Day Nursery and Pre School
Our team under the direction of Mrs Victoria Brown including an additional early year’s teacher within the facility are committed to promoting children’s individual needs. These include their physical, social, emotional, spiritual and intellectual development. The Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage is followed for children from 3 years and the Birth to Three Matters framework is followed for children aged between 2-3 years. As a team we pride ourselves in building good relationships with children, ensuring they have a fun and enjoyable time here with us, together with promoting all aspects of their development in a stimulating way.
We provide two different types of care; we have a day nursery care room and also a sessional care room. Both rooms with the addition of an outside learning environment offer a wealth of activities which are accessible to children daily. These are promoted both inside and outside and include:
Role Play Area – lots of different imaginative areas set up for children inside and outside. These have included a garden centre, Indian shop, vets, dentist, Chinese restaurant, petrol station, and builder’s yard.
Reading Area – children love to explore a wide variety of books including fiction and non fiction, nursery rhymes & traditional tales from a range of different cultures. This area promotes early reading skills which include using the pictures to tell a story, ‘reading’ in own words, book handling skills and most importantly of all a love of books!!
Messy Play area – Children use lots of different resources including water, sand, gloop, rice, pasta, paint, play dough, glue plus lots more.
Writing Area – children use lots of different tools which consist of scissors, pencils, crayons, chalks, clipboards, name cards, assorted paper, and envelopes. This area ensures children benefit from taking pleasure in the early stages of writing.
Small world – creating scenes including towns, sea side, train tracks, dinosaurs, play grounds, airports, sea life, farms and lots more.
Musical area – instruments from different parts of the world, dancing, sticky kids, everyday objects which can be used for making sounds, a range of music types including classical, pop, nursery rhymes, multi cultural and even disco!
Mathematical Area – Children can choose from fun number resources including number stories and rhymes, sorting objects, pegs and peg boards, wooden numbers, number games including dominoes and hopscotch.
Physical Play – Children play with a variety of equipment including bikes, balls, skipping ropes, bouncers, tunnels, a slide, balancing equipment. Lots of fun games and races are also enjoyed.
Other activities include a weekly fun French session taught by Madame Brown, owner of the facility, baking activities, local visits, visitors, walks and celebration of cultural festivals throughout the year.
La Maternelle promotes child initiated play encouraging children to be responsible for choosing toys/equipment they would like to play with and tidying up. Staff observe and talk to the children whilst playing, listening to their interests and ideas which are then incorporated into the planning and activities for the day/week. This makes the planning more meaningful and enjoyable for them. During key worker group times children are grouped according to age and development, taking part in activities relevant to this.
All meal times are shared together as a large family with emphasis on helping to set and clear tables, good manners and enjoying each other’s company. We pride ourselves in the true French meaning of La Maternelle – a homely place to be. All food is healthy and children drink a choice of milk or water. The nursery has a certificate in oral health and is committed to providing sugar fee snacks and drinks. For lunch the day nursery children have the daily ‘homemade bake’ cooked by the school and eat this in the school dining area. Please see details of meals/snacks provided in our information on opening times & fees.
We have a close partnership with the school, sharing and enjoying many of their facilities including full use of the playground and playing fields. Invitations are often sent to us from the Head Teacher to attend various activities/performances in school and vice versa.
