Dear parents/carers
We are fast approaching the third term, with the colder weather heading
our way, you will be sending your children with more layers. Can we ask
that all gloves and hats are clearly labelled and put in the sleeve of your
child’s coat so that they can independently find them. Thank you.
We will be clearing the children’s pegs on the Friday 18th December. All
left over items will be placed in a lost property box so please have look in
it in the new term. As you have noticed the pegs are becoming heavily used
so can we ask that you try to keep as clear as possible by collecting your
child’s belongings daily. Also please note we no longer use book bags
anymore so can we request you stop bringing them to pre-school to help
reduce items stored in the cloakroom. As you can appreciate the children
are encouraged to find their own coats when they choose to go in the
garden but to help them with this task the pegs need to stay as clutter
free as possible. Thank you. The council have agreed to supply us with
more pegs in the near future which will hopefully mean each child with have
the use of a peg to their self each day which will aid independence further
in preparation to helping them become school ready.
We also have another lost property box for any containers that the
children do not put back in their lunch boxes. Please have a look through
this box as well if you think you are missing items.
Next term the children are welcome to being their favourite book in to
share with us at story time. Please label any books before sending them in.
We have recently had a visit from the police and the children were able to
climb inside their van and try out the police officers hats, turn the lights
on and siren. This activity was organised by one of the pre-school parents,
Craig Hazzard which we greatly appreciate. We would like to say a big
thank you!
Some parents kindly brought in their friendly pets. This term we have had
a visit from a Labrador and a hamster and the children engaged well in
these activities and asked lots of questions. Please let us know if you have
a pet that you are able to bring in and show the children.
The children all enjoyed the Christmas party and received a gift from
Flutterby the fairy from baby ballet. We have also enjoyed making an
grand total of 146 items for the Christmas crafts raising a total of
£357.90 to go towards our summer outing. We will continue to hold
fundraising events throughout the year. Thank you to all those parents that
helped with all the events including the outings to Baileys Court School. All
the children were very well behaved and hopefully we will be invited back
soon. We welcome any help and support you can give us so at any time you
wish to help at pre-school please let us know.
Here is a parent’s guide to our planning, key worker, observation cycle:
Welcome to Abacus pre-school, below you will find a brief outline of the
planning system we have in place following the current guidelines of the
Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)

On starting with us your child will be allocated a keyworker, you will
receive a letter telling you the name of your child’s keyworker and a
short introduction of them will be available on the notice board.

The aim is for every child to be ‘focus child’ at least once per term

Each keyworker has a buddy to cover your child’s keyworker in the
event of any absence, all buddy’s will be familiar with their buddy’s
key children

Our planning is child focused – celebrating the unique child
The steps
1) Each child will be observed by their keyworker when playing and
exploring during their session, this will be added to your child’s
online learning journey along with any photographs. The key worker
will then link this observation to the 7 areas of the Early Years
Foundation Stage.
2) Your child will now become a ‘focus child’ for the following week, you
will be notified of this observation via Tapestry and you will have the
option to leave a reply, this maybe comments on the observation
itself or your own observation. You may choose to extend the
learning at home by doing an activity with your child linking in with
the observation. You are welcome to discuss this with your child’s
keyworker if you would like them to suggest activities to help with
your child’s learning at home.
3) Your child’s keyworker will then plan ‘next steps’ for your child and
add these onto the planning sheet for the following week, the
keyworker will use their knowledge of your child’s interests and
unique needs and areas required to help extend your child’s learning
using the online Tapestry system. Your child’s key worker will ensure
they are planning in the most effective way to further your child’s
development within the EYFS. The key worker will plan activities
that allow flexibility for the best developmental outcome for your
child.
4) On the day that your child is to be observed as a ‘focus child’ your
keyworker will have set out planned activities, your child will be
encouraged in joining an activity however if they do not participate
in the planned activity the key worker will observe the child in other
ways and will re visit planned activities at another time.
Wow moments!
You may notice that you receive notifications at times when your child is
not being observed, these are times when either your child’s key worker or
another practitioner has observed your child and has chosen to observe this
as a ‘wow moment’ this may be in the form of a written observations or a
photograph observation along with a title.
Please do not hesitate to contact one of the team if you have any queries
regarding our planning. We hope you enjoy reading your child’s learning on
their journey through pre-school.
Behind the scenes at Baileys Court Pre-School the team have been busy
updating their knowledge and undertaking further training. We have all
taken part in behaviour management and safeguarding training. We have
also completed individual training. These courses were:

English as an additional language

Celebrating culture and diversity

Letters and sounds

Characteristics of effective learning

Den building

Maths- let’s see how far we can go.

First aid
In January we will be welcoming Zoe to our team, who will be returning to
the company after maternity leave. Zoe will be taking on Aneta’s key
group.
As you are all aware after ten years of being in this setting Caroline has
decided to sadly leave, she has however promised to visit regularly. We
wish her all the best in her new career and she will be sadly missed. We
would like to thank Caroline for her support during the transition period
from Play Pitch to Abacus and her hard work and dedication. Jess will be
taking on the role of Deputy Manager and taking over Caroline’s key group.
Jess has been with the company for 2 years and has worked in all of our
settings gaining her knowledge in all our policies, procedures and the early
years curriculum. Her key worker letter will follow shortly.
We look forward to welcoming you all back at the start of next term on
the 4th January. Please be aware all staff are on annual leave from the
18th December until the start of the new term so we will be unavailable to
respond to any emails or messages until then.
Finally we would like to thank you all for your support over the last few
months and wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy prosperous
new year.
Layla, Caroline, Amie, Jess, Catherine and Rachel