Pre School Welcome Pack

Dear Parents and Carers,

We would like to welcome you to St. Thomas’ Children’s Centre. Within the setting we offer childcare between the hours of 7.45am until 6.00pm. These are broken down into sessions, breakfast club, Preschool morning, Preschool afternoon, Preschool all day, Kids Club early and Kids club late. We will explain more about each session. Below these are run in school term time. We offer a Holiday club for all school holidays with the exception Christmas.

Breakfast Club

Children aged between 2 and 11 years can access this session.

  • The door will open at 7.45am.
  • If you arrive later than 7.45, please ring the doorbell.
  • Breakfast will be served until 8.20am.
  • Breakfast menu is available in foyer.
  • Children will be able to play inside and out until it’s time for school or Preschool to start.
Pre School-AM / all day

Children aged between 2 and 4 years can access this session.

  • Doors will open at 8.50am
  • Children and parent/carers can come into the building, but we would like to keep it to about 4 children at a time, as this helps to make the child not feel so overwhelmed.
  • Our years of experience have taught us the best thing a parent can do is say Goodbye and leave even if your child is crying. We will use our years of experience to comfort and reassure your child. If they do not settle, we will then contact you to arrange an early pick up.
  • Children will come in and ‘free play’ this means they are able to access all toys and activities that have been set up.
  • Circle time and adult led time this is when we will extend children’s learning giving them new opportunities to learn.
  • Snack will be provided at 10.30am. The menu will be available in the foyer.
  • Children can access the outside area during ‘free play’.  
  • Lunch starts at 11.50am (Hot lunches are available, please contact front office for menu. 
  • Children only attending the morning will wait to be collected by parents/carers at 11.50am.
  • Please inform us each day if you would like to collect your child before the finish time.
  • We have beds for children who need a sleep during the day.
  • Nappies will be changed regularly. 
Pre School-PM / all day

Children aged between 2 and 4 years can access this session.

  • Doors for afternoon children will open at 11.50am
  • Children should attend with a packed lunch (or a hot meal will be available if it’s been ordered.) 
  • Children and parent/carers can come into the building, but we would like to keep it to about 4 children at a time as this helps to make the child not feel so overwhelmed.
  • Our years of experience have taught us the best thing a parent can do is say Goodbye and leave, even if your child is crying. We will use our years of experience to comfort and reassure your child. If they do not settle, we will then contact you to arrange an early pick up.
  • Circle time and adult led time. This is when we will extend children’s learning giving them new opportunities to learn.
  • ‘Free play’ this means they can access all toys and activities that have been set up
  • Children will be waiting to be collected by parent/carers at 2.50pm
  • Children attending Kids club will stay in the other room. 
  • Please inform us each day if you would like to collect your child before the finish time.
  • We have beds for children who need a sleep during the day.
  • Nappies will be changed regularly.
Kids Club 4pm

Children aged between 2 and 11 years can access this session.

  • Children in Key stage 1 will be collected from the front office of the school.
  • Children in Key stage 2 will make their own way to Kids Club from school.
  • Children will have a snack provided for them. The menu is available in the foyer. 
  • Children can access outside and inside all throughout the session.

Parents / carers will need to ring the doorbell and wait for a staff member to collect your child/ren.

Kids Club 5pm or 6 pm

Children aged between 2 and 11 years can access this session.

  • Children in Key stage 1 will be collected from the front office of the school. 
  • Children in Key stage 2 will make their own way to Kids Club from school.
  • Children will have a snack provided for them the menu is available in the foyer. 
  • Children can access outside and inside all throughout the session.

Parent / carers will need to ring the doorbell and wait for a staff member to collect your child/ren. 

  • Children in Key stage 1 will be collected from the front office of the school.
  • Children in Key stage 2 will make their own way to Kids Club from school.
  • Children will have a snack provided for them. The menu is available in the foyer.
  • Children can access outside and inside all throughout the session.

Parents / carers will need to ring the doorbell and wait for a staff member to collect your child/ren.

Holiday Club

Children aged between 2 and 11 years can access this session.

  • Holiday club starts at 7.45am
  • If you child is booked in for an early start, they will be offered breakfast.
  • We ask for a minimum of 3 hours per day.
  • Closes at 6pm

Stretched funding can be used for this. Please ask for details

Pre School

During Pre School we call our children that are aged between 2-3 ‘caterpillars’. Children will continue to be caterpillars until they are in there final year of Preschool.

Children aged between 3-4 are called ‘butterflies.’ Our butterflies are the children ready to start school the following September.

Children receiving Government funded hours will be expected to pay £1 per session for Consumables. Full day of Pre School is classed as two sessions.

What My Child/ren will need for Pre School

All the things my child might need:

  • Bag with your child’s name on it
  • Change of clothes
  • Nappies at least 4 per day
  • Wipes
  • Named drinks bottle with water.
  • Coat with Your child’s name on it  
Keeping St Thomas Children’s Centre updated

To keep your children safe, we need to be kept informed about any information that has changed, examples of these are below.

  • Telephone numbers
  • Address
  • Email

Some information can be personal which you might feel uncomfortable to discuss with us, but your children know about it and might discuss it with us.  Please feel free to email or make a telephone call. Sometimes the Smallest things make a huge difference in our ability to look after your child.

Safeguarding

Safeguarding is the action that is taken to promote the welfare of children and protect them from harm. Safeguarding means: protecting children from abuse and maltreatment. preventing harm to children’s health or development. Ensuring children grow up with the provision of safe and effective care.

Several key principles underpin safeguarding to ensure the welfare and happiness of children, mainly:

  • A child’s needs should be put first — always.
  • It’s important to help and support children as early as possible before issues escalate and become more damaging.
  • Safeguarding is everybody’s responsibility and everyone at a setting should act in a timely and coordinated manner to respond to any concerns about the welfare of a child.

The Early Years Foundation Stage sets the foundation of safeguarding measures for early years providers to follow. They are based on four overarching principles, including:

  • Children learn and develop best in an enabling environment.
  • Children are unique, learn constantly and can become resilient, capable, confident, and self-assured.
  • Children learn and develop best in different ways and at different rates.
  • Children learn strength and independence from positive relationships.

St Thomas’ Children’s Centre Lead person in Safeguarding is Kelly Wilkinson. 

Special Education Needs

St Thomas Children’s Centre work to support children learn and develop at their own pace. But some children might need extra support to enable them to reach their full potential.

Our lead member of staff for this is Allison Hardy. 

A child or young person has Special Educational Needs (SEN) if they have a learning difficulty or disability which calls for special educational provision to be made for him or her.

For example, if the child has significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of others of the same age or has a disability which prevents or hinders him or her from making use of facilities of a kind generally provided for others of the same age in mainstream schools or mainstream.

Health and Safety

As before covid happened, we will maintain a high standard of cleaning.

We will continue to follow the government guidelines. Staff will follow rules and as a setting we will continue to make conscious decisions.

Illness

Please contact us if your child is unwell via email or Telephone.

Children that have a temperature we ask that they do not attend until their temperature has been normal for 24 hours.

Vomiting or Diarrhoea. Children can return 48 hours after their last episode.

Please ask the manager for the full details of our illness policy. 

Famly App

This is a programme we use to collect wonderful moments your children share with us. Staff will upload pictures and anecdotes about what the children have learnt within the preschool. Equally we love to see what your children have been up to. Examples of this can be trips away or days out. Learning to eat with a fork, helping to cook or clean and riding a bike. All information shared with us will be kept confidential. Please see policies.

Staff will upload childrens learning observations, but this will often be a week or two behind as we like to spend as much time with the children as possible.

We will write a report every other term; These will be between November and December, February and March and June and July.

Belongings

Please ensure you send your child in appropriate clothing: We will be going outside as we need to continue to use all areas of the setting.

  • Please NAME all items
  • Bring a coat to every session. 
  • Please do NOT bring toys to Breakfast club, pre-school, or Kids club.
  • Please bring a named drinks bottle.
Days off and sickness

If your child can not attend a session of Breakfast club, Pre-School, and Kids club, please inform us via phone or email. If your child is ill, please tell us what their symptoms are, we need to keep records.

Kids club If you inform school your child is not going to be in school you must also inform us as well as school as we cannot expect the school to inform us. Our policy is if a child is missing, we need to contact you if you do not answer we would need to contact the police. Key stage 2 children make their own way here, so teachers do not always know who has collected.

Pre School Lunches

Please provide your child with a packed lunch if your child attends Pre-School all day or the afternoon. If you would like your child to have a hot meal, these are charged at £2.20 per meal, and are only available in term time. Please ask for a menu.

Fundraising

We have two opportunities for photos a year. 

October/ November is when all Pre School children can have a photo these can be with siblings or without.

In May/June we offer photos for our butterflies, children leaving for school.

We also have a class photo for our leavers. 

We can have commission on these photos, so we thank you for your support.

Events

Every year we will have parties for Christmas and the end of year. A letter about different events will be sent out individually.

Funding

Children eligible for the 30-hour code please go to https://www.gov.uk/30-hours-free-childcare

Parents applying for a 30-hour funding, here is some information,

  • These need to be applied for before these dates.
  • 31st August
  • 31st December
  • 31st April
  • Please remember to revalidate your code every 3 months. 

 

We will be asking for £1.00 per session to support the setting buying items to support learning such as paper, pens, pencils, suncream, wipes and nappies while we expect families to provide nappies for the sessions these will be spare just in case items.

Please see Kelly if you have any questions.

Please remember if you have any questions or concerns, please come in, email, or phone. We are all happy to help.
Thank you!

Kelly Wilkinson and Emma Martin
Managers