Bledlow Pre-School
Monday to Friday (9.15 a.m. to 12.15p.m.) at Bledlow Village Hall, Chinnor Road, Bledlow, Bucks.
Leader: Tanya Stevenson (Tel: 01844 352684) (Email: tanya@bledlowpreschool.com)
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Monday to Friday (9.15 a.m. to 12.15p.m.) at Bledlow Village Hall, Chinnor Road, Bledlow, Bucks. Leader: Tanya Stevenson (Tel: 01844 352684) (Email: tanya@bledlowpreschool.com)
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Newsletters On this page you will find copies of the latest Pre-school newsletters.
September 2011 Newsletter I would like to wish you a warm welcome, or welcome back, to pre-school. We are also welcoming our new deputy, Kerry Bowers, and trust you will all help to make her feel at home. I hope you have all had a super summer. The newsletters you receive are to keep you up to date with what is happening at pre-school. Please read them carefully as they contain some important information. I’m afraid this one is a bit longer than usual as there is a lot to say! Our policies and some other information are available on the parents’ table in the hall and on the website. I will gladly print out copies for anyone who wants them, but to save paper I do not do this routinely. If in doubt about anything please just ask, no matter how small a concern it is, as the more comfortable you are with pre-school, the happier your child will be. The staff and committee members are here to help. Photos of the team are on the notice board, so you can see who is who. This half term our theme is COLOURS. Each week we will choose a different colour and use it as a base to provide a variety of activities designed to cover aspects of the Foundation Stage Curriculum. A weekly timetable is posted on the board, which specifies each day’s activities, but here are some examples of the things we will be doing with your children at different levels depending on their stage of development: WEEK 1: RED, 5-9 Sept All through the term we will be working on making our own colour book. We will ask children to find objects in that week’s colour around the room and take photos of them holding the objects. At the end we will collate them into our own book for the shelf. It helps children to understand and recognise colours and to co-operate to produce something for the pre-school. Later they love looking back over the photos of themselves and their friends. We will also make traffic lights, order red hearts by size, make apple trees, play with fire engines and cook jam tarts with extra strawberries. Children can co-operate to make a picture of a big red bus for the wall, with pictures of themselves in the windows. The main focus of the week however will be to make sure all the new children are happily settled and really excited about pre-school. WEEK 2: BLUE, 12-16 Sept Using blue ribbons on sticks we will make big circles in the air (a pre-writing skill). We will make waves in the sea using blue paint and marbles and we will use Thomas the Tank Engine to introduce numerals. We will have plenty of water play and also play with blue balloons when we read our Big Blue Balloon story. We will cook some healthy blueberry muffins for our snack and make seaside pictures using real sand. WEEK 3: YELLOW, 19-23 Sept This week we will make five little duck pictures, encouraging the children to count the right number of ducklings and to subtract them when singing the song. Older children can add numbers to their ducks. We will make sunflowers using real seeds at the centre and cook cheesy baked potatoes. Children also enjoy making a sun using an old CD and some yellow triangles and this helps with using and naming shapes. WEEK 4: GREEN, 26-30 Sept This colour allows us to explore nature a bit – we will do leaf printing and plant some cress. We will make snakes in the grass, which involves scissor control and weaving, and we will make our own green paint using blue and yellow. We can learn about the life cycle of a frog and we will cook a green pasta salad. WEEK 5: BLACK & WHITE, 3-7 Oct When trying to think of something black and white we could cook we came up with marmite and/or cream cheese sandwiches! We will make chequered flags, encouraging children to recognise and recreate patterns and hopefully appealing to the young racing drivers amongst us! We will do night pictures, skeleton collages and penguins. We will also discuss and practise using zebra crossings and other road safety issues (there is a resource box we can borrow to help with this). WEEK 6: ORANGE & BROWN, 10-14 Oct Autumn should be underway by now, so we can collect conkers and use them for counting and maths activities. We will have a worm hunt and make bear masks and snakes out of sticks. We will build a wall using real bricks and sand for cement. We will cook brown bread rolls and we’ll use red and yellow paint to make orange. We also plan to grind some wheat into flour using a pestle and mortar as well as looking into the "life cycle" of a loaf of bread. This helps children to really understand where the food comes from. WEEK 7: RAINBOW, 17-21 Oct We’ll use this week to revise all the colours and make multi-coloured things. We can use dyed pasta to make snakes or necklaces using repeating patterns, and in past years children have really enjoyed spraying a white sheet with lots of colours of thin paint and watching them all spread and blend (it also strengthens their hands!). We’ll make a rainbow handprint frieze for the wall and we’ll weave colourful ribbons in and out of pea netting. On Friday we’ll learn about Diwali by making some pretty, colourful candle holders and greetings cards. These are only a few of the things we have planned for your children this term – it would be a little boring if I listed them all, but I can show you in more detail if you are interested. Every activity has a learning objective. So if your child does not bring anything home and says they have done nothing, don’t believe them!! We do not force the children to do our adult led activities, but hope to make them interesting enough for them to want to, but they also get valuable play from all the freeplay activities on offer. THINGS WE NEED TO BEG OR BORROW THIS HALF TERM Real bricks - we have some but could do with a few more by 12th Oct Wheat for grinding and pestle mortars by 13th Oct Empty and well washed spray bottles e.g. from antibacterial or kitchen sprays by 19th Oct An old white sheet by 19th Oct. If you have any objects that you could lend us, which you feel would support any of the activities mentioned, or any other ideas, please speak to me. We always value your input. THINGS YOU CAN DO AT HOME TO SUPPORT THIS TERM’S LEARNING Discuss with your child the colours of the things you see, not by always quizzing them on what colour it is, but more by commenting e.g. look, your top’s light blue and my socks are dark blue. Colour can be a difficult concept to grasp. Once they have learnt basic colours children are ready to learn more complicated ones (like silver, gold, and maroon) and to understand which colours can be mixed to make others. They may also be interested in tones and shades of darker or lighter. Talk about the animals and bugs you see, teach them the proper names for things and marvel at how quickly they will become budding David Attenboroughs! Read some of the stories that we will be using – children love stories they are familiar with: Little Red Hen Big Blue Balloon Ugly Duckling Rainbow Fish Practise the Rhyme of the Week (see notice board). It’s good for children to learn traditional rhymes; they have good rhythm and are a fun way to learn about rhyme, a skill which is important when they start to learn to read. Help them to use scissors safely. It is a difficult, but useful and empowering skill, which needs lots of one to one time to teach. ILLNESSES It has always been our policy to require parents to let us know of any infectious illnesses their children have, so we can warn other parents of things which might be going round (anonymously of course!). Please let me know if your child, or another member of the family, contracts flu, chicken pox, head lice, impetigo, diarrhoea or any other infectious disease and I can advise you as to how long they need to stay away from pre-school. SNACK TIME AND FOOD ALLERGIES If your child is allergic to anything at all, or has food requirements for cultural or religious reasons, please let us know immediately, verbally as well as on the admission form. We ensure that all the food we offer the children has nutritional value and we only offer milk or water to drink. You can see what the children have been given each day by looking at the notice on the door to the lobby. AFTERNOON SESSIONS This term we are offering 2-hour afternoon sessions on a Tuesday and Thursday, where children can bring a packed lunch and stay until 2.15pm instead of 12.15. There will be a charge of £8 per session to cover extra staff and hall rental costs. It is best to wait until your child is settled and over three before you sign up for this, but some may be able to cope earlier. If you have not signed up for these and would like to do so, please see me. PHOTOGRAPHER In the past we have had Pippa Hart in to take photographs of the children. She does beautiful black and white prints (like the ones of the staff in the lobby – only better because the subjects are better looking!) and her prices are very reasonable, with no obligation to buy. Because she likes to do it outside in good daylight, she prefers to come in September rather than nearer to Christmas, so we have booked her for 19th Sept. If the weather is bad on that day, she will come on 23rd Sept. instead. She will take photographs of all children present, but if your child does not come in on a Monday, you are welcome to bring them just for the photograph. You may also want to bring younger siblings in to do a photo together, but please stay with them and come as early as you can after 9.15am. More details are on the back of this newsletter. PARENT HELPERS We always welcome parent helpers and there is a rota for parent helpers in the lobby, so we can spread out our help evenly – it is more useful to have one person each day, than two or three on the same day. I would suggest, however, that those of you whose children are new to pre-school don’t volunteer until after half term, so we can be sure your children have settled in properly without you! We also welcome grandparents, childminders and any other carers. PRE-SCHOOL COMMITTEE The committee will meet on Tuesday 20th September at the Village Hall at 8pm. If you think you might be interested in joining, or are just interested in what goes on, please do come along. We will need to elect new committee members at the AGM on Wednesday 12th October, at 12 noon (please note change of date) so this first meeting is a good opportunity to see what is involved. KEYWORKER GROUPS Each child has been allocated a keyworker and is in a colour group with other children of a similar age. Your child is in *** group and the keyworker is ***. She will be responsible for keeping the folder up to date and would welcome any input you have into that. For example, you may see your child doing something interesting at home, or they may comment about the things they have been doing at pre-school in a way which shows that they have absorbed the learning. We would like to know about all these things, as well as what you think they are good at and what they need to work on. Remember, you are their main teachers at this stage and have much more impact than we do. So please talk to, listen to, and engage with your child at every opportunity. Your child’s keyworker will introduce herself to you this week. Please talk to her about anything to do with your child at any time. Pick up and drop off times are a good time for an informal chat, but we can talk in private if you need to and we encourage you to make an appointment with us if you’d like to discuss their progress at any point. I am attaching a form to request a private interview, which you can keep until you need it. We have formal parent interviews in March, but appreciate that is a long time to wait for feedback. For parents of new children you may like to make an appointment after a month or two to talk to their keyworker about progress, how they have settled and any issues you may have. CLOTHES Please do not bring your children to pre-school in their best clothes – we use aprons but they can still get dirty and wet! Please supply a change if your child is likely to have toileting accidents, in a named bag (not a carrier bag because of danger of suffocation) and make the name prominent. Please also bring suitable clothes for going outside – waterproofs and wellies (named!) if it’s wet, and apply suncream and bring hats (named!) if it’s sunny, as we always go out into the garden. FEES Those whose children were born after 31st August 2008 will find an invoice attached to this newsletter, which details how much you need to pay for the term. You do not have to pay it all at once, but can pay by half term, or less if you need to. The government will pay your fees from the term after the one in which your child turns three. The cut off for next term is 31st December 2008 and for the Easter term it’s 31st March 2009. SNACK DONATION ENVELOPES Please find attached an envelope in which we would be extremely grateful if you could put a donation towards the costs of buying cooking ingredients and snacks for the children. This helps us enormously to keep our running costs manageable (many pre-schools don’t do cookery every week), but it is entirely voluntary. Donation envelopes can be put in the special marked box on the parents’ table. Thank you for your generosity. CAR PARK Some parents have suggested that we politely ask you to reverse into car park spaces rather than driving in forwards and reversing out. This is because the car park gets very busy and coming out of a space forwards gives you more chance of seeing properly and avoiding children! Please take great care in the car park. THANKS Thank you very much to those people who took equipment home to wash at the end of last term. It was a big job and we needed all your help! Also a huge thank you to Louise Kent, Linda McBlane, Kristy Corse and Tasha Bowler who came to spring clean the village hall over the summer. It was hard work and a huge job and we shifted an incredible amount of dirt! The Village Hall Committee is very grateful to us for doing this. Thank you. NESTLE BOX TOPS FOR BOOKS TOKENS We are going to try collecting these tokens this year, to get some free books for the pre-school, so if you eat any Nestle cereals please cut out and keep the tokens for us. SUGGESTIONS & COMPLAINTS We love hearing your suggestions for improvements, so please feel free to chat to us any time. There is a suggestions box on the parents’ table if you prefer to do this anonymously. Any complaints or concerns regarding pre-school should be raised with the leader or chair. If this does not prove satisfactory you can contact Ofsted directly on 0300 123 1231. CHANGES Please remember to tell us immediately about any changes –address or contact numbers (including mobiles), health, personal or general circumstances that may affect your child. This includes parents splitting up. It’s surprising how often people forget, until we need to contact you urgently! Remember, we also need to know if your child has had any accidents at home, has any marks or bruises on their body, or has had any emotional trauma such as pet or granny dying etc. This helps to explain changes in behaviour. There is a form for you to note down such things in the lobby.
TERM DATES I have given out term dates for this year already, but in case you missed them: Autumn Term 2011 Mon 5th Sept - Fri 16th December Half Term: 24th - 28th October Spring Term 2012 Wed 4th Jan – Fri 30th March Half Term: 13th - 17th Feb Summer Term 2012 Mon 16th April – Wed 18th July Half Term: 4th – 8th June
DATES FOR YOUR DIARY Thursday 15th September Committee drinks evening 8pm, Lions of Bledlow Monday 19th September Photographer coming to pre-school. Tuesday 20th September Pre-school committee meeting 8pm. Wednesday 12th October AGM 12 noon, Village Hall. Creche available! 24th-28th October Half term Sunday 11th December Nativity Play Friday 16th December Xmas party End of term
July 2011 Newsletter Yet again, we are rapidly approaching the end of another school year. We break up on 15th July. This year 18 children are leaving us to go to school. We’ll miss every one of them; they are all lovely in their unique ways and their parents have become good friends as well. It’s a sad time for us…but we have lots of fun lined up before then. SPORTS DAY We have decided to go ahead with Sports Day on the last day of term, Friday 15th July. It makes a lovely end to the term and hopefully those who have children at Bledlow Ridge School will be able to get a partner or grandparent to attend one and hotfoot it down to Bledlow straight afterwards! Many of you will be used to the routine by now. We will start a bit later than usual (10am but if you need to drop children off earlier, that’s fine) and all parents, carers and younger siblings and any other relatives or friends you want to bring are welcome to stay. The races will start at 10.15am. There will be a set of races for the pre-school children, followed by races for siblings, mothers or female carers and for the men! There is even a staff race so the children can all laugh at us! After the races we will have a picnic for everyone – not just the children, so please tuck in! We ask everyone to bring a plate of something to share and a list has been put on the parents’ table on which you can choose what to bring. It’s not an exhaustive list – you can bring anything you like, but please avoid meat products, nuts and fish. After the picnic we will hold the end of year presentations for the children. Those who are leaving are given their folders, a small gift from us and their reports and many of the adults try not to cry! Please remember that this is a fun event to celebrate the end of the school year and some children may not have the confidence to take part in some of the races. We are happy for them to sit out, or race with a member of staff or a parent. This year it will be a Royal Sports Day, as there have been so many Royal events, so the staff will all be dressing up and there will be a royal slant to our races. HAS ANYONE GOT ACCESS TO A TUG OF WAR ROPE THAT WE CAN BORROW? I have had a request to do a DVD of the sports day action again, so that people can have a memento. My husband says he is happy to do the filming, but our video camera is a bit outdated and it might be better if I borrow a better one. Has anyone got one they’d be prepared to lend? I will put a list on the parents’ table so you can sign up if you want a copy at £4 each. Could I suggest that you car share wherever possible on sports day, as the car park might get quite full. Please do not leave your car on the access road. The residents of Ridgeway Meads get understandably annoyed, as it’s their road and emergency access may be required at any time. If you are within walking or cycling distance, please try to leave the car at home. Thank you. COMMITTEE I would like to take this opportunity to thank those members of the committee whose children will be leaving this July. We really appreciate the work the committee does for us, if it wasn’t for you we would not be able to exist in our current form. The committee helps by organising fund raising events as well as by helping with all the administration, which I could never do on my own and for which we could not afford to pay someone! So a huge thank you to: Kate McFadden Christine Swindells Kate Walker Trisha Aplin Zoe Cartell Baker Thankfully, the rest of the committee will be with us for another year (some with a short break until their second child starts pre-school). The next committee meeting is on Tuesday 20th September in the village hall starting at 8 pm. Our AGM, at which the new committee is elected, will be on Tuesday 11th October at noon in the village hall. Staff will look after your children in the main hall while we have a short meeting to report on the year and elect or re-elect committee members. Of course, it is not just the committee members who help us. We get lots of support in a million other ways, so I would like to thank all of you and wish those who are leaving all the very best. I hope you will stay in touch and carry on coming to our events. It’s lovely to see you at Fun Day, Quiz Night etc and marvel at how the children have grown since they left us! NEW DEPUTY! Because Jackie is sadly leaving at the end of term we have taken the opportunity to recruit a deputy who can help me with some of the admin and take on some of my responsibilities. She is a lovely and very well qualified lady called Kerry Bowers. She impressed us all at interview and we are very excited about her starting. SUPERMARKET VOUCHERS Thank you for collecting these. We got lots. With the Tesco’s vouchers I have ordered squidgy sparkly numbers and letters, a child sized computer mouse, a toy cash register with a calculator and various other small bits and bobs. From Sainsbury’s I think I will order a little scooter thing that you make go along by wiggling the handlebars. It looks fun! All for free!! Thank you very much to Nikki Simpson for organising all of this again for us. HOURS AND LUNCH CLUBS NEXT TERM We have spent a lot of time consulting with parents and agonising over how to run lunch clubs and/or extending the hours into the afternoons next term. We have decided to offer two extended lunch clubs until 2.15pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays. After Christmas, if the demand is there, we will add a Wednesday. This will allow children to have a five hour session twice a week and hopefully will help those parents who need to do some work or longer projects. The cost will be £8 for the two hour session from 12.15-2.15pm. CLEANING TOYS Every summer we clean every single item of our equipment. There is a lot! This year we can’t do a cleaning day when we break up because the hall floor is being sanded and re-varnished, so we are hoping that you can help by taking a box or two of toys home to clean over the next two weeks. There are plenty of things that need to be put in a washing machine or dishwasher. They need to be thoroughly dried or they go mouldy! I will put things out in the lobby each day and hope that you can take some away. Obviously the staff will do lots too, but you’d be amazed how much there is. We are very grateful for the help you all give us in this way. CLEANING THE VILLAGE HALL The village hall committee has asked me and a lady from the WI to jointly organise a day in the summer when we can give the village hall a spring clean. The date of this has been changed from Sat 20th August to Tuesday 9th August as people are understandably reluctant to give up a Saturday. I will be there all day from 10am. If you could come in for some or all of the day I’d be hugely grateful. Cleaning products, cloths and refreshments will be provided – just bring your rubber gloves! If you can help, please let me know. LOST BODYWARMER One of our children has lost a body warmer, which was in the cloakroom cupboard in the morning and was not there at pick up time. I’m sure someone inadvertently took it home, thinking it was theirs. It’s pink, so could all the parents of girls please check at home as she is missing it very much. Thank you. DIARY DATES Friday 15th July End of term, Sports Day, Leavers Ceremony and picnic. Tuesday 9th August Cleaning day Monday 5th September Pre-school re-opens Tuesday 20th September Committee meeting, 8pm, Tuesday 11th October AGM, 12 noon, Village Hall. Saturday 12th November Quiz Night Saturday 17th March 2012 Fun Day! |
