Within our Preschool room, there are some guided areas, such as a construction area, home corner, book area, and creative spaces for music and art. To complement these, we provide a range of areas and activities which serve different purposes to inspire your child’s imagination and role play, they’ll be able to safely explore feelings and friendships, develop problem-solving, and have space available where they can have quiet time and reflection.

Their time in the preschool environment leads them towards starting their school journey, where their first year at school sees them complete their Early Years Foundation Stage journey that began at our nursery.

Preschool provides your child with the opportunity to broaden and deepen their essential skills which will ready them for a life of learning and empower them to make positive contributions to the world around them. Preschoolers learn best through play, when using their whole body and engaging their senses.

3-year-olds are full of wonder and spend a lot of time watching, observing, and imitating. Their imagination is working at all times. They are particularly interested in perfecting their fine motor skills that they once found it challenging when they were two years old. A three-year-old loves to pour, mix, mash and squeeze. At this age, children begin to hold writing equipment better thus our room is equipped with large pencils and crayons to help with mark making and drawing. The gross motor skill development of this age group learns to throw and catch a large ball, hopping, climbing and skipping that children love to practice and are incorporated into everyday activities.

Learning about mathematics and language skills are integrated into our daily practice and introduced in context of play. Daily learning promotes social interactions, playing together to develop friendships and improve social skills which increases children’s ability to make special friendships and to have mutual respect towards each other in the environment. Practitioners are attuned to the emotional quality of interactions and help children identify emotions (their own and others) and learn problem-solving strategies. For example, in the role play area, a supermarket gives children chances to count money, sort and classify objects (M), make signs to label shelves or advertise special sales(C&L), and experience foods from other cultures (PSED).

Preschoolers develop their literacy skills throughout the day, not only during reading time. Practitioners use poems, songs, and rhymes to teach topics across all subjects and the rooms are filled with signs and labelled objects which help children make connections between objects and words, and words and letters. We support the children in their journey towards school readiness to help them to make that exciting transition to ‘Big School’ as smooth as possible.

Here in Monkey Puzzle Southgate, we focus on supporting the children in all of the skills they need to be independent and ready to learn when they join Reception.