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Why World Book Day? What’s it all about at Pollington Preschool?

 

WE love WORLD BOOK DAY so much so that we’ve had a full week of immersing ourselves in our favourite story- this year our tribe have gone elephant crazy and looked at everyone’s favourite patchwork elephant Elmer! All our children have been surrounded by love and warmth through colourful activity, exploring the many concepts in the story through play.

World Book Day can often be misunderstood as a parent’s opportunity to showcase their own ability for their child to come dressed in the best costume.  Parental pressure to perform can often showcase some of the most amazing costume efforts from home, so a big well done to those parents!  However, whether a homemade costume where little hands have helped or shop bought it doesn’t really matter for the children as the importance of experience is further deep rooted as they begin to immerse themselves in the character of a favourite story.  The opportunity to be someone or something different is exciting!

By dressing up, children explore feelings of belonging and culture, a sense of community envelopes them as they participate in a day of celebration together. The opportunity to dress up and explore feelings of pride, sometimes shyness and even embarrassment gives the children a truly unique experience and for most children year on year this grows into something special as they begin to relish preparations for the day, excitedly planning who they want to be the next year. Their opportunity of creative growth is beginning. 

Being able to participate and identify as a character enables the children to explore their imaginations and begin to make links creatively, super important for creative thinking and writing and being able to identify and understand parts of their own personality traits with fictional and non-fictional characters. 

This year we have focused our world book week with the use of props and physical development.  We didn’t ask our children to dress up specifically as we didn’t want to put our families under pressure and often for very young children they refuse to wear the outfits anyway.  However, many of our children have enjoyed wearing bright colours and our community feeling began right here, as we made links together between the similar colours everyone was wearing and the patchwork elephant.

Our football class with KIXX has supported our physical development this week, as links to early handwriting are secured in good physical development.  The use of props in our story telling support the children in their imaginative narratives, as they see the characters in the book come to life. Making coloured paper clip chains have supported problem solving and early number and we have done so much more.

It is fun for young children to dress up but what world book day really brings is the community together.

We find our own place in the community and begin to understand how we are all truly unique on days like these-just like Elmer!

 

 

First Aid Training Completed For All!!

 As such a forward facing profession you could be forgiven for not understanding the hard work and dedication that goes on behind the scenes by our tribe. Every term we sit and make plans that support elements of safeguarding, staff development and children's development and working with you guys parents to support our goals in supporting all children to make the best progress.  Many of these include having high expectations for our staff team.

Did you know that we follow the Early Years Foundation stage guidance, which gives us a set of values that we can work towards and inform our practice. Some of these values are statutory and others are a well-could be good practice to do so situation. 

One of these values is regarding First Aid Training.  Did you know it is only statutory to have one qualified first aider on the premises at any one time? 

Well not at Pollington Preschool, our educators and tribe are all expected to complete a 12 hour Paediatric first aid course as soon as they join our team- woo hooo!!  The health and well-being of our children is paramount at all times and we believe that all of our tribe hold this life saving qualification.  All our educators are qualified to deal with accidents and injuries and manage the associated reporting procedures to safeguard the children whilst they come to play.

So we are proud to announce that in November,  the second group of our educators completed Paediatric First Aid Refresher training, with PROFirst Aid Training.

Congratulations and thank you to our dedicated team of Educators on your achievement!!

 

Environmental Changes and Cosy Spaces

A well-thought out children's environment is always lovely to see, whether it is colourful and organised or natural and calm it doesn't matter as long as the children can make their choices of play, to build upon what's there as instruments of their learning fascinations.  Walking into our preschool is always filled with joy and delight for so many and today, it was lovely to see that some of the tribe had been in over the weekend and had transformed some of their cosy spaces. 

Once upon a time, early years trainers used to say that a change in the environment was all very distracting and confusing for the children. Often using the example of how frustrating it is when you go to the supermarket and the products on the aisles have changed, dismayed at the amount of time it takes to complete your shop after this transformation until you get to know the 'new' layout- this is what the children would feel also. For many years, thoughts about truths of this in the preschool environment and the negative impact have been considered however, what about the positive effects? After years of reflecting with our tribe it has forced considerations of this frustration and enable us to find a positive shift in opinions for us.

Read more: Environmental Changes and Cosy Spaces

A Fond Farewell to Our Sparkly Francesca

Well, it’s the end of an era as tomorrow we say our fond farewells to our wonderful Cesca!  Cesca originally started with us about five years ago as a newly qualified practitioner working towards a level III in childcare and after much determination and a lot of hard work mixed in with a few sparkles along the way she will leave us tomorrow as a graduate, ready to spread her magic with a large helping of the Pollington Preschool way in her next adventures.

At Pollington Preschool, we are committed to providing the very best early years start for all of the children that come through our door but this all depends on the experiences that they are given from the wonderful adults who they come into contact with here.

This is where we invest, this is where we provide the opportunities for our tribe in setting to expand upon knowledge bases and encourage self-development to support our vision and ethos.

Read more: A Fond Farewell to Our Sparkly Francesca

Into the Unknown?

 Today is a day that we at preschool dread.  Every year it gets harder and harder to let our ‘Adventurer’s’ leave our place to belong.  We spend all year having the MOST exciting adventures together in anticipation of this transition time. We grow and learn together as we prepare to ultimately watch them get ready to set sail ‘into the unknown’ and their next set of adventures.  Each and every-one of them leaving an imprint on our hearts.   

As a staff team we work tirelessly to ensure that every day is a new adventure and then worry that ‘we’ are not ready to wave our goodbyes. Usually this final term is jam packed full of events to cement everlasting memories for our children that will hopefully last a lifetime…
…this year it is particularly difficult as our tribe feel cheated by all the missed time together that the last few months has brought and with it worries- are the children ready?

As a lead and manager,  I am passionate about legacy and ensuring that we leave the right ‘footprints’ in the heart of our children, it does sound a little contrived but the simple fact is that WE as early years educators have one of the most important jobs alongside our children’s parents. 
It is usually at this time of year that we get to see the impact of our work through the reams of data, the transition meetings with local schools and most importantly from the children themselves as we measure their developmental changes and the impact that we have had.
However, as I watch these amazing Adventurer’s confidently walk through our doors for their final sessions, even after having such a large gap in their time spent with us- I realize the true impact that we have had. 

Read More...Into the Unknown?

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Pollington Preschool

Pollington Preschool
Balne Moor Road
Pollington
DN14 0DZ

Telephone : 01405 869498
Email : info@pollingtonpreschool.com
Registered Charity No: 1046836

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