Preschool

St. Alphege Preschool offers care and education for children from the term that they turn 2.  We are rated Ofsted GOOD.

Preschool is a Committee run not-for-profit organisation, the Committee is formed of parents past and present along with members of the parish, we work closely with St Alphege Parochial Church Council. 

We tailor activities to our children's needs and interests.

Our curriculum is designed to the Early Years Foundation Stage framework to help children to develop for their next steps. We tailor and differentiate our curriculum based on each child's needs and interests.

There are seven key areas of learning and development that shape our preschool programme. All areas of learning and development are important and are connected. Three areas are essential for sparking children’s interest in learning, and for developing a capacity to learn. These three areas are:

We also support children in four focused areas, through which the three above areas are strengthened and applied.

These are:

1. Literacy

2. Mathematics

3. Understanding the world

4. Expressive arts and design

Our curriculum is also designed around activities that provide valuable experiences for children.

• Communication and language development means giving children opportunities to experience a diverse language environment; to develop their confidence and skills in expressing themselves; and to speak and listen in a range of situations.

• Physical development means providing opportunities for our children to be interactive and moving, and to develop their coordination, control, and movement. We help children to understand the importance of physical activity, and to make healthy choices in relation to food and lifestyle.

• Personal, social and emotional development means helping children to develop a positive sense of themselves, and those around them; forming positive relationships and developing respect for others. We also encourage children to learn how to recognise their feelings; to understand appropriate behaviour, and to have confidence in their own abilities.

• Literacy means encouraging children to link sounds and letters and to begin to read and write. Children will be given access to a wide range of reading materials to capture their interests.

• Mathematics means providing children with opportunities to develop and improve their skills in counting, understanding and use of numbers, simple addition and subtraction problems; and descriptions of shapes, spaces, and measures.

• Understanding the world means guiding children to make sense of their physical world and their community through opportunities to explore, observe and find out about people, places, technology and the environment. We have a superb outdoor learning area which allows us to extend this activity into exploring nature and the natural sciences.

• Expressive arts and design means enabling children to explore and play with a wide range of media and materials, providing opportunities and encouragement for sharing their thoughts, ideas and feelings through a variety of activities in art, music, movement, dance, role-play, and design and technology.

Each child at St Alphege Preschool is assigned a Key Worker. This Key Worker will be the staff member responsible for your child’s individual needs. Your child’s Key Worker will make time to find out about their interests, likes, dislikes and special requirements. They will also keep records of their progress and achievements, which are available for you to see and contribute towards.

We use an interactive system where we provide our parents with key updates, news, observations and achievements made by our children. We encourage families to share good news stories and updates with us too.

When our children arrive at Preschool, we encourage them to share their news for the week. We then use this to plan our activities and themes for the week based on their interests and create engaging opportunities for interaction through stories, sensory activities and free play.

At each Preschool session, we also have a small amount of adult-led time which is also generated by the children's activities and helps to prepare children for their next steps and the transition to Nursery.

St Alphege Preschool is open every weekday, during term time.

We offer thre session types to provide a flexible service to our families. These are:

AM Session 09:00 - 12:00

PM Session 12:00 - 15:00

All Day Session 09:00 - 15:00

We also offer flexible drop off from 08.30 for an additional fee.

Applications for Academic year 2023/24/25

Preschool places are available to apply for all year round for children after their second birthday.

To apply now or arrange a viewing please email admissions@stalphege-preschool.org.uk

Admissions Criteria

St Alphege Preschool has no selection criteria other than the necessary age requirement that a child is at least 2 years old.

We have no limited catchment area.

Contacts

St. Alphege Preschool Admissions:    Admissions@stalphege-preschool.org.uk

St. Alphege Preschool Manager, Tammy Ellender:  Manager@stalphege-preschool.org.uk

St. Alphege Preschool Chair, Ben Yates: Chair@stalphege-preschool.org.uk

For an application form please email any of the above.