Christmas Fair Success

We had a lovely afternoon on Saturday and in the process managed to raise £1196 for pre-school! That is an amazing result and we would just like to thank everyone who was involved in making it such a success. From our staff and committee who worked hard organising before and on the day to all those people who bought raffle tickets, donated cakes, donated prizes and who came along and spent their pennies on the day.

A special thank you has to go to Santa for taking a couple of hours out of his busy schedule to come along and visit!!

A big thank you to the following for their generous donations;

Daves Landscape & Gardening

Bramcote Leisure Centre 

KH Hair, Long Eaton

Cadland, Beeston 

Cinnamon, Stapleford

Buoinissima 

Thai Legend 

Marieca’s Eatery 

Little Drivers 

The Village Hotel 

Trent Bridge 

Photo Nottingham 

Risley Park Pub 

Denz

Heights of Abraham 

M&S

Manor Farm 

Time for Tea Vintage Tearoom 

Donna May Florists

Mi Tiempo

Buttermilk Coffee House

Ambientlights Photography 

K&M’s 

Costa Coffee

Matalan

Chiquito 

Marco’s New York Italian

Deborah Williams Hairdressing 

Trent Barton 

Vanilla Pod 

Cheesecake Shop 

Andys Fish Bar 

The Bauble Room

Oriental Chef

Zohrie Jewellery

Bulls Head, Breaston

Twinkling Moos Gift Shop

Thank you!

Christmas Fair

It's nearly time for our Christmas Fair! Put Saturday 26th November, 2pm - 4pm in your diary!!

We need lots of help to make this event a success.

• We need lots of cakes for our cake stall; donations can be brought into pre-school from Friday 25th November and from 10.30am on the Saturday
• We need donations for our bottle tombola, present tombola and Christmas chocolate tombola
• We are putting together a Christmas Hamper and are looking for lots of lovely goodies to go in it
• We also need prizes for our raffle so if any local businesses would like to help by donating a prize please get in touch with Jayne on 07960 983423

And parents remember that next week (21st November) is non-uniform week and all we ask in exchange for your child wearing their favourite outfits is a donation for our bottle tombola - wine, beer, perfume - anything as long as it's in a bottle!

Many thanks for all your support; all monies raised will go straight to pre-school so that we can continue to provide the high levels of care and education through exciting and stimulating activities that we pride ourselves on.

Upcoming Events

As it's Halloween when we return after the half term break we will be having a bit of Halloween fun on Monday 31st October. All children who attend on the Monday are invited to come to pre-school in fancy dress either scary or not so scary!

On Wednesday 2nd November we have a committee meeting which will be held at pre-school at 7.30pm. This meeting will be to discuss and prepare for our upcoming Christmas Fair so if you would like to lend a hand please pop along and show your support. All welcome.

Christmas Card Update

We have been advised by Art Projects for Schools that the deadline for online orders has now been extended until 23rd October.

Please ensure all artworks are returned to pre-school by Wednesday 19th October.

Please make a note of the unique order code on the back of your child's artwork as you will need this to place the order.

Keep trying their website, they are hoping it will be working by Wednesday....fingers crossed!

Thank you for your patience.

Christmas Card Ordering Update

We have been advised the following from Art Projects for Schools regarding the ordering of Xmas cards.

Please ensure that ALL artwork is returned to pre-school NO LATER than WEDNESDAY 19TH OCTOBER.

Please make a note of the unique code on the back of your child's artwork as you need this code for ordering online. Once the system is back up and working we will let you know. The deadline will be extended once the system is working and we will advise you of this via this page, text & our website.

We will send the artwork to Art Projects for Schools so that it can be reproduced as timely as possible once orders are made. They have assured us that the return of completed orders will not be affected by this online ordering delay.

Once again many thanks for your continued patience.

Christmas Card - Online Ordering

For parents trying to order Christmas Cards via Art Projects for Schools we have been advised that our deadline for ordering has been extended to midnight on 18th October, although we are aware that the site is 'down' yet again.

From an email received late this afternoon it would appear that the problem lies with the company providing the software that runs the online ordering part of their website. Art Projects for Schools are very apologetic and have given us their reassurances that everything possible is being done to get the site up and working again and that all orders once made will be despatched in plenty of time for Christmas.

Apologies for the frustration that this is causing.

Introducing Your Child's Online Learning Journal

We're pleased to announce that we have teamed up with Tapestry Online Learning Journal to provide online access to your children's developmental records.

Tapestry is available either via your web browser or as a free App on both Android and Apple devices and will give parents the ability to see what their child has been doing while at pre-school. Parents will be provided with their own login details and will be able to not only view 'observations' but to comment on them and even create their own . This means that our key-person staff will be able to communicate much more efficiently and effectively with our parents to ensure that the education and care their child receives is the best possible.

Parents will be asked to provide pre-school with an email address in order for access to be set up and once received we will add parents to the system. A simple 'activation' email is then sent to parents and away you go!

A link to the Tapestry website is available at the top right hand side of our home page. Any parents wanting more information should speak to Jayne or email pre-school on springfieldpreschool@hotmail.co.uk 

We hope you will enjoy this new experience and we look forward to being able to share all those moments that make our job so special and rewarding.

Time for a New School Year

Well it's not long now till we open our doors for a new school year.

Our year starts on Monday 5th September at 9.15am. We are looking forward to welcoming everyone back to pre-school as well as lots of new faces too!

Please remember that we have new opening hours;

Morning sessions are 9.15am - 12.15pm

Lunch Club sessions are 12.15pm - 12.45pm

Afternoon sessions are 12.45pm - 3.45pm

Our sessions cost £8.50 each for children aged two. Children aged 3 and over who are not claiming government funding or who attend for more than the 15 funded hours per week will pay £10.50 per session.

Lunch club is £2.50 per session, with parents providing a packed lunch.

Snack fees are either £2 or £4 per half term dependent on the number of sessions attended each week.

We are already very busy this year but we do have a few spaces available so please get in touch as soon as possible if you are interested in a place for your child. You can reach our manager, Jayne, on 07960 983423 or email springfieldpreschool@hotmail.co.uk

Summer Update

We hope everyone is having a lovely Summer and let's hope the forecasters have got it right and we have some lovely weather over the next couple of weeks.

We have some fantastic new signs all ready to be installed in our outside area - big thank you to Simon Phipps Art for his time and creativity.

Just a reminder that all our term dates, opening hours and fees information can be found on the right hand side of this page. We will be re-opening on Monday 5th September but in the meantime please direct any queries to our email springfieldpreschool@hotmail.co.uk or phone on 07960 983423. Don't forget to like our Facebook page or you can even follower us on Twitter!

End of Year!

Well we have reached the end of our school year and it has been an amazing one. We have had lots of fun and laughter and as well as lots of exploring and learning too.

We have been overwhelmed these last few days by the kindness and generosity of our parents who have bought us all some lovely gifts and cards and who have said some very kind words. All of this is truly appreciated by all the staff and is the icing on the cake of a great year.

We would like to wish all those leaving us for 'big school' lots of luck and happiness; we know you will all love your new schools and will continue to flourish.

But we are also looking forward to welcoming back those staying with us in September as well as lots of new faces!

Have a fantastic Summer and we will see you in September!

Summer Term

Well this has been a busy term to end our academic year.

We had a fantastic Summer Fair a few weeks ago that raised £1038 which was amazing! A big thank you to everyone who contributed to making it such a great success.

We had our leavers concert the other afternoon, and despite the heat all the children did an amazing rendition of 'Room on the Broom'!

All of our children have received their 'end of year' reports and to celebrate we are enjoying a few days of party games and treats.

We still have a couple of days to go until our Summer break with our last day being Tuesday 26th July. We will then re-open on Monday 5th September.

We hope everyone has a lovely Summer break and we wish all our leavers the very best of luck at their new schools.

REMINDER

From September we have new opening hours as follows;

Morning Sessions  -  9.15am - 12.15pm

Lunch Club  -  12.15pm - 12.45pm

Afternoon Sessions  -  12.45pm - 3.45pm

Sessions will cost £8.50 each for children aged 2 years of age and £10.50 for children aged over 3 who are not claiming free childcare with us or who attended for more than the 15 hours free childcare.

Sports Day & Cake Sale

Well the British weather got in the way of our Sports Day the other week so we are going to try again on Tuesday 24th May at 2pm...so please keep your fingers crossed that the weather is kind to us.

We will also be having a Cake Sale Week starting on Tuesday 24th May. All donations are gratefully received and cakes will be sold at the end of each session all week or until we run out. Proceeds will go towards some improvements that we are currently making to our sensory garden area.

Thank you in advance for your continued support.

Easter Eggstravaganza Success

So on the last day of our Spring Term we held our Easter Eggstravaganza. We had lots of entries for our Easter Bonnet parade as well as a ton of chocolate for our tombola. We had cakes, crafts, games and hot dogs too!

A big thank you to everyone who helped to organise this event and to everyone who came out and supported us on the day as we managed to raise an amazing £560!!! This is a fantastic result and we can't thank you all enough.

It is only through fundraising events like this that we can continue to offer the high standard of care and education that your children deserve.

This money will support our recent improvements to our home corner area as well as fund some expansions to our creative resources.

Thank You!

Easter Eggstravaganza

On Thursday 24th March from 2.45pm till 4.30pm we will be holding our Easter Eggstravaganza! Lots of Easter themed fun for all the family and hopefully we will raise a few pennies too.

There will be a BBQ, cake stall, raffle, Easter egg hunt, tattoos, Hook-a-Duck, Easter Chocolate Tombola, refreshments, Name the Lion and an Easter Bonnet Parade!!

We are really looking forward to seeing your Easter Bonnet creations and judging will take place at 4.00pm. All children who take part will get a small treat, and there will be prizes for the top three creations.

All money raised from this event will go direct to pre-school and help us to continue to provide a wide range of exciting and stimulating activities.

Thank you for your continued support!

Important Changes

At Springfield we are always looking at what we do, why we do it and whether we could be doing it better!

This has led us to start thinking about the potential impact of the government's plan to introduce up to 30 hours per week of free childcare and education for children aged 3 & 4 years of age in September 2017. As we strive to offer our parents the best service we can we want to be in a position to be able to provide those 30 hours of childcare and education per week. But this will mean a change to our opening hours as our current sessions will need to increase from two and a half hour sessions to three hour sessions.

So that we can be best prepared we have decided to bring in this change early and so from this September we will have a new set of opening hours and as a result some of our fees will change too. Please note that we will only be able to offer 15 hours of government funded childcare and education this September and that the increase to 30 hours will not come into effect until September 2017. Please also be aware that there will be certain criteria to meet in order to qualify for the new funding and we will ensure that our parents are kept informed as soon as we know anything more!

Our new opening hours from September 2016 are;

Morning Sessions - 9.15am - 12.15pm

Lunch Club - 12.15pm - 12.45pm

Afternoon Sessions - 12.45pm - 3.45pm

Sessions for two year olds will cost £8.50 per session.

Sessions for children aged over three and who choose to take their funded place elsewhere, or who wish to attend for more than the 15 hours per week (equivalent to 5 sessions) the cost will be £10.50 per session.

Lunch Club will remain unaffected and cost £2.50 per lunch club with parents providing a packed lunch.

Should anyone wish to discuss anything in this post in greater detail please speak to Jayne either in person at pre-school or email springfieldpreschool@hotmail.co.uk

We hope that this change will meet both the current and future needs of our parents.

Healthy Eating Week

As part of our current topic of 'Our Bodies' we will be having a 'healthy eating' week for the week of the 1st February.

We would like to encourage all those children who attend our lunch club sessions to bring in really healthy lunch boxes and we will be awarding prizes for all those who have lots of healthy foods!

We hope our parents will support us with this topic and we can recommend having a look at 'Henry' a website that supports families with healthy eating and exercise for the really young www.henry.org.uk

Newsletter - January 2016

Here is our first newsletter of the new year;

Hello

Welcome back we hope that everyone had a lovely Christmas and a very Happy New Year.

Important Dates for your Diary

w/c 8^th February                 -           Cake Sale Week

Friday 12^th February           -          End of Term

Monday 22^nd February        -           Start of Term

Wednesday 9^th March         -           Inset Day – pre-school will be closed

15^th, 16^th & 17^th March       -           Parent Evenings

Thursday 24^th March          -           End of Term

Monday 11^th April                -           Start of Term

Session Fees

Invoices for session fees, lunch club and snack have been issued; all invoices are issued for the term up to the 12^th February and should be paid by Friday 15^th January 2016.  Late payment of fees will automatically incur a £7.00 penalty fee and continuous failure to pay fees could result in the removal of your child’s place from pre-school.  Please speak to Jayne regarding any payment issues so that this can be avoided – many thanks.

Primary School Applications

If your child was born between 1^st September 2011 and 31^st August 2012 they will be due to start Primary School in the academic year September 2016 – August 2017.  Applications for your child's place at Primary School need to be made through Derbyshire County Council (for those living in Derbyshire) and Nottinghamshire County Council (for those living in Nottinghamshire) by midnight on 15th January 2016.  If anyone has any questions please speak to Jayne.

Term Dates

Please be aware that we follow Derbyshire County Council term dates and as such the dates for our Easter breaks are different to those for Nottinghamshire County Council.

Upcoming Events

Committee Meeting – our next meeting is on Tuesday 12^th January at The Risley Park pub at 7.30pm and we will be discussing future fundraisers. Everyone is welcome J

Cake Sale Week (w/c 8^th February) – we will be having a cake sale all week (or until we run out of cakes!) so please bring in your donations from Monday 8^th February.  Cakes will be on sale at the end of each session – thank you.

Parent Evenings – these will be held in March and more details will be available after half term.

Staff Update

Delia has resigned due to health problems. We would like to thank her for all her hard work and wish her a speedy recovery. We will be having another new face join us in a few weeks as Suzanne Tracey joins as one of our supply cover.

How to Contact Pre-School

Our phone number is 07960 983423 or email us at; springfieldpreschool@hotmail.co.uk and check our website www.springfieldpreschool.co.uk and Facebook page for up-to-date information.