Nursery & Pre-school

Welcome to our Pre-School Page. Please take a tour through our setting photos below… We are so lucky to be based in a stunning rural setting. Our areas of play are not limited to our classroom. We love to explore throughout the whole environment.

Intent for our EYFS

We welcome you in for visit days that can be arranged at your convenience via our school bursar. All visits are an extremely important part of the induction process to aid a calm and smooth transition where we will be able to learn everything we need to know to become a partner in your child’s learning and development. If you decide to send you child to our setting, we will arrange a parent consultation for you to meet with staff and your child’s key worker in order to learn as much as we can about your child. You are your child’s first and foremost educator and you know your child better than anyone possibly could. We look forward to working with you and your child!

About our Nursery and Pre-School

Pre-School

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We are pleased to welcome you to our Nursery and Pre-School. St.Francis’ Hill Chapel Pre-School opened in 2016 and we are pleased to have a mixture of 2, 3 and 4 year olds. We are based in the building of St.Francis’ Catholic Primary School, nestled in the rolling hills of Goosnargh, Preston.

In our Pre-School, our aim is to build on what the children already know and can do. We aim to offer high quality activities that will extend and ignite learning and promote development.

We follow the ‘Early Years Foundation Stage’ curriculum and we are committed and experienced practitioners who have a sound understanding about how young children learn and grow.

We strive to ensure that each and every child is happy, self-motivated, safe and relaxed whilst in our care.

We are ‘laying the foundations’ for successful and happy learning throughout your child’s school life and beyond. We are teaching your child about how to learn and we want them to know that learning is exciting and fun! We have planning meetings with the children to take into account their ever changing interests and we record your children’s ideas and interests in a big book of planning. Our activities are carefully planned to help your child to develop as a happy whole person – as someone who will love to learn and love themselves and others.

We plan together in a ‘PLOD’ book. This stands for ‘Possible Lines of Development.’

When an interest arises, we brainstorm together things we would like to make, do and learn around that topic. This keeps your child interested, motivated and develops an excitement of learning. You can come into Pre-School to have a look at these and can also see our floor books, which are a creative record of their work and play.

Putting Principles into Practice!

A Unique Child:

Every child is a competent learner from birth who can be resilient, capable, confident and self-assured. We embrace your child’s unique personalities and welcome difference.

Positive Relationships:

Children learn to be strong and independent from a base of loving and secure relationships with parents and/or a key person.

Enabling Environments:

The environment plays a key role in supporting and extending children’s development and learning. Every area in class is an area for our children to explore and develop their skills, testing, using and applying their existing knowledge to find out more.

Learning and Development:

Children develop and learn in different ways and at different rates and all areas of Learning and Development are equally important and inter-connected. Your child will have a ‘learning journey’ file to store and track all of these precious moments.
The ‘characteristics of effective learning’ are observed and fostered to support your child’s development and daily diaries will be sent home. You will read about all of the anecdotes and we will write down the comical sayings and adventures they have that you will want to cherish… with pictures included!

The EYFS curriculum is based on seven areas of learning:

Personal, Social and Emotional Development.
Communication and Language.
Physical Development.
Literacy.
Mathematics.
Understanding the World.
Expressive Arts and Design.

Prime Areas

Personal, Social and Emotional Development: Self -confidence and self- awareness, Managing feelings and behaviour and Making relationships.
Physical Development: Moving and Handling and Health and Self Care.
Communication and Language: Listening and attention, Speaking and Understanding.

Specific Areas

Literacy: Reading and Writing.
Mathematics: Number and Shape, Space and Measures.
Understanding of the world: People and Communities, The World and Technology.
Expressive Art & Design: Exploring and using media and materials and Being Imaginative.

Prospectus

Please feel free to download a copy of our Prospectus. You can also come into school to collect one free of charge.

You are always given a warm welcome when you visit our school-come and have a look around!

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The EYFS curriculum is based on seven areas of learning:

Personal, Social and Emotional Development.
Communication and Language.
Physical Development.
Literacy.
Mathematics.
Understanding the World.
Expressive Arts and Design.

Prime Areas:

Personal, Social and Emotional Development: Self -confidence and self- awareness, Managing feelings and behaviour and Making relationships.
Physical Development: Moving and Handling and Health and Self Care.
Communication and Language: Listening and attention, Speaking and Understanding.

Specific Areas:

Literacy: Reading and Writing.
Mathematics: Number and Shape, Space and Measures.
Understanding of the world: People and Communities, The World and Technology.
Expressive Art & Design: Exploring and using media and materials and Being Imaginative.

Communication & Language

The development of children’s spoken language underpins all seven areas of learning and development.

Children’s back-and-forth interactions from an early age form the foundations for language and cognitive development.

The number and quality of the conversations they have with adults and peers throughout the day in a language-rich environment is crucial.

By commenting on what children are interested in or doing, and echoing back what they say with new vocabulary added, practitioners will build children’s language effectively.

Reading frequently to children, and engaging them actively in stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems, and then providing them with extensive opportunities to use and embed new words in a range of contexts, will give children the opportunity to thrive.

Through conversation, story-telling and role play, where children share their ideas with support and modelling from their teacher, and sensitive questioning that invites them to elaborate, children become comfortable using a rich range of vocabulary and language structures.

Speech & language game – modelling speech and practicing our pronunciation.

Carpet time - enjoying stories and a mini beast quiz.

Lots of opportunity for conversation and questions on our walks… expanding our vocabulary and extending our who, why, what, where and when questions

Personal, Social & Emotional Development

Children’s personal, social and emotional development (PSED) is crucial for children to lead healthy and happy lives, and is fundamental to their cognitive development.

Underpinning their personal development are the important attachments that shape their social world.

Strong, warm and supportive relationships with adults enable children to learn how to understand their own feelings and those of others.

Children should be supported to manage emotions, develop a positive sense of self, set themselves simple goals, have confidence in their own abilities, to persist and wait for what they want and direct attention as necessary.

Through adult modelling and guidance, they will learn how to look after their bodies, including healthy eating, and manage personal needs independently.

Through supported interaction with other children they learn how to make good friendships, co-operate and resolve conflicts peaceably.

These attributes will provide a secure platform from which children can achieve at school and in later life.

Physical Development

Physical activity is vital in children’s all-round development, enabling them to pursue happy, healthy and active lives.

Gross and fine motor experiences develop incrementally throughout early childhood, starting with sensory explorations and the development of a child’s strength, co-ordination and positional awareness through tummy time, crawling and play movement with both objects and adults.

By creating games and providing opportunities for play both indoors and outdoors, adults can support children to develop their core strength, stability, balance, spatial awareness, co-ordination and agility.

Gross motor skills provide the foundation for developing healthy bodies and social and emotional well-being.

Fine motor control and precision helps with hand-eye co-ordination which is later linked to early literacy.

Repeated and varied opportunities to explore and play with small world activities, puzzles, arts and crafts and the practise of using small tools, with feedback and support from adults, allow children to develop proficiency, control and confidence.

Literacy

It is crucial for children to develop a life-long love of reading. Reading consists of two dimensions: language comprehension and word reading.

Language comprehension (necessary for both reading and writing) starts from birth.

It only develops when adults talk with children about the world around them and the books (stories and non-fiction) they read with them, and enjoy rhymes, poems and songs together.

Skilled word reading, taught later, involves both the speedy working out of the pronunciation of unfamiliar printed words (decoding) and the speedy recognition of familiar printed words.

Writing involves transcription (spelling and handwriting) and composition (articulating ideas and structuring them in speech, before writing).

Mathematics

Developing a strong grounding in number is essential so that all children develop the necessary building blocks to excel mathematically.

Children should be able to count confidently, develop a deep understanding of the numbers to 10, the relationships between them and the patterns within those numbers.

By providing frequent and varied opportunities to build and apply this understanding – such as using manipulatives, including small pebbles and tens frames for organising counting – children will develop a secure base of knowledge and vocabulary from which mastery of mathematics is built.

In addition, it is important that the curriculum includes rich opportunities for children to develop their spatial reasoning skills across all areas of mathematics including shape, space and measures.

It is important that children develop positive attitudes and interests in mathematics, look for patterns and relationships, spot connections, ‘have a go’, talk to adults and peers about what they notice and not be afraid to make mistakes.

We are looking at symmetry in our mini beast topic. The children created symmetrical butterflies.

Understanding The World

Understanding the world involves guiding children to make sense of their physical world and their community. The frequency and range of children’s personal experiences increases their knowledge and sense of the world around them – from visiting parks, libraries and museums to meeting important members of society such as police officers, nurses and firefighters.

In addition, listening to a broad selection of stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems will foster their understanding of our culturally, socially, technologically and ecologically diverse world.

As well as building important knowledge, this extends their familiarity with words that support understanding across domains.

Enriching and widening children’s vocabulary will support later reading comprehension.

The children found tree roots in the ground. We talked about how the tree gets water, the roots of the tree and how they search for water. The children then made a nest for the birds using sticks, twigs, grass and flowers.

We explored water and how we could move the pipes in different ways to make different routes for the water. We talked about how the watering cans got heavier once the children have filled them with water and the children changed the pipes to explore different outcomes.

We checked on our frog spawn and noticed different mini beasts that lived in or next to the Ryll.

Today, Mrs Eccles brought 6 Quail chicks for us to meet. We looked at what they look like when they are fully grown, had a stroke and the children asked some great questions about what they eat, how big they grow and how old they are.

We have planted peas, Broad beans and miniature French beans in our garden. We will observe them and record their growth and changes. We have also put one of each bean into a plastic folder on our window so we can see how they grow.

Expressive Arts & Design

The development of children’s artistic and cultural awareness supports their imagination and creativity.

It is important that children have regular opportunities to engage with the arts, enabling them to explore and play with a wide range of media and materials.

The quality and variety of what children see, hear and participate in is crucial for developing their understanding, self-expression, vocabulary and ability to communicate through the arts.

The frequency, repetition and depth of their experiences are fundamental to their progress in interpreting and appreciating what they hear, respond to and observe.

Welcome to Pre-School. Please take a tour through our setting. We are so lucky to be based in a stunning rural setting. Our areas of play are not limited to our classroom. We love to explore throughout the whole environment, including:

The Land of Pure Imagination – our specialist EYFS outdoor area which has its very own dinosaur hill, rill, mud pit, mud kitchen, small world areas, water play, sand play, ride on toys, car wash, deconstructed construction area, art area and so much more.
Our Millennium walk forest school area – where we have camp fires, listen to stories, play in the orchard, build dens, collect sticks, apples and anything nature, outdoor natural art, swing on the rope swing, climb and so much more.
Our Trim Trail – where we can use our gross motor skills to climb, jump, balance and make our way around the obstacle course.
The climbing frame – where we can climb, slide, hide and play.
The school playground – where we run, jump, march, play ball games, ride bikes and so much more.
The school field – where we play with our parachute, run, chase, walk, play games and so much more.
Our very own play area – which is an extension of our classroom. Covered by a wonderful structure donated and built by the fantastic Preston North Rotary. It provides year round outdoor play which not only protects our resources but it gives all children equal opportunists to be outside as much as they like. We have our crooked house, our sand pit, water wall and water play, construction area, story corner, adventure bench, art area and small world play.
Our inside play area – which is decorated with displays of the seven areas of development – celebrating the children’s achievements. We have our sleep/relax area, our curiosity area which changes as to our children’s interests and our role play area to fuel their imaginations with fancy dress, a real phone and magazines. We love our art corner which celebrates the children’s art as well as inspiring each other to create the next masterpiece. Our small world area is very popular with mini mii figures of the children and small world boxes to appeal to everyone’s interests. The children love our indoor tepee, with log cushions and playing with our water cascade. Our story corner has comfy chairs for snuggling to enjoy our favorite books, puzzles, puppets and an inviting writing area. We have our small parts play which the children love to explore both with and without playdoh’, our science exploring area with magnifying glasses, bug searching equipment and our task tables which cater for various activities of choice. At the center is our carpet area, which is where fascination, curiosity and confidence blooms. We enjoys stories, songs, talks and this is where children’s ideas grow.

Pre-School Uniform

You can buy Pre-School jumpers from Mary Frances in Longridge. Children will need a green Pre-School jumper and a white polo-shirt (plain without logo) to wear underneath. Other clothes will be of own choice from home, including footwear.

We provide waterproof Rukka suits for your children, but if you would like to bring your own that’s welcomed. We also ask children to bring a personal pair of wellies in for your child, these will all be kept within Pre-School.

Please provide a labelled water bottle that can be sent into Pre-School daily. Children should have water only in their bottles. No juice is permitted.

Please make sure you dress your child for the weather- we are always outside! During summer, your child should wear a high factor all day suncream which is applied before their session. We do not reapply suncream within setting but we do provide adequate shade.

Please provide a lever arch file for your child’s learning journey.

If your child is in nappies, please provide enough nappies and wipes for their session. Pull ups are only to be used if your child is toilet training, this reduces the need to fully undress the child and reduces nappy changing time.

Nursery & Pre-school