Settling In

Most of our children join in September, and we run a series of settling in sessions to welcome our new arrivals. This provides reassurance for the children and their families and helps the staff to get to know the new children.

Taster session

We offer an afternoon taster session in the term before your child joins us. This is for all our new starters and their parents/carers to come in and explore preschool for the first time, meet their play partner and other preschoolers. Your child can join in playing, discovering different activities as well as some group time too. This is a chance to get to know your child’s play partner who will also make arrangements for a 30-minute home visit over the summer. If you are unable to attend this session, you will be contacted separately.

Home visit

This is a valuable opportunity for us to start getting to know your child and allows your child to begin building a relationship with their play partner. It is important that your child feels safe and able to develop this relationship at their own pace.

Some children prefer to sit quietly or go off into another room while you talk with their play partner, others are ready to engage and play immediately. Either way, the home visit is a useful starting point for both the families and the play partner.

To support us in getting to know your child we ask you to complete an ‘All About Me’ form using our online learning journal, Tapestry, and we will talk through this with you. We want to know all about your child’s interests, their likes and dislikes, any concerns that you may have prior to your child starting at the preschool, and anything that may help them to settle. The more information we have the better at this stage. For example, some children like to request a particular activity that they know they will be able to do when they arrive on their first day, others enjoy the surprise element.

Dates

The induction sessions for children starting in September are as follows and dates will be confirmed in the welcome packs issued to new families during the summer term:

June/July - Free taster session for new children (parents/carers stay with their children)

June/July - Summer Party for all current and new preschool families

July/August - 30-minute home visit from your child's new play partner

Start of Term 1/September - Full sessions for new children

We do not use a staggered start approach for new children, but welcome them for their booked sessions from day one. We will adjust this by agreement with parents if we think that a child would benefit from shorter hours initially and/or a slower introduction to preschool.

For children who join the preschool during the year, we offer a home visit and taster session tailored to the individual child’s needs.