Little Gems Pre-School Aldershot

At Little Gems pre-school we take time to assess our children's needs through daily observations and play. We meet with parents prior to starting pre-school and we ask a lot of questions about child's development and needs. We then allocate a key person that will form a special bond with the child and the family. If the child is not yet 3 we will take time to write a 2 year old check where we will clearly highlight our concerns (should there be any) We have a very well educated staff that know what is expected at each stage of development and they are very quick to pick up that additional support is needed. IF we recognise that there are potentially special educational needs we will meet with a parents to have a chat about it and put a IEP in place. We will then with the consent of a parent contact outside agencies such as Speech and Language therapy, Paediatrician, Portage, Local SENCO. Our setting has a well trained and caring SENCO that will walk along side parents throughout the whole process. 

Our teachers are all trained in recognising children's schemas (ways children learn best). Children's schemas are incorporated into our daily activities. We take time to observe what children like to DO and how they learn best. We also ask parents about children's current interests so that we can have them available in our daily provision. Our teachers are great facilitators and will join your child at their chosen activity to extend the learning through meaningful questions, challenges and by adding interesting objects or changing resources if needed. We take time to prepare our enabling environment each morning and can see that our children are thriving in it.

The curriculum is based on the cohort needs and is adapted termly e.g. if we have many children with speech delays our focus will be on developing the language skills via small talking groups, Early talk boost or bucket time. We have IEP for children with additional needs and they are working on two or three small individual targets every term. 

We will evaluate our IEP's together and see if the child is making progress. We will invite you to a training if needed. We have in the past run Makaton training and invited patents of a boy with SEN language needs. We will seek SENCO and Portage advice for some strategies that can be implemented at home as well as at school. There might be some visual clues that we will sent home for you to use them.  

Our GEMS personality profiles tell us what character your child have and what motivates them best. We will make sure that your child key person is familiar with your child's unique character and know how to communicate and motivate them best. Our dedicated staff members are available and ready to help with any issues that the child might be going through. Our loving and caring approach helps children to do well and feel welcome. 

Our Manager is also a Speech and Language therapist that quickly helps to identify language delays and speech disorders. Our Deputy use Mind moves (sport program) to help children make progress in every area of their development. Mind moves is a proven system to finding the cause of learning problems and eliminating them by specific and simple physical exercises. 

Our SENCO has had a SENCO training. We have a staff member that is a Makaton Specialist and went on a training that taught her how to support children on Autistic spectrum. The whole team has recently completed a training on Sensory integration delays. 

We encourage a very low ratio while on outings and often take plenty of parents volunteersThe  with us 

The hall is on the ground floor and there are no stairs to take. Access to the garden has a massive slop which could cause problems for the wheel chair users. 

We take transition process very seriously as we know that it can be a very scary and unknow step for our treasures. We invite school teachers in for a short play. We give verbal and written feedback to the school and make sure all the information and the strategies that we used are being passed on to school.  We read a lot of encouraging and uplifting stories about going to school, role play in our role play corner, dress in new uniforms etc. 

We use our EPP money towards the resources that specific children might need e.g. in the past we have created a sensory box for regulation purposes. We invested in some Montessori toys that focus on specific skills development e.g. fine motor skills. We very big on sensory play and encourage all our children to have a go on messy activities such as water, mud, jelly, clay, shaving foam etc. 

Every term our Manager and Deputy take time to assess how well our children are doing with the curriculum that we have set out for them. If there are some that are not accessing the curriculum we will together with our SENCO create IEP with small individual targets. The key person is then encouraged to allocate a special time to those activities with their key child. Our SENCO also take time once a week to provide one on one support via turn taking games, bubble blowing, story reading etc. If the child is unable to access the whole group provision we make sure as much as we can that there is an adult next to them or with them if they wonder off.  We then every term review our steps and judge what impact the provision that we have put in place had.  

Our parents play crucial part in day to day running of our setting. We welcome them once a term into the setting for short parents-teachers meetings to assess how well their children are doing. If there are any decisions to be made or referrals to be places we discus that with the parents during those meetings. Often we ask parents what help is needed and what we can do to support them. There might be some coursers run by our local Family support services that we can refer them to. We seek parents feedback via parents questionnaire forms and quickly impalement their advice and observations. We want parents to feel part of our school as much as we can