Happy, secure children learn best, and our overarching aim at Monkey Puzzle Hartley Wintney is to provide a loving, safe and stimulating environment in which the children in our care have the room to grow, laugh and thrive.  Visitors to our lovely setting are quick to pick up on the ‘home from home’ feel of the place and the exciting and varied play opportunities we provide.

We strive to foster and develop children’s independence, with our mantra: “don’t say no, have a go,” which they soon pick up on and adopt for themselves.  The children know that we are always there to support them but they are actively encouraged to try for themselves first, whether this is zipping up their coats or challenging themselves in a new play activity. The beauty of play is that the children don’t even realise how many skills they are learning and how much knowledge they are accumulating in the course of their endeavours.

Our ‘Golden Rules’ are introduced to the children as soon as they join Owls Room (Preschool) and this supports them to make the ‘good choices’ that will be expected of them at school. Children are encouraged to listen, share, walk and use quiet voices inside, have kind hands, remember their manners and always be respectful. We practise lining up and use positive praise (and stickers!) to actively encourage these behaviours.

During the summer months, when our school-aged children are gearing up for the transition into the next stage of their educational journey, we welcome their new teachers into Nursery in order to make initial introductions and start to forge those all-important relationships. Our role play dressing up rail is filled with school uniform items, and it isn’t long before the children are playing schools by ‘taking the register’ and ‘delivering lessons’ themselves. Registration takes place every morning in preschool, so the children are well versed in short ‘carpet sessions’ before their move to school. This is further supported by daily story time sessions. We feel these times are vital in helping to strengthen bonds with each other and developing a love of reading for life.

Early phonics skills are developed during story times, small group sessions, targeted individual games and less formally during the course of our play. The aim of this is to develop sound listening skills; initial sound discrimination (e.g.: the first phoneme in the word ‘cat’ is ‘c’); the correct pronunciation of pure sounds and an awareness of rhyme (e.g.: the fat cat sat on the mat) and alliteration (e.g.: slowly slithering snake). Opportunities for mathematical development are consistently available within the environment and we are always counting and modelling mathematical language. Pre-writing skills are developed through mark making opportunities using a variety of media and material (e.g.: different types of paper and boards; paint; sand; flour; glitter; gloop) and physical activities such as playdough, colouring, cutting, ball throwing, climbing, sensory play and threading.

Whilst ‘goodbyes’ are always hard, the sadness we feel is overridden by the immense pride we feel in all of our lovely little leavers and how far they have come whilst in our care. We are therefore able to content ourselves with the knowledge that they will continue to shine.