written communication between both the pre-school and parents/carers. Please check your child’s contact book every day in case of any messages. If you write any messages within the contact book please take the book out when you arrive and put it in the Contact Book box provided on the Parents Information Table. Many thanks.

Policies: As a parent/carer of a child  within our care, it is important that you read and understand each policy. We will shortly be endeavouring to email all the policies to all parents of new pre-schoolers.  Once you have read the policies, we would ask that you sign a form, held at the pre-school to say that you have done so. Thank you for your help in this matter.  

Parent Helper Rota

We welcome help from any parents/carers that are interested in coming in to spend a session with us. An extra pair of hands is always appreciated and the children are always really proud to show off their pre-school to their mums, dads, carers, grandmas and granddads etc. If you would like to come in, please fill in the rota which is displayed on our notice-board.

Topic: Our topic this month will be entitled: “This is Me” and is a good way of everyone getting to know each other. To help the children feel a sense of belonging to our pre-school and their relevant group, each key group will make their own, uniquely-coloured wall display in the form of a shape. Different shapes and colours will signify each key group. Please could each child bring in a photograph of them and their family so that we can display it on their group’s collage. As well as helping with the childrens’ personal, social and emotional development, the wall display will also help the children learn about colours and shapes too.

A sense of belonging will also be reinforced during one of our other craft activities this month. The children will make paper-plate face puppets of themselves to decorate our pre-school walls. As well as puppets of all the children – pre-school puppet faces will be made too, that depict happy, sad and frustrated faces. We will talk to the children about what some of these different expressions mean and encourage the children to talk about how they feel in different situations.

Pre-school Photographer

Our pre-school photographer, Frank Page will visit our pre-school on 17/18 October to take pictures of all our pre-schoolers. If either of these days is not your child’s usual day and you would like a photograph of your child taken, please come along for 9am on either one of the days.

Snack Club: A brief note to remind everyone that the pre-school is grateful for donations of fruit and bread items for our snack club. Your children love to share the items that they bring in, especially if there is something that they particularly enjoy. Thank you to all the parents that regularly bring items in. It really helps to keep our pre-school costs down.

International Menu

This term we will also be continuing with our international snack menu. Each week, snack items from a different country from around the world will be introduced to the children, alongside their staple snack items of bread, crackers and fruit etc. Parents will be encouraged to get involved with providing different snack items and ideas for the menu. Please check our pre-school notice board and website for details. Our international menu helps towards introducing the children to different cultures, in a simple way that the children are able to relate to.  The first week will include foods from England.

Autumn Walk:

This term we will once again be holding our annual sponsored Autumn Walk for pre-schoolers, parents and pre-school staff. The walk will take place on Friday 14 October. During the walk the children will be encouraged to join in with a seasonal treasure hunt and search for leaves, fir cones, conkers and acorns amongst other things. On returning to the pre-school, parents and carers are invited to accompany their children and join us in enjoying a slice of pumpkin cake made by the pre-schoolers and some home-made pumpkin soup and fresh bread. We hope you can make it on the day. You will be advised of further details for the walk closer to the time.

Committee

It is not only the children that are welcomed at Chapel Lane Pre-school this term, we also enthusiastically welcome any help from parents or carers that would like to get involved. At Chapel Lane we have a very active committee, who are responsible for the running of and fund-raising for our pre-school. It is thanks to the help of our fantastic volunteer parents/carers and the work of our committed staff, that our pre-school is so successful.

If you are interested in getting involved please let our chair person, Sophie Simpson know,

Curriculum Evening

On the evening of Tuesday 11 October the pre-school will be holding a curriculum evening for parents and carers of all our pre-school children. Staff will be available to provide information on how our pre-school delivers the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum  to the children and demonstrations of the types of activities the pre-schoolers are involved in will be put on view.  Displays of children’s work will also be available.

Email address:

If you would like to email us about anything, our pre-school email address, which is as follows:

chapel.lane@hotmail.com

Our emails are checked daily, however if you need to contact us in an emergency or need to tell us your child will not be at pre-school, please still call us on the usual number:

0792 907 4083.

Road Safety.

Please remember when arriving and collecting from the pre-school that there are a lot of children and cars around at this time, not only families that are coming to the pre-school but also other groups nearby.

We have had a request to remind you all to drive slowly and carefully when coming in and out of the lane as well as being considerate with your parking.  We would ask that unless it’s completely necessary to drive, please walk to pre-school or park elsewhere.