Playgroup

Ofsted Report 2008/2009 Outstanding

Address

Holy Trinity Beckenham Pre-School Playgroup Ltd
Holy Trinity Centre, 66 Lennard Road, London SE20 7LX

Telephone: 020 8659 0630

Email the playgroup htplaygroup@googlemail.com

Click here to see term dates for the playgroup

Registered Charity No. 1122728

Holy Trinity Playgroup was established in 1967 to provide a service to the whole community. A team of 7 staff and 7 Directors runs it.

At Holy Trinity Playgroup we aim to:

Provide high quality care and education for children aged 2 – 5 years.
Work with parents to help children learn and develop.
Offer children and their parents a service which promotes equality and diversity.
Offer a safe and stimulating environment.
Help your child move forward with his/her learning and development.

Holy Trinity Playgroup is open 38 weeks a year between 9.15–12.15.

The curriculum provided by Holy Trinity Playgroup:

Children start to learn about the world around them from the moment they are born. The care and education offered by Holy Trinity Playgroup helps children to continue to do this by providing all of the children with interesting activities that are right for their age and stage of development.

The playgroup provides a curriculum for the Early Years foundation stage of education. The curriculum is set out in a document, The Early Years Foundation Stage published by the Department of Education and Skills.

The guidance divides children’s learning and development into six areas:
Personal, social and emotional development;
Communication, language and literacy development;
Problem solving, reasoning and numeracy;
Knowledge and understanding of the world;
Physical development; and
Creative development.

For each area, the guidance sets out early learning goals. These goals state what children ware expected to know and be able to do by the end of the reception year of their education.

For each early learning goal, the guidance sets out stepping stones, which describe the stages through which children are likely to pass as they move to achievement of the goal. Holy Trinity Playgroup uses the early learning goals and their stepping stones to help us to trace each child’s progress and to enable us to provide the right activities to help all of the children move towards achievement of the early learning goals.

Personal, social and emotional development:

What Personal, Social and Emotional Development means for children:

Knowing they are special to someone and well cared for is vital for their physical, social and emotional health and well-being.
Being acknowledged and affirmed by important people in their lives leads to children gaining confidence and inner strength through secure attachments with these people.
Exploration within close relationships leads to the growth of self-assurance, promoting a sense of belonging, which allows children to explore the world from a secure base.
Children need adults to set a good example and to give them opportunities for interaction with others so that they can develop positive ideas about themselves and others.
Children who are encouraged to feel free to express their ideas and their feelings, such as joy, sadness, frustration and fear, can develop strategies to cope with new, challenging or stressful situations.

Communication language and literacy:

What Communication, Language and Literacy means for children:

Communicating and being with others helps children to build social relationships, which provide opportunities for friendship, empathy and sharing emotions. The ability to communicate helps children to participate more fully in society.
To become skilful communications, babies and children need to be with people who have meaning for them and with whom they have warm and loving relationships, such as their family or carers and, in a group situation, a key person whom they know and trust.
Babies respond differently to different sounds and from an early age are able to distinguish sound patterns. They learn to talk by being talked to.
Babies and children use their voices to make contact and to let people know what they need and how they feel, establishing their own identities and personalities.
Parents and immediate family members most easily understand their babies’ and children’s communications and can often interpret for others.
All children learn best through activities and experiences that engage all the senses. For example music, dance, rhymes and songs play a key role in language development.
As children develop speaking and listening skills they build the foundations for literacy, for making sense of visual and verbal signs and ultimately for reading and writing. Children need lots of opportunities to interact with others as they develop these skills, and to use a wide variety of resources for expressing their understanding, including mark making, drawing, modeling, reading and writing.

Problem solving, reasoning and numeracy:

What problem Solving, Reasoning and Numeracy means for children:

Babies’ and children’s mathematical development occurs as they seek patterns, make connections and recognise relationships through finding out about and working with numbers and counting, with sorting and matching and with shape, space and measures.
Children use their knowledge and skills in these areas to solve problems, generate new questions and make connections across other areas of Learning and Development.

Knowledge and understanding of the world:

What Knowledge and Understanding of the World means for children:

Babies and children find out about the world through exploration and from a variety of sources, including their families and friends, the media, and through what they see and hear.
Babies and children need regular opportunities to learn about different ways of life, to be given accurate information and to develop positive and caring attitudes towards others.
Children should be helped to learn to respect and value all people and learn to avoid misapprehensions and negative attitudes towards others when they develop their Knowledge and Understanding of the World.
Children should be involved in the practical applications of their knowledge and skills, which will promote self-esteem through allowing them to make decisions about what to investigate and how to do it.

Physical development:

What Physical Development means for children:

Babies and children learn by being active and Physical Development takes place across all areas of Learning and Development.
Physical Development helps children gain confidence in what they can do.
Physical Development enables children to feel the positive benefits of being healthy and active.
Physical Development helps children to develop a positive sense of well-being.
Good health in the early years helps to safeguard health and well-being throughout life. It is important that children develop healthy habits when they first learn about food and activity. Growing with appropriate weight gain in the first years of life helps to guard against obesity in later life.

Creative development:

What Creative Development means for children:

Creativity is about taking risks and making connections and is strongly linked to play.
Creativity emerges as children become absorbed in action and explorations of their own ideas, expressing them through movement, making and transforming things using media and materials such as crayons, paints, scissors, words, sounds, movement, props and make-believe.
Creativity involves children in initiating their own learning and making choices and decisions.
Children’s responses to what they see, hear and experience through their senses are individual and the way they represent their experiences in unique and valuable.
Being creative enables babies and children to explore many processes, media and materials and to make new things emerge as a result.

Play helps young children to learn and develop through doing and talking, which research has shown to be the means by which young children think. Holy Trinity Playgroup uses the early learning goals and their stepping stones to plan and provide a range of play activities which help children make progress in each of the areas of learning and development. In some of these activities children decide how they will use the activity and, in others, an adult takes the lead in helping the children to take part in the activity. In all activities information from the early learning goals and stepping stones has been used to decide what equipment to provide and how to provide it.

Working together for your children

Holy Trinity Playgroup has a high ratio of adults to children in the setting. This helps us to:

Give time and attention to each child.
Talk with the children about their interests and activities.
Help children to experience and benefit from the activities we provide; and all the children to explore and be adventurous in safety.

The staff who work at Holy Trinity Pre-school are:

Name Job Title Qualification & Experience

Carol Sharpling Leader Level 3-Diploma Pre-school Practice

Linda Smyth Deputy Level 3-Diploma Pre-school Practice

Camilla Vestlund Practitioner Level 3-NVQ

Mo Laurence Practitioner Level 3

Marilyn Jenner Practitioner Level 2-Certificate in Pre-school Practice

Sarah Drinkwater Practitioner Level 2-Certificate in Pre-school Practice

Denise Gordon Practitioner 13 Years – experience

How parents take part in the Playgroup

As a member of the Pre-school Learning Alliance, Holy Trinity Playgroup recognises parents as the first and most important educators of their children. All of the staff see themselves as co-workers with you in providing care and education for your child. There are many ways in which parents take part in making the playgroup a welcoming and stimulating place for children and parents, such as:

Exchanging knowledge about their children’s needs, activities, interests and progress with the staff.
Helping at sessions of the playgroup.
Sharing their own special interests with the children.
Helping to provide, make and look after the equipment and materials used in the children’s play activities.
Being part of the Fund Raising Team.
Taking part in events provided by the playgroup.
Building friendships with other parents in the playgroup.

Key Workers

The playgroup has a key person system. This means that each member of staff has a group of children for whom she/he is particularly responsible. Your child’s key worker will be the person who works with you to make sure that what the playgroup provides is right for your child’s particular needs and interests. When your child first starts at the playgroup, she/he will help your child to settle and throughout your child’s time at the playgroup, she/he will help your child to benefit from the playgroup’s activities.

Record of achievement

The playgroup keeps a record of achievement for each child. Staff and parents working together on their children’s records of achievement is one of the ways in which Holy Trinity Playgroup and parents work in partnership. Your child’s record of achievement helps us to celebrate together her/his achievements and to work together to provide what your child needs for her/his well-being and to make progress.

Your child’s key worker will work with you to keep this record. To do this you and she/he will collect information about your child’s needs, activities, interests and achievements. This information will enable the key worker to identify your child’s stage of progress. You and the key worker will then decide on how to help your child to move on the next stage.

Learning for Adults

As well as gaining qualifications in early years care and education, the playgroup staff, take part in further training to help them to keep up-to-date with thinking about early years care and education. See Grey folder in setting for courses attended by staff.

The playgroup also keeps itself up-to-date with best practice in early years care and education through the Pre-school Learning Alliance’s magazine Under Fives and publications produced by the Pre-school Learning Alliance.

The pre-school’s timetable and routines

Holy Trinity Playgroup believes that care and education are equally important in the experience, which we offer children. The routines and activities that make up the playgroup’s session/day are provided in ways that:

Help each child to feel that she/he is a valued member of the playgroup.
Ensure the safety of each child.
Help children to gain from the social experience of being part of a group.
Provide children with opportunities to learn and help them to value learning.

What happens in a typical morning?

Although the playgroup activities vary day by day we follow a similar routine each morning:

9.15
The children arrive and are welcomed by staff.
There is a wide range of varied activities for them to choose from each day. Small groups of children will work with members of staff on specific Early Learning Goals. A variety of methods will be used and the activity modified for different ages and/or abilities.

10.15
Physical play – in large hall or outside play area.

10.30
Table activities – Free choice – Milk Bar

11.35
Tidy up.

11.45
Physical play.

12.00
Story or song time. Stickers are given to any child who has contributed well or tried really hard at an activity.

12.15
Parents/Carers collect their children from the main entrance and any work they have completed.

The Session

The playgroup organises its sessions so that the children, can choose from – and work at – a range of activities and, in doing so, build up their ability to select and work through a task to its completion. The children are also helped and encouraged to take part in adult-led small and large group activities which introduce them to new experiences and help them to gain new skills, as well as helping them to learn to work with others.

Outdoor activities contribute to children’s health, their physical development and their knowledge of the world around them. The children have the opportunity – and are encouraged – to take part in outdoor child-chosen and adult-led activities, as well as those provided in the indoor playroom/s.

Policies

Copies of the playgroup policies on Behaviour, Health & Safety, Equal Opportunities and Complaints can be obtained om request.

The playgroup policies help us to make sure that the service provided by the playgroup is of a high quality and that being a member of the playgroup is an enjoyable and beneficial experience for each child and her/his parents.

Special needs

At Holy Trinity Playgroup we welcome children with special needs. We have level access, a disabled toilet and we are wheelchair friendly. That’s a good start but it’s not all.

Some children have other special and specific needs. We will be as flexible as possible in order to modify our activities to fully integrate your child into the group. By working closely with you and outside agencies and professionals as required we will try our best to meet your child’s needs.

Please feel free to discuss your child’s special needs with the Playgroup Leader at the earliest opportunity. We’re here to help you. We aim to work within the Code of Practice established under the Education Act as partners with you and the London Borough of Bromley.

We have a named person acting as our Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCO). She will be supported by the Area SENCO’S and receive further training in Special Needs of all kinds.

The management of Holy Trinity Playgroup

A Group of Director’s – whose members are elected by the parents of the children who attend the playgroup – manages the playgroup. The elections take place at the playgroup’s Annual General Meeting which is held in March each year. The committee is responsible for:

Managing the playgroup’s finances.
Employing and managing the staff.
Making sure that the playgroup has – and works to policies which help it to provide a high quality service.
Making sure that the playgroup works in partnership with the children’s parents.

The Annual General Meeting is open to the parents of all of the children who attend the playgroup. It is their forum for looking back over the previous year’s activities and shaping the coming year’s activities.

Fees

The fees are £11.00 per session, payable half-termly in advance, for the under 3’s and any additional sessions. Fees must still be paid if children are absent for a short period of time. If your child has to be absent over a long period of time, talk to the Playgroup Leader. For your child to keep her/his place at the playgroup you must pay the fees or we must receive nursery education funding for your child.

Starting at Holy Trinity Playgroup

The first days

We want your child to feel happy and safe at the playgroup. To make sure that this is the case, the staff will work with you to decide on how to help your child to settle into the playgroup. The playgroup has a policy about helping children to settle into the playgroup: a copy is enclosed in this prospectus.

Clothing

The playgroup provides protective clothing for the children when they play with messy activities.

The playgroup encourages children to gain the skills which help them to be independent and look after themselves. These include taking themselves to the toilet and taking off – and putting on – outdoor clothes. Clothing which is easy for them to manage will help them to do this.

Holy Trinity Beckenham