Polar Bears (3-5 year olds)
Our pre-school room is known as our Polar Bears. We have our pre-school children spread across two separate rooms to accommodate for their developing individuality. Using the two environments allows us to cater for their needs and thoughts more tailored and on a more concentrated basis.
Polar Bear Room Staff
In this room, staff work with children on a 1 adult to every 8 children ratio. We have a Childhood and Education graduate leader working with this age range directly and an Early Year's Teacher working alongside her to help develop children and prepare them for school transitions.
All staff are fully qualified and are trained in assessing Speech, Communication and Language and delivering effective interventions for support. Professional partnerships are highly important to the staff working within this room and they have benefitted from training and working alongside education psychologists, preschool and portage workers, health visitors and speech and language therapists. This has benefitted our children allowing individual learning and support to be implemented to progress children at their own pace.
In the Polar Bear Room
We source resources and design areas in our pre-school rooms based around the children we have and the interests they possess. We work particularly close with our Local Authority to identify, budget and plan for children who receive extra support. Areas within the room include a 'lending library' (children 'check out' books to take home and share their interest in literacy with family), a school roleplay (to practice skills needed for school), a Dinosaur den (to develop narrative play) and a 'Boutique' (to create and promote imagination and roleplay skills). Children have daily access to the outdoor environment ' this allows opportunities to explore the world around us and question our observations, developing and extending our vocabularies!
Independence is an important part of the pre-school year! We encourage children to toilet train (if they are read), carry out specific tasks for themselves and their friends, i.e. setting up the dinner table and using cutlery, such as knives and forks, appropriately. These skill sets are embedded in our daily routines to consistently develop them.
Tapestry Learning Journals
To record children's learning and development we use an online platform called 'Tapestry.' This is a secure programme which is designed for parents/carers to be able to view/contribute to their child's personal file. This helps us to keep consistency from learning and opportunities are able to be built upon within any environment, home or nursery.