Introduction
Rainbow Pre-school is open five days a week. Each day is divided into two sessions. Our youngest group, Pups (18 months plus) are offered two morning sessions, Tuesdays and Thursdays of 2 hours from 9am to 11am and our Cubs (year before preschool) are offered three morning sessions on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays of 2½ hours from 9.15am to 11.45 am. Our preschool group, Tigers, are offered five afternoons, two of which are 3 hours long from 11.45am to 2.45pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which includes lunch club. The other three will be 2½ hours 12.15pm to 2.45pm. All the children follow the same basic foundation stage curriculum, although we follow the Birth to Three Matters Framework with the Pups and Cubs groups, which is flexible dependent upon the child’s development and not their age. The children are encouraged to explore and expand topics in more depth appropriate to their developmental age and in line with their individual learning plans.
The Pre-school has a Pre-school Manager and qualified Play-Leaders and Play Assistants. We take up to 20 children per session with a maximum of 15 in the Pups group. Parents/carers are welcome to come in on a rota system to assist during their child's session. A voluntary group of parents/carers provide overall administration through a Pre-school Committee.
The days at Rainbow are built around topics. A different topic is chosen for each half term, though they are flexible enough to respond to ideas brought in by both parents and children and to allow for seasonal activities and events. Parents are given a topic sheet at the beginning of each half term giving you a chance to link the child's time at Rainbow and home. At the end of a topic all parents receive a topic conclusion. This covers some of the activities the children have been involved in and how they relate to the children's developmental needs. Photographs of the children are taken throughout the school year as evidence of the variety of activities undertaken and are used to inform the child’s individual learning plan. At times they may be used in displays featuring Rainbow Pre-School or articles within the local press. Your permission for this will be asked in the registration form.
Developmental Aims
For our preschool group, we plan and organise every activity in terms of these six developmental aims:We look at these in more detail in the development section.