North Devon Journal

Ofsted Report

You can read the story that appeared in the North Devon Journal here, about our recent Ofsted Inspection.

Fantastic news!

Britannia Grant

Following an application that we made to the Britannia Community Fund which is run by the Co-operative Banking Fund we have some brilliant news!!

Bishops Nympton Little Owls Pre School has been awarded a grant of £117.37 to develop our Maths area. The money has been spent on numeracy toys and games to support the young children that attend our pre-school. As we know children's mathematical development occurs as they seek patterns, make connections and work with numbers and counting and with shapes, space and measures. The games that we have purchased will strengthen their confidence with numbers and terminology associated with recognition of numbers, shapes and sorting and counting and will prepare them well for primary school. We would like the thank the Britannia Fund for supporting our pre-school and our hard work to give the children in our care the best opportunities for learning that we can.

Update

Plans for the Spring

Now that we have started 2012 we have lots of plans at the pre-school to improve our environment for the children and the staff, we have been in the building for two full terms now and have really settled in. The children love being able to play outside most of all and are often at the windows waiting for the rain to stop so that they can rush outside to ride the bikes and scooters, a great start for a sporty healthy lifestyle in years to come!

We are planning to develop the outside space this year and hope to have some really good news soon on our grant applications, we have our eye on a pirate ship climbing frame to go on the grass. The gardening will take off again soon and our bulbs should start coming up in our tubs as well.

The staff have chosen some new maths equipment as I was successful is securing a small grant from Britannia Building Society to pay for some new counting toys – pictures to follow!

The Committee are planning lots of new fundraising events so we look forward to everyone's support with these over the year.

Christmas Fun

Well what a festive run up to Christmas we had!!

A pre-school family disco was held on the 3rd December and got us all into the spirit very quickly, decorating the new parish hall and wrapping the Christmas Hamper – always a favourite at the Xmas fayre! We had a lovely Christmas cake to guess the weight of and even though our original Disco let us down, our fantastic local community rallied round and we had Charlie Rollins and his disco to get us on the dance floor and to play some games with the children! The Bar and food ensured that the Mum’s and Dad’s were happy too and we raised over £750 for much needed pre-school funds!

Then the staff at the pre-school invited the parents and families of our Little Owls to the St Mary the Virgin church in Bishops Nympton for the Nativity and then back to the pre-school for mince pies and tea! The children were brilliant considering that most are only 2 or 3 years old, our leading King Elliott was fantastic with his words and Cole as Jesus led Mary across the stage to the stable. The church was very busy as the school children from the Primary School also came along to watch, lots of photos were taken and then we all enjoyed a chat over home made mince pies, yummy!

And yet there were still more plans to send the children off on the holidays feeling very Christmassy!!! A party with a visit from Father Christmas and one of his elves no less!! Every child received a present and we were especially happy to welcome a few toddlers and also two little babies, Darcy (5 months old) and Abby (4 months old) from our Owlets group too! Again, more tea and mince pies to give the grown ups some energy for the festive season!

Ofsted Report

Pre-school gets an overall 'good' marking

We welcomed our Ofsted Inspector Sara to the pre-school in October 2011 and spent the morning showing her around and chatting and discussing how the pre-school is run and what it is like for a child here.

Sara observed the morning routine of the our Little Owls and spent time talking individually to each staff member, she was really impressed with the new building, with our safeguarding policies and we are very proud that she made some really wonderful comments about our pre-school…

"Staff provide a welcoming environment for children and their parents. A new, modern building offers spacious, clean, child-sized facilities such as low level hand washing within the play room to aid independence and supervision. Resources are well organised and attractively displayed to stimulate children and encourage self-selection, with free-flow between the inside and outside."

"Partnership with parents and other carers is strong in order to meet children's individual needs. Communication takes place on a regular basis in a variety ofways, such as daily informal chats, newsletters, notice board and meetings. Parents have access to professionally presented information such as policies and procedures and play an active part in the setting, such as reading to the children or playing instruments in the session."

"Children are making good progress in all areas of learning as they benefit from exciting activities linked to planned topics."

"Children display a strong sense of belonging and security within the setting, even new, very young children settle quickly and are happy. They show good levels of self-esteem as they receive praise and encouragement for their achievements. Children build strong relationships with their peers and staff."

The combined team of committee and staff were very happy to receive the rating of Good, a real achievement in our new building!

As always there are some areas for improvement as we have already taken these to heart and have made changes. She noted in her report that -

“Staff are dedicated and committed to driving improvement and have a positive approach to inspection, addressing minor weaknesses immediately”

We are really proud of our inspection and that we have continued to be a “good” provision following the move into our own building.

Please click here to view the full report on the Ofsted site.

Updates

Owlets group messy play morning

On Wednesday 28th September we hosted a “messy play morning” for our Owlets group. The morning was run by staff from the Children’s Centre in South Molton, Emma Rowles and Beth Simons and the children had a fantastic morning playing with shredded paper, sticky and slimy and gloopy cornflour and sand and water. We have some lovely photos of the children and lots of the parents found it really helpful to meet Beth and Emma and to register with the Children’s Centre. The Children’s Centre is a great centre for resources for families in our area and they run great free groups such as “Young Mums”, “Bumps to Babies”, “Dad’s workshops” and “under 5’s drop in” – please look at their website for further information.

Carnival

Bees

Our Little Owls and parents and friends all dressed up as Bees as a walking entry for the South Molton Carnival this year! We worked in conjunction with the Quince Honey Farm and what a wonderful sight we all were! Here are some wonderful pictures of the children and families that supported us by handing out leaflets to advertise our lovely new pre-school building – a huge thank you to everyone who got involved, it was a great evening and topped off by us winning a 2nd prize in the walking entry category so WELL DONE TO EVERYONE, horses and children alike!!

Fingers Crossed!

Grant Applications

We have recently made some applications for grants to fund some new equipment for our pre school. We have applied to the Lottery to fund developments for our outside area, it is so exciting to have our own space and we are hoping to purchase some new equipment for the outside, including a pirate ship climbing frame and some new bikes for the little “Little Owls”! We have also made an application to Britannia Building Society for numeracy equipment to develop our maths skills and to set up a maths area in the play room area. Fingers crossed!!

Forthcoming Visit

Messy Play Morning

We are thrilled to have Beth Simons from the South Molton Children’s Centre coming along on Wednesday 28th September to run a messy play morning for our Owlets Group. The usual cost of £3 per child will apply and please feel free to bring along any friends with children to join in the fun! Aprons will be provided for the children!!!

Updates

Welcome back after the Summer break

We are happy to welcome back our Little Owls after a nice summer break, we have lots of new children taking the places of our girls and boys who have now moved up to the Primary School. We wished those leaving us well at the end of last term at the Sports Day and presented them with lovely cards. It is great to see how confident they are in the Reception Year, having enjoyed a good transition with the primary school and with the benefit of being really familiar with the teachers and the school itself through visits and stories over the year.

A Big welcome to our new families that have joined the pre-school and we also have some great new toys which have been purchased over the summer with donations from the Early Learning centre, Action for Children and Devon County Council – we have a wonderful new wooden dolls house which has lots of pretty furniture and accessories and some new art and craft equipment as well.

Our Wednesday “Owlets” group is running very well indeed, with about 7 or 8 parents and toddlers coming along each week. It is a fun morning with a healthy snack at 10.30am and a coffee and a biscuit to help us all through the busy day! Come along and join us if you have a baby or toddler up to age 3 – lots of messy play and art materials will be out, along with our excellent range of baby toys and dolls/prams/trucks/airplanes etc all available to the children to play with.

Open Day

Bishops Nympton Little Owls Pre-school held a Village Fete to celebrate the official opening our their new preschool on Sunday 15th may 2011

The staff and committee of the preschool welcomed Cllr Jeremy Yabsley and Cllr Christine Marsh, Chairman of Devon County Council along to lend a helping had with the formalities and Cllr Christine Marsh opened the building by cutting our red ribbon with the help of local children who will benefit from such a fantastic facility in the village.

Bishops Nympton has been recognized as an area of deprivation in the community of North Devon and the county of Devon benefited from £12m Surestart Early Years Capital Grant, 2008-2011, & was allocated approx £3.5m to complete the coverage of children’s centres across the County & approx £8.5m towards the Childcare, Quality & Access initiative. This is one of the 29 projects in the latter category intended to improve facilities for early years settings operating from the least-suitable premises.

The fun day was a great success, not only in showing off the building to lots of local families, but the families who came along to support us had great fun wellie throwing, eating the delicious BBQ food provided by our brilliant committee and buying lots of local home produce. We were delighted to welcome West Kidland Farm along with some live chickens which the children loved, pony rides, along with a bouncy castle and face painting – it was a great day out for all the family.

We raised over £650 towards new equipment for the pre-school, and our “Little Owls” are thoroughly enjoying our new building. They can run in and out as it suits them – weather dependant and they spend much of the day outside, riding bikes, scooters, playing with the sand pit and running around before coming in to do a little work on their numbers and letter, have a song or some quiet time playing on cbeebies website with the staff and teaching them new songs from their favourite programmes!

We still have spaces for September as we are saying goodbye to quite a few of our “little Owls” who will be starting the the Primary School in September. Please call us 01769 550162 or email if you would like any information about our pre-school – .

We've moved in...

We have moved in and started the Summer Term in the new building!!

Here is a photo of our staff and committee on a preview afternoon for all the old committee members & friends who have been involved and have raised funds in the past – all towards this amazing new home for the Little Owls and also the new group “Owlets” which runs on a Wednesday morning.

The Staff are loving our new home and the children love the new space and spend as much time as they can running in and out and enjoying the tarmac area and riding the bikes and scooters around whenever they wish!

Our new built in sandpit is also a real hit and everyone has settled in really well.

New Building Finished

The building has been finished on time by Morgan Sindall...

We would like to express heartfelt thanks to them for picking up the project and running it so well to complete on time on Friday 11th March. Kevin Taylor was a brilliant site Manager and worked very well alongside the staff at the preschool, sorting issues and answering questions and the building was handed over to us on Friday 11th march and we have the keys!!! It is amazing to be able to look out of the current home in the village hall to see the new building, completely empty of any kit or toys as yet but ready for us to move into it for the beginning of the summer term! We are in the process of looking at new equipment and we are lucky to have some fundraising money saved up to buy a few items. The pre school committee has over the years been saving for this new building and we are very excited indeed. We plan to move into it over the Easter Holidays and be ready for you all on Wednesday 27th April at 9am!

We are taking registrations for new children at the moment and are delighted to be meeting some new children in our area and look forward to the challenge of running a busy local, rural pre-school.

There are a few new pictures here.

New Building Update

New building work will recommence on the 24th January 2011...

We are really excited to announce that the new building work will recommence on the 24th January 2011 and is set to take 7 weeks with a completion date of 11th march 2011 – we are thrilled that Morgan Sindall, a company in Barnstaple have been awarded the contract and we look forward to seeing them on site working away on our new pre-school!

We are hoping to open the pre-school towards the end of March and then welcome all the children back for the summer term to the new building and our new opening hours of 8.45am – 3.45pm 5 days a week.

We are taking registrations for new children at the moment and are delighted to be meeting some new children in our area and look forward to the challenge of running a busy local, rural pre-school.

There are a few new pictures here.

A trip to the Vets

Bishops Nympton Pre-School children had a visit to Horsepond Veterinary Centre in South Molton on 15 March 2010, to fit in with that week's topic on animals.

They were shown around the practice by Carolyn, one of the vets (whose son, Milo, attends the pre-school). We talked about what happens when an animal comes in to the vets, and why they might have to visit. Lucy brought her little terrier, Pepper, who behaved very well and pretended to be a patient. Some of the children listened to Pepper's heart with a stethoscope. The children saw the operating theatre, where surgical operations are carried out, the x-ray room and the kennels where hospitalised animals are looked after. The children were able to dress up as vets with gowns, gloves and masks. Pepper had her foot bandaged. The children particularly enjoyed being weighed on the big dog scales in the waiting room! All the children (and staff and parents!) enjoyed their trip. The practice were very pleased to host the visit, and have also put a picture from the day on their website.

The whole experience was of great benefit and enjoyment for the children, whose topic for the week was all about animals.

More pictures can be found in the photos section - here.

New Building Update

Amazing news - DCC were granted planning permission for our new building, work starts in July this year.

Please click here for more details.

News - Lottery Grant

We have been awarded £875 from the National Lottery Big Lottery Fund!.

We made the application to fund new computer equipment for our children and are very proud of the tremendous achievement at securing this funding for our pre school.

We have received enough to purchase two Dell laptops through a Computers for Charities scheme and also a fantastic new printer which will enable us to produce brilliant displays for the setting, showing the children working and playing and allow us to print their photographs for the displays and for their folders and allow the staff to work more efficiently as we have never had our own photocopier!

We have also been able to buy some new games for the children to play with on the laptops - these include The Jump Ahead Toddlers and Jump Ahead Pre School - This CD-ROM has been specifically designed and produced to capture a child's imagination and to engage their attention by providing fun activities that will stimulate their young minds. Children are encouraged to learn letters and numbers, shapes and colours, learn about animals, to discover music and musical instruments, basic vocabulary, listening skills, mouse control, songs and rhymes, IT skills, hand-to-eye co-ordination and many more useful life skills.

Click here for more details.