The Settings
Community Centre
There are two main areas used by the children throughout each day at our Community Centre site. These are Woodlands (Main Hall) and the Garden. On Monday afternoons we use Sweethills Room, you can find out more about these play spaces below.
The Woodlands Room
This is the main play space within the pre-school. The children are dropped off and collected from this room and it is where their key group area is located. Every child belongs to a key group and this is represented by a carpet area. The children can leave their drinks bottles and comforters in this area. At certain times of the day the children come together in their key groups and take part in small group activities, discussing emotions, plans for the day, special events and doing fun letters and sounds games. The Woodlands room provides other main areas of play such as playdough, a role play area, creative area, mark making table and little life resources (such as bricks and trains). This is the room the children eat their snack and lunch.
The Woodlands room leads onto the spacious garden. The garden has set resources which are always available to the children, such as the water area, sensory walkway, playhouse, mud kitchen, ‘let’s get physical’ area and the bug and investigation area. Children’s brains often work better when outside and the benefits of learning outside are strongly promoted in the Pre-school’s ethos. Therefore, the children can access the outside area throughout the day, all year around. They are provided with all-in-one weather suits to help keep them warm and dry during wet and cold weather. However, the welfare of the children is paramount and during extreme heat or extreme cold, access to the garden may be limited. See the adverse weather policy for more details.
Sweethills Room
This is a smaller room which is separate from the Woodlands room, where smaller groups of children can come to get creative! They have a range of resources to investigate from clay to paint, sewing and threading to playdough making and much more. Often provocations are used to inspire the childrens creations. However, the children are always encouraged to enjoy the creative process and do not have to focus on producing an end product. This room is also used for any small group activity such as cooking or science experiments, where the smaller space and quieter environment aids with concentration and conversation.
Whiteley Pre-School North
At our satellite site we are based within Cornerstone Church of England Primary School and have a dedicated room and toilets with our own garden space which free-flows from the room. The children have a range of resources from messy creative play, construction, gardening, bikes, musical instruments, dressing up, imaginative role-play and much more. We are also fortunate to utilise the school grounds for Wellie Walks exploring our natural environment and the Forest School area.
For children attending all day they are dropped off and collected from the garden of WPS North within Cornerstone’s grounds. If your child starts or finishes at lunchtime we will meet you at the School’s Main Reception for drop off/collection.
