What is a day in Saplings like?
Children arrive with a parent or carer and greet Debbie and Marie at the door. This is a chance to handover any important information for the day. Children put their belongings on their pegs, say goodbye to their parent or carer and go off to play with their friends.
A range of activities are set up for the children throughout the morning. Sometimes the whole group is together to work together - an example of this is phonics, where children begin to listen to different sounds around them.
There is also time for play both indoors and outdoors. We follow the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum objectives to keep supporting children's development through play. This means we set up both spaces so there are options for children to access learning in all seven areas of the curriculum. These are: personal, social, & emotional development; communication and language; literacy; mathematics; understanding the world, physical development, and expressive arts and design.
We tailor activities to different themes, such as Under the Sea, or to a specific time of year e.g Christmas or Easter. We also plan by following children's interests to help children to learn. This is supported by the staff in the pre-school team who work alongside children to help them to play & learn.
At 10:00, children have snack which is provided by the school. Children may bring their own snack if they wish. The children eat snack together and then have play time - this can mean some of the older children in Willows class (Reception and Year One) join in.
At 11.45, children go down to the hall for lunch. They are joined by Willows class, and later on by Birch (Year 3&4) and Ash (Year 5&6) class. This helps children to get used to being part of the whole school too.
Children can order a school dinner that is freshly cooked each day in our kitchen - there is a charge for this. Children may also bring their packed lunch if they wish.
After dinner, the children have play time outside.
In the afternoons, children continue their play-based learning both indoors and outdoors. The adults support learning through play and take groups of children to work on activities together, such as counting and writing.
On some days, children do group activities such as baking, gardening and making. Have a look at some of the pictures and our videos to see the types of things we get up to!
At the end of the day, we start getting ready for home time with a story. Parents and carers have a chance to chat with one of the pre-school staff about their child's day.