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List of content

1.  About Ready Steady Go! Pre-school

1. 1. 2.  Ethos

   2. 3.  Getting in touch

   3. 4.  Opening hours & Term Dates

   4. 5.  Staff

   5. 6.  Fees & Funding

   6. 7.  The pre-school environment – indoors

   7. 8.  The outdoor environment

   8. 9.  The Pre-school Curriculum

   9. 10. Special Educational Needs & Disability (SEND)

   10. 11. EAL

   11. 12. Settling in

   12. 13. Your child’s progress & the Role of their Key person

   13. 14. Partnership with parents

   14. 15. Preparation for school

   15. 16. Our favourites!

   16. 17. Links in Uganda

       18. Fundraising & charity events

       19. Special events

       20. Parent’s reviews

Ready Steady Go! is Cornerstone's sessional pre-school and has provided  nursery education for children aged two and a half to 5 years for over 25 years. We celebrated our Silver Anniversary in April 2017.

We are registered for 32 children per session & are proud to be rated Good by OFSTED. (See our OFSTED report online: https://reports.ofsted.gov.uk/inspection-reports/find-inspection-report/provider/CARE/EY460864)

 We have an experienced and highly qualified staff team and are managed by a committee appointed by Cornerstone Christian Centre.

The pre-school is a “packaway” setting held in a large church hall with a spacious grassed garden for outdoor play. If you are seeking a pre-school for your child do get in touch and come for a visit to see us in action.

We advise putting your child’s name on the waiting list early.

We seek to include & value each child, as an individual, & to provide a warm welcome & appropriate learning opportunities for all children, whatever their needs, giving extra support where necessary.

We are committed to the inclusion of all children so that they can access the curriculum as fully as possible at a level which recognises their skills, interests and abilities, & so they are able to learn & develop their potential within a safe, caring & stimulating environment without discrimination. We aim for a holistic approach for all the children so that all aspects of their lives are valued including family, wellbeing, personal needs, education and care.

The welfare, safety and protection of all our children is paramount. We intend to create in our pre-school an environment in which children are safe from abuse and in which any suspicion of abuse is promptly and appropriately responded to. We are committed to empowering young children and promoting their right to be strong, resilient and listened to, through good practice. All staff, including volunteers have a full and active part to play in protecting children from harm.

Address: Ready Steady Go! Pre-school, St Mary’s Church Hall, 61 College Road, Bromley BR1 3QG

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/61+College+Rd,+Bromley+BR1+3QG/@51.4126272,0.0127752,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x47d8aa130703836d:0x4aa20bf1b90dc1ee!8m2!3d51.4126239!4d0.0149639

Telephone : 020 8464 5966

Email: readysteady.go@hotmail.co.uk

You can also follow us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/rsgbromley?fref=ts

To have all our information available at your fingertips, “Our Schools app” can be downloaded for free via your app store onto any Apple/Android device.

Find Ready Steady Go simply by using our postcode – BR1 3QG

Our staff are highly qualified & committed, with many years experience between us.

The pre-school is led by Angela Leeves with deputy, Laura Hayzer.

We are a multicultural team with diverse interests & passions:  whether it be bringing stories to life, messy play, maths, exploring the natural world etc. etc. - This enriches the setting and enhances the children’s experiences.

We love our work and seeing how the children grow and develop in the short time they are with us.

Fees vary according to the age of the child and whether they are eligible for government funding

Children aged 2 until the term after their 3rd birthday:    £20 (unless in receipt of 2 Year Old Funding)

Children from term after 3rd Birthday are usually eligible for  3 and 4 year old Funding. This covers 3 hours of the session and there is an additional charge of  £5 per session for the extra time we are open.

For further information please contact us.

More details about help with childcare costs & funding for 2, 3 and 4 year olds is available on:

http://www.bromley.gov.uk/childcare

Follow the links to find out more about what financial help is available.

You can also follow links to apply for:   2 Year Old Funding or 30 Hours Funding (NB – we can only offer this in partnership with another setting / childminder)

Our large hall provides opportunities for the children to explore a wide range of activities daily across the curriculum – developing their own ideas & patterns of play (schemas) and supported by the staff to extend their skills & learning.

Outdoors we are privileged to have access to a large grassed garden  which we use throughout the whole year (except in very severe weather.)

This provides a rich environment which changes with the seasons allowing the children to be energetic, get close to nature, plant & grow seeds, build dens, pretend to cook in our mud kitchen etc 

We are passionate about play and how children learn through hands on experiences..

And our staff work closely with the children to observe them and plan how to extend their current skills and interests -  playing alongside and scaffolding how to move on.

Like all other pre-schools and nurseries we follow the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum. More information about this & what your child will be typically be doing at different ages can be downloaded from:

https://www.foundationyears.org.uk/files/2015/03/4Children_ParentsGuide_2015_WEB.pdf

The following are some tasters about the different aspects of the pre-school curriculum although in reality most activities are cross curricular . There is more going on than you can imagine when children are deeply engaged in play – experimenting  with what they know, actively learning, & developing creativity and critical thinking. This is what the Early Years Foundation Stage calls – Characteristics of Effective Learning.

This is all about how children make relationships, grow in confidence & self esteem & begin to manage their feelings & behaviour.

As well as all the benefits of being in a bigger community away from their immediate family, we introduce our children to “Peter & Millie” – 2 persona dolls who feature in our “First Steps” programme. We use the dolls to help problem solve some of their challenges – like sharing or overcoming frustration.

It’s really important for young children to be active & healthy – to grow in strength & co-ordination and use big physical movements. Also to be able to manipulate small things with their hands e.g. using scissors, mark making, modelling with dough.

They’ll also be learning about how to have a healthy lifestyle & become more independent in their personal self care  - we love to hear them say “Me do it myself!” and achieve a new skill.

This is such a key area and we seek to provide a rich language environment for all our children.

It involves 4 aspects – LISTENING & ATTENTION, UNDERSTANDING, SPEAKING, and SOCIAL INTERACTION.

These run as a thread through all we do – whether pretending in the role play area, talking about what we’re doing as we play, listening to stories, singing songs, saying hello, asking for help, talking about  a photo or something from home.

This is the beginning of Reading & Writing. But we need to build up step by step so we focus on “Letters & Sounds” Phase 1 as recommended by the Government.  We can supply more information about this on request  but some of our activities will involve listening walks, reading rhyming stories, clapping and tapping to different rhythms, recognising letter sounds – it’s all great fun and not at all formal!

Maths is all around us – we just need to notice it & talk about it together: the bus numbers & numbers on our doors, sorting out the washing into different colours / pairs, fitting puzzle pieces together, asking for more / less, carrying something that is heavy / light, cooking & weighing & pouring . Too much? More / Less? High / Low?

This is all about people & our communities, the world around us – science / nature and technology.

Most of our children have experienced IT from a very early age – mobile phones, TV  etc but we love the way they really get into exploring how things work and asking those How? What? & Why? questions as they investigate for themselves.

Some of our favourite activities are exploring sand , water & mud, watching snails / tadpoles, hunting for woodlice, growing things etc…. The children are great at instinctively being little scientists.

This sounds grand but is really about using imagination and being creative through lots of different media – painting, collage, model making, music, dance, role play, small worlds play.

We love hearing what the children say as they express themselves because their small beginnings show lots of creativity and the process of what they do is often more important than their finished products at this stage.

Our setting is committed to inclusive practice and has welcomed & supported children with a wide range of additional needs and disabilities over the years including speech & language difficulties, ASD & social communication difficulties, hearing impairment, cerebral palsy and genetic disorders.

We work in partnership with children’s families and other professionals involved with the child.

For more information about our setting’s LOCAL OFFER and to receive a copy of our SEND INFORMATION REPORT please contact Angela Leeves (SENCO) using the contact details above.

To find out more about Bromley’s Local Offer please visit -  https://bromley.mylifeportal.co.uk/childcarelo/

We are privileged to have children with families from many countries & cultures attending our setting. Although not all families may speak English, we recognise that bilingual/ multilingual children and adults and those speaking a language, other than English, are an asset.

We encourage families to speak their first language at home with their children and in our experience, we find that children begin to pick up English as they play alongside others and are exposed to English in the pre-school.

We provide a wide range of visual ways to communicate through pictures, props, signing and gesture  and offer simple verbal commentary to their play so that the children are helped to develop their understanding and communication in a new language and gradually become more fluent.

Starting pre-school is a big step for young children and their families. In order to be able to play, learn and socialise children need to feel happy and secure so the settling in process is key.

Before starting we offer a taster session and a home visit. This enables us to find out about the child’s personality, experiences so far, their family life and what makes them unique and for parents to ask questions and provide information. For the child this is a practical introduction to new people and places and a taste of what to expect on starting. Settling in will be different for every child and so we aim to be flexible. Your child’s key person will help with this process, providing care and building a relationship with them.

Although all of our staff will work with your child one member of staff will take responsibility for observing and recording their progress and planning how to help them progress to their next stages of learning and development. This is the Key Person. She will be your point of contact for advice and information and we hope you will get to know her well. 

Half a term after starting all new parents will be offered an individual formal meeting with their key person to discuss their child’s settling in and progress and to plan for their Next Steps. Written reports for each child are sent home towards the end of the summer term (although 2 year olds may also have an additional report earlier in the school year as part of the Integrated Review)

We are keen for parents to feel part of the pre-school community and there are lots of opportunities to get involved including volunteering to help on the voluntary rota or visiting to share a skill / something of interest with the children , coming to coffee mornings/ information sessions & learning about different aspects of the children’s learning,  supporting charity events , helping develop our practice & policies, attending special events, & being involved in shared home & pre-school activities e.g. Learning Journeys, Holiday challenges.

The children are with us for a very short time – perhaps 2 years at the most and we believe that this is significant time in its own right but inevitably we will be preparing them for their transition to reception classes in local primary schools.

Many parents worry about whether their children will be ready and we support this transition by holding a specific information session for parents to reassure them about what they should expect and how we can work together help the children be well equipped to enter school with confidence.

In the summer term we focus on some of the skills they will need (as advised by local teachers) – many of these are very practical e.g. coming into the pre-school hall on their own, dressing skills for PE, how to carry a lunch tray etc.

Often teachers from local schools visit us to meet the children who will be in their classes.

Every year we ask the parents and children what they have enjoyed best about Ready Steady Go!  These are always among  their favourites!

Our toy monkey who goes to stay overnight with each child and gets to go to all sorts of interesting places as well as sharing in all the routine events of family life! 

Our simplified version of Forest School which takes place weekly in the summer term. The children go on walks, listen for environmental sounds, do den building, mud painting, natural crafts, make weather music  & much more. The highlight is always hot chocolate back at “Base Camp”

There is nothing quite like “ mud mud glorious mud”!

We are privileged to be linked with St Barnabas primary school & Muyenga High School in Kampala.

Angela and a team including other teachers from Cornerstone visited the schools in 2015. We were made very welcome and had the opportunity to share some of the ways we teach in England and learn about education in Uganda.

It made us realise how well resourced our children are here. We have been thrilled to be able to send gifts & resources, write to the children & collect Active Kids vouchers so that we can send much needed sports equipment to them. (Angela even took “Albert”  on the trip & the Ugandan children loved him just as much as ours do!)

The realisation that we have so much privilege here in Bromley means that we don’t just want to take what we have for granted. So each term we aim to run a charity event to fundraise for causes close to our heart that are relevant to young children and families here or abroad.

These have included: the MacMillan Big Coffee Morning, Jeans for Genes, Toilet twinning, Christmas Jumper Day (Save the Children), Bookaid, the Big Toddle for Barnardo’s, as well as support for Uganda. This year our children dressed up as Robots for our Big Toddle.

Here are just a few:

St Mary’s invite us to take the children on a journey through time to experience the first ever Christmas. This is the first of several Christmas events, as well as a party and simple nativity.

We held a family fun day for all the community, making contact again with many of our past families to celebrate this milestone.

e.g. from the Community dentist or local library 

This year we invited parents & carers to our “Seaside special”  with songs all about a trip to the seaside and an opportunity to congratulate our school leavers and celebrate the year together.

“Ready Steady Go will always hold an important part in my child’s life. From learning to express herself in English to socialising& learning about helping (charity events), taking care of plants & the environment to following the rules. As I always say to other mums, a place where you truly feel your child is well.”

“RSG has provided such a caring, warm, welcoming environment. We really value the stability that RSG provides. My child has really grown in confidence. Thank you for all your hard work, care & commitment.”

“Ready Steady Go has made a huge difference to our life. The teachers noticed that my son suffered from selective mutism, so we all, teachers & me, could start working on it in such an early stage. Thank you so much for all your effort. My son feels much better now and is more confident.”

“The pre-school helped me to support my child when she had some separation anxiety, which now has made her more independent and reassured when I leave her to go to work. We could not have hoped for a better experience than the last few years we have had at RSG. We thank all the staff for the outstanding work they provide.”