Pre-school and pre pre-school

We work to foster positive attitudes to learning through giving the children opportunities to develop:

• Self-confidence
• Resilience 
• Curiosity
• Self-discipline
• Co-operation 
• Respect for others
• Skills in problem solving
• Creativity 
• Knowledge of the world around them and how it works and the people in it
• Decision making

We encourage children to become more independent through our everyday play. We support them when making new friendships and through activities such as choosing their own healthy snack.

We provide varied and interesting play experiences which have been planned using the Curricular Guidance for Pre-school Education from the Department of Education Northern Ireland.  In line with this guidance we support children’s learning through the six areas of the curriculum:

• The Arts
• Language Development
• Early Mathematical Experiences
• Personal, Social and Emotional Development
• Physical Development and Movement
• The World Around Us

Each child has a key worker who will observe children to help monitor their development and ensure the activities we provide meet their needs and help them to achieve their full potential.  This information is recorded and is shared with parents at meetings throughout the year. 

We participate in the Sharing from the Start program with St Finian’s pre-school which includes visits to each other’s pre-school, joint forest school visits and zoom calls. We also work on respecting differences through our media initiative puppets and activities. 

Children take part in the “Getting Ready to Learn Big Bedtime Read Programme” using our book bags. Book bags come home once a week with 4 books to allow children to access a wide range of books across the year. 

We have a monthly newsletter to keep parents up to date on what has been happening in pre-school and to remind parents of any important upcoming dates. We also use the Seesaw app to send updates on the activities children have been taking part in and some pictures of the fun they have been having! 

Breakfast club is available for our Pre-School and morning Pre Pre-School children from 8.30am. Lunch club runs from 12pm.