A Day at Stawley Preschool

Every day is a new adventure at Stawley Pre-school! Learning is child-led, so the children themselves choose their path each day. The outline below is to give you an idea of the way things work.

9.00 

The children start to arrive. They leave their grown ups at the door and go in to hang up their bag and put their lunchbox and drink away.

Children choose what they would like to do. They have free choice from all of the indoor resources, including sand, small world, mark making, role-play, books, construction and many, many more. Some children need support to choose from a member of staff.

The children can then continue to play for the rest of the morning session and  the doors are opened to the outside space so that the children can choose where to play.

Staff interact with the children, joining in with their play and scaffolding their thinking by skillfully questioning, modelling, discussing and providing extra resources. Staff may take photographs or write observations of the children throughout the morning.

9.45- 11.15 

One member of staff runs a 'snack cafe', where children can come away from their play to have fresh fruit and vegetables, toast, breadsticks and houmous or another healthy treat. Sometimes the children choose to cook something, such as porridge, stewed apple, biscuits or cakes and these are shared at the snack cafe too. There is milk and water available to drink.

11.30- 12.00

At about 11.30, staff and children tidy up ready for lunch. If any of the children have been playing with something that they want to return to, this will be tidied, but not packed away.

Once the garden and pre-school room are tidy, adults and children come together for a story, some singing, a game, some dancing or a combination of these! Finally, everyone sings the good-bye song and children who are doing the morning session are picked up.

12.00

Lunch time. After everyone has washed their hands, we all sit together to eat our lunch. It's a great time for having a chat! Once the children start to finish, they put their lunchboxes away and play indoors until everyone has finished.

1.00

If the doors have not already been re-opened, they are now opened for the afternoon session. Again, the children have free choice both indoors and out. Sometimes we go for a walk locally, or to play at Stawley School.

2.30-3.00

We tidy up together at the end of the afternoon ready for the next day. We finish with a story or some singing at the end of the day before we sing the good-bye song again and the children are collected at 3.00. Whilst waiting to pick up the children, there is a board of photos for the adults to see what the children have been up to recently.