We are a charity providing a pre-school for children aged 2 - 5 years and a Breakfast club and After school club for children aged 2 -11 years. We are located in Aldington on Aldington Primary School site but are independent from the school. We accept children from Aldington and the surrounding villages and Ashford.
We are based in a modular building set within the school grounds. We have a ramp as well as steps for access.
We have two rooms for children. One is for two year olds and the other for three and four year olds. We have a separate outside area for each room and a garden area. We also have access to the facilities within school grounds e.g. school field and Trim Trail.
| Day | Opening Time | Closing Time |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | 09:00 | 15:00 |
| Tuesday | 09.00 | 15.00 |
| Wednesday | 09.00 | 15.00 |
| Thursday | 09.00 | 15.00 |
| Friday | 09.00 | 15.00 |
| Amount | Cost Type |
|---|---|
| £16.80 (pre-school) | Per session |
We are able to provide care and education for children with Special Educational Needs or Disability. Please see Local Offer.
We offer the 30 hours Free Early Education. This will be for pre-school only (9am-3pm Monday to Friday - term time only)
PLease see our Special Needs Support below.
Before your child starts at pre-school, you will be offered two 'stay and play' sessions. This enables everyone to begin to get to know one another. During the visit, you will be able to inform us about your child’s abilities, needs and interests and any concerns that you may have. We can then ensure that we have everything in place before your child formally starts with us.
Your child will have a key person who will assess their starting points in line with a document called Development Matters. The key person will continue to assess your child’s development through observations and by tracking progress made.
We undertake the completion of a Progress Check at 2 which is a statutory assessment. Key persons also complete regular Speech and Language screening checks to identify any delay in this area.
It is through these processes that we are able to identify any additional needs or Special Educational Needs. We can then plan your child’s next steps and put in place any additional support if needed.
We value the partnership between key persons and families. We aim to work together with you so that we can support your family at pre-school and at home.
During stay and play sessions, we will explain the key person role in detail. She will be supporting your child's learning, assessing their development and planning the next steps to further their progress. Observations and next steps for learning can be readily accessed through an online learning journal. You are able to contribute to this record. We provide a progress record every other term.
We hold parent's meetings which enable you to talk with your child's key person about progress and any concerns. You are also able to talk to us at any time including drop off and collection times.
The Progress Check at 2 is a document completed by parents and practitioners. We will arrange an appointment with you so that we can work on this together.
Likewise, If your child needs further support, we develop Targeted Plans or Personalised Plans to work on particular areas along with you. These will be overseen by the manager and the Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator and reviewed regularly.
The EYFS is an educational framework which we use to develop your child’s learning. We observe and assess and plan for your child in line with this framework. We have a language rich environment where language is tailored to meet children’s understanding. We use some basic Makaton signing routinely for all children along with visual supports. We will expand on these according to your child’s needs. We use the Early Talk Boost programme to further children’s communication and language where there are communication difficulties.
We use small group activities to promote children’s confidence and well-being. This can also help your child to feel included and encourages the formation of friendships between children and good relationships with staff.
We regularly assess and make changes to the pre-school environment both indoors and outside to ensure that we meet children’s needs. This could be changes to the layout of the rooms or environmental factors that may have a sensory impact on children.
We have a wide range of resources available which we can use to target your child’s stage of development and further their learning.
We make links with and seek advice from outside professionals to support individual children and will make changes to the environment or curriculum following this.
All our staff trained in early years practice and some of our more experienced staff have received training in supporting children with speech and language delay including Language for Learning training, Autism Spectrum Disorder and Down Syndrome. Training is always ongoing to further staff knowledge and understanding. We will undertake specific training in order to support a child as appropriate.
We use the Best Practice Guidance document written by the Specialist Teaching and Learning Service to support our teaching. This sets out a range of teaching strategies that can be used to support children.
We use a graduated approach to support children. Targeted Plans are put into place when your child needed extra support. These will give small targeted steps to further your child's learning. If your child is making little progress through these plans, your child's key person or our SENCo may discuss the need to refer to other services such as speech and language therapy. If required, we will seek your consent to make a referral to the Speech and Language Therapy Service or Specialist Teaching and Learning Service. We will do the latter through a Local Inclusion Team Forum (LIFT) meeting. If the referral is accepted, a specialist teacher would visit your child at pre-school to provide us with additional guidance and make further referrals to other services if needed. If your child begins to receive support from outside agencies, the Targeted Plan will change to a Personalised Plan. We may apply for SENIF to gain funding to meet your child's needs. At all stages, you will be consulted.
Besides following advice from any professionals supporting your child, we use Makaton signing throughout the setting. We use choosing boards following children's interests to support children in making choices of activities and to enable them to express their wishes if they are unable to do so otherwise. We also use 'Now and Next' boards and have a photo visual time table. We do language screening checks and offer Early Talk Boost (Tizzy Time) to support children's confidence when talking and to support their use of language.
Staff undertake training which covers a wide variety of subjects. We will also be attending an Every Child A Talker course, an update on Early Talk Boost and sensory training.
When your child starts with us, we will complete a Progress Check at Two which will be completed with you. This can be shared with your Health Visitor during the Two Year Old Check. We also complete routine Speech and Language checks throughout your child's time with us.
Your child's key person is responsible for assessing and monitoring your child's progress using her detailed observations. These are added to your child's online learning journal (Famly) which you can access at any time and add your comments. You will see a Progress Report completed by your child's key person three times a year which will also outline your child's next steps for learning. We also track children's development at the same time.
We hold Parent's meetings when you can talk with your child's key person about progress at pre-school and at home. These are held during the daytime at a convenient time for you. However, you are welcome to make an appointment to see your child's keyperson at any time.
We complete a Transition Report when your child moves onto another setting or to school.
Through our monitoring of your child's progress, we may assess that your child needs additional support which we will discuss with you.
We are committed to inclusive practice enabling all children to fully take part in our activities. We use our detailed knowledge of your child's development and needs to ensure that our activities are suitable for them and we will adapt activities in order to achieve this. This may include having smaller groups during activities such as story time or support from staff.
We do not have many trips but when we do, staff will always visit first to complete a risk assessment keeping in mind the needs of the children.
We have a ramped or step access into the building. Wide doorways will accommodate a wheelchair as will one of our toilet areas. We have a toilet that can be used by disabled users with a fold down support bar to aid usage. Staff will support children with mobility difficulties as required. We are happy to work with professionals such as Occupational Therapists in order to ensure that we have the correct equipment necessary e.g. specialist chairs.
We complete a transition report about your child's development and interests for the next setting or school. This is a detailed report which we will discuss with you and you are able to add your comments before signing to say that we can send the information on wards.
We work closely with Aldington Primary School and our summer leavers do visits during the summer term. For children who will be going to school elsewhere, we will invite the Reception Class teacher to visit us to see the children in our setting.
During the summer term, we have activities such as P.E. where the children bring in a P.E. kit and dress themselves ready for P.E. Throughout your child's time with us, we promote independence so that he/she has confidence in their self-help skills ready for starting school. We also work on skills such as being able to sit still and actively listen.
We regularly review our practice for effectiveness. Reviewing SEN provision is part of this. Practice is discussed in-house during staff meetings and staff supervisions and we use a range of audit tools for evaluation. Action plans for improvement are put in place and the effectiveness of new actions are assessed. We undertake staff training which enables us to review practice and develop new ideas to evolve our practice. This also ensures that our practice is up-to-date. Our SENCo will evaluate our practice when working with children with SEN.
We review plans with parents such as Targeted Plans and Personalised Plans with parents and work together to develop new ones. Parents are able to say how effective these plans have been and what impact they have had at home. We also send out parent questionnaires.
Please contact the manager, Karina Sellers, for further information or to register for a place please call.
We value parents and carer's comments, both positive ones and also constructive feedback. This enables us to continually improve our service. We have an 'open door' policy where you are able to express your views and you are invited to do so. On a more formal level, we send out questionnaires to find out parent's views on a variety of aspects of our service and you are able to add further comments on other issues. You will be able to add comments via your child's online learning journal. We hold parents meetings twice a year. Although this is a chance to talk to your child's key person about your child's care and education both at home and pre-school, you are welcome to do so at any other time.