Pre-school places in Caterham

8 - 8:30am – Breakfast and full day children arrival. Tinker time (free play)

8:30 - 8:40am – School day children arrive / Register.

8:40 - 8:55am – Adult led carpet input.

8:55 - 9:30am – Adult led activities / Child initiated learning / free flow

9:30 - 9:40am – Adult led carpet input. (Summer Term)

9:40 - 10:20am – Adult led activities / Child initiated learning / free flow (Summer Term)

10:20 - 10:30am – Tidy up time

10:30 - 10:45am – Snack time

10:45 - 11am – Outdoor playtime

11 – 12pm – Phonics

12 - 1:10pm – Lunch time

12:35 – 1:10pm Outdoor play.

1:10 - 1:15 – Register

1:15 - 1:30 – Adult led carpet input.

1:30 - 2:45 – Adult led activities / Child initiated learning / free flow

2:45 - 3pm – Tidy up time / Get ready to go home.

3 - 3:15pm – Story time

3:15 - 3:30pm – Home time / Snack time for full day children.

3:30 - 4:30pm – After School Extra curricular activity.

4:30 - 5pm – Tea time

5 - 6pm – Tinker time / Home time

At Essendene Lodge School, our nursery children are involved in whole-school activities from the moment they join us. They participate in a variety of themed celebrations, such as Wellbeing Week, Science Week, Maths Week, Book Week and Career’s Week. These activities provide wonderful opportunities to expand their learning and help make the transition to the main school less daunting by allowing them to interact with older pupils.

Our children follow a timetable from Nursery, that runs parallel to the school, which includes PE and Music lessons with specialist staff. Staff from across the school come and spend time with children, throughout the day. They visit other classrooms so have an early understanding of school experiences.

As the start of Reception approaches, the pre-school children share many experiences throughout the school day with the rest of the school, particularly in the summer term, by sharing playtime with years R,1 and 2 and joining the main school for celebration assemblies on Friday’s. Throughout the whole year, Year 6 children come and support our Early Years children at lunchtimes, and we arrange regular class swaps for reading sessions. Children across the school also share Breakfast Club and After School Care sessions from 4:30pm with our Early Years children.

From the time they join Pre-School, our children are grouped with our reception pupils based on their academic abilities in subjects such as and Phonics. This streaming approach allows children to enhance their academic skills through individualised support tailored to their needs. As a result, most of our children can read and independently write sentences by the time they reach Reception.

Working in different classrooms outside the EYFS unit and with YR1 and YR2 Teachers and support staff, they know the staff and the whole school surroundings well, giving them confidence in their surroundings.

Our whole-unit learning sessions and free-flow play ensure that children become familiar with the new setting before officially leaving Pre-School. They have opportunities to explore and play in the reception classroom and are introduced to our Reception team throughout the year, facilitating a smooth settling-in process.

Transition sessions start as early as the Spring Term, where the children spend mornings or days working as Reception children in the reception classroom. They quickly learn the expectations for Reception and with the comfort and support of familiar adults, these are sessions the children look forward to and thoroughly enjoy.

We offer Introduction to Reception meetings for Parents at the start of their pre-school year to explain to parents what we offer and the changes their child will experience when starting in Reception. We explain the types of learning experiences your child will have, including trips and starting swimming lessons and provide parents with list of things it will be helpful if your child can do before starting school. This allows you to help your child prepare at home.

We know starting school can be an emotional milestone, but it is best for your child to speak about it in a positive way. We know you will miss them, but being excited in conversations about starting school will help them to think it is positive too. Pop in for our Stay and Play sessions will help them to build familiarity with their surroundings. Also, encourage time away from you leading up to starting so your child learns that you always come back (day out with the grandparents is good for this).

On their first day, tell them what is going to happen (you will have a timetable and curriculum letter from us to guide you), and remember to keep smiling. They will see this as a positive experience, if you are positive and happy. Keep drop off short and remind them who will be there at the end of the day to collect them.

When settling the children in to Pre-school, we endeavour to make the transition as smooth as possible. We invite parents and child in for interview and a short play session, to meet with a senior member of the Early Years Team, to help us to get to know your child. From this meeting we make arrangements for further settling sessions either half days, late arrivals, incorporating staying for lunch and building to full days, if required.

All the adults in the unit will get to know your child, but they will be assigned a keyworker with whoever they have the best bond with. We have regular contact with parents through our tracking, monitoring and communication system, ‘Famly’, which allows us to share photographs and videos of children with their adult, privately.

Each week the children have a dedicated PE session, introducing new skills and developing previous learning. They also have music lessons with a very inspirational and fully qualified Music Teacher. The children also have weekly French lessons, where they are exposed to and can explore the French language in fun and innovative ways.

The children experience a lot in our community as we regularly take the children on local walks, to the library, local shops and the park. Each term the children also experience a visitor in school or a trip out relating to our topics, such as Sea-life Centre for Under the Sea topic, or Chessington zoo for our zoo topic.