Woodfield Nest
Pre-School & Out Of School Club
Pre-School
"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world"
- Nelson Mandela
Who is our Pre-School for?
When can you start?
The Woodfield Nest Pre-School is open to all 3 & 4 year old children. Children can start from their third birthday. We operate a first-come, first-served policy. The Early Years Funding Entitlement begins from the January, April or September after their birthday.
Who can attend?
Every child is unique, and all are welcome. Our staff are training to support children with any additional needs, we support all children and their familes.
When we are open?
Pre-School only sessions are from 9.05am to 3.05pm Monday to Friday, Term time only.
Morning sessions - 9.05am to 12.05pm. Afternoon sessions - 12.05pm to 3.05pm. You can use your 15 or 30 hours Early Years Entitlement during these hours.
We also offer wraparound Hours - Breakfast Club begins at 7.30am and After School Club runs up to 6.00pm. These sessions are chargeable.
How do I enrol my child?
If you wish your child to join us, then please complete the waiting list form below and send the form back by emailing to: itsfun@woodfieldnest.co.uk
What activities do we do?
At Pre-School we support your child with everything they need to enable them to successfully transition into school. We follow the Early Years Foundation Stage Guidance to promote learning through play.
The Prime Areas of Learning are:
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Personal, social and emotional development
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Physical development
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Communication and language
The Specific Areas of Learning are:
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Literacy
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Mathematics
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Understanding the world
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Expressive arts and design
Some things your children get up to throughout their day
Independence
A huge part of our learning is independence. You will hear your children talk about tidy up time, and they probably do it better here than at home. Our children pour their own drinks at snack time and love washing up their plates and cups. They chop and cook and often try foods they ‘don’t like’ if they’ve prepared them themselves.
Outdoors
Outside, we have a huge sandpit, a mud kitchen, raised vegetable beds where children plant seeds and grow herbs and vegetables that they then get to chop and taste. On the school fields adjacent to us we hold our sports day, and as we are in the countryside, we often go on nature walks to collect sticks and leaves and explore the nature around us.
Term Topic
Each term we select a book, which gives us a theme or topic, reading and exploring every aspect of the story with the children, for example 'The Gingerbread Man'. We will use soft toys and displays to promote the story; we sing the Gingerbread Man song together; the children also dress up and act out the characters; we enjoy cooking and decorating our very own gingerbread men and we explore what ginger is and where it comes from. We also encourage each child to develop their own ideas and imagination around the topic.
Role Play
The children love dressing up and use their imagination to role play ‘what I want to be when I grow up’, act out different members of the family in the home corner or pretend to be different animals – roaring and meowing as they play. We welcome visits from local professionals or parents with interesting jobs – farmers, police, vets and especially the fire engine.
Making
We love to get creative at The Nest and make a lot of fun things. Anything that your child makes, creates and brings home will be their own work. We encourage messy play exploring different materials and textures and seeing how each material reacts - pouring water, making slime, creating playdough shapes, building sand sculptures and digging in mud. Using all these materials to ‘mark make’ – mark making isn’t just writing or painting, we encourage children to make marks in all the materials that we play with, letter forming is lovely in rice or sand for example.
Singing
Every day we sing together. Songs that fit with our book or theme, songs with actions, songs that the children know from home or we learn new songs. Singing helps develop rhythm and speech, do actions, play musical instruments or dance to our songs. When we are singing the children learn Makaton signs.
The World
We look at different aspects of the world, understanding countries children are from, sampling different foods and thinking about the habitats of animals. We enjoy learning about and celebrating different cultures and festivities such as Chinese New Year and Diwali.
Living Eggs
Each Spring we welcome incubated ‘living eggs’ and watch the chicks hatch, the children find this fascinating to see real life form and grow, and explore a child’s emotional development, to talk about caring for the chicks to make them safe, or possible sadness if an egg doesn’t hatch or a chick dies.
Communication
Each child has a personalised snack mat, with pictures of family members, pets, favourite toys or tv/film characters, that we make when a child joins us. This not only acts as a point of familiarity which helps with the settling in period, but also provides a great talking point over lunch or snack, encouraging communication with each other, building social skills and friendships.
Transition To School
Being on the School site, we can help prepare the children in the transition to school. We liaise with the Infants a lot. For our Pre-Schoolers going to Cam Woodfields Infants School they get to meet their new reception teacher before starting school. Children learn to put on shoes and wellies independently. They are encouraged to put on their own coats, and learn to do up their zips. They are encouraged to become toilet trained, if needed. Child sit with other children at the tables to eat snack and lunch. They are encouraged to line up outside when coming in from the end of play time. These are just a few of the things we do to help them get ready for school.
