Am I being fussy re preschool

[twincrazy]

I think Im paying quite alot, I realise its the area we are in £16.00 per morning, although my husband gets childcare vouchers towards the cost still quite abit. Our little girl goes 3 mornings.

We had to pay £50.00 admin fee, for what I have no idea, I have one piece of paperwork handed out.

Generally she is happy and pleased to go, but I dont really see her making anything and coming home with anything.

Do they have to teach the kids at this age anything at preschool? I have no clue?

My freind with a son the age was telling me today he came home with all cooking to do with the Chinese New Year.

Im just wondering if she isnt being stimulated enough, not that I am a pushy parent or anything!

Any advice appreciated

Thanks

is it a private nursery or a preschool attached to a school?

we paid about £8 for 3 hours in a village hall setting

ina private nursery like Asquith, which we used while I was at work, it costs a lot more, they open from 8am - 6pm
they tended to do a lot more as they had more time and more facilities like a kitchen for cooking, huge garden etc

It isnt private

They rent a cricket club, I realise the kitchen space isnt big.

Lots of learning experiences do not involve bringing anything home. I help out in a (much cheaper!) pre-school and some of the things going on today were
Touching jelly and describing it

• painting a Chinese dragon
• spring rolls/other Chinese food tasting
• building a dinosaur cave (children are dinosaur mad at the moment)
• guessing the first letter of things
• trying to alliterate
• outside on bikes and trikes
• chalking on the playground
• stories
• sharing news
• singing

Pictures are taken as a record and written observations made by staff; these will go into the children's Learning Journey books.

If you google EYFS you can have a look at what should be going on.

HTH

Mine is a private pre-school, in the school's grounds. Open 8:45 - 18:00.

thanks Clayhead

We dont have any books with anything written in whats going on..nothing

Thank you for your direction I will have a look at that later

mine used to get a learning journal home at the end of a term

it was great with photos ect

so if you started in january you wouldn't have seen it yet

I'd ask about it though

Yes, LJ should be there ready for you to see at any time (not necessarily bang up to date though!). I would ask about it, we have parents coming in all the time to look at them as well as sessions where they can come and see them termly.

Is the learning journal for each child?

My little girl started in September

should be an individual learning journal for each child, yes. it should have observations ion with what the child has done, linked to the EYFS, as well as photos and samples of the things she has made.

16.00 is ridiculous. This time last year I was paying 7.50. in London. OK, it was pretty bog standard, but now they are in school Nursery I realise how much more they are doing. It's not just what they come home with, but they sing songs they've learned, talk about things I haven't taught them etc.

Link to poem which sums it up! However sounds like your pre-school need to be more pro-active with sharing info, we use a white board to outline activities, send home 6 weekly obs/photos etc.
www.silkysteps.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2357 - its the second post by cybertwin!

Didn't they tell you what to expect when you signed her up? Did she have some orientation days? They should have very clear plans of what they're doing at each session and how these meet the early years target thingies.

At DDs pre-school there is a folder for each child which you can look at whenever you want and you can also ask for a review at any time which is more of sit down chat to go through what they've been doing and how they're progressing.

The emphasis at this age is learning through play but DDs preschool do do quite a few more structured things ? today they all made an envelope with a chocolate coin in for Chinese New Year.

I pay about £14/£15 per session and apparently it's quite an expensive one (in greater London) so £16 does sound a lot.