30 hours

[paulamaygrant]

Hi all,

We are a small village preschool, and offer 30 hours. (we are the only preschool in the local area that does so) Demand hasn't been massively high, but as this school year has gone on, we are finding more and more children are accessing the hours- by summer term, we will have 6 children out of 18 per session, accessing more than 20 hours per week, and numbers are over 10 children accessing more than 20 hours from September. My question is how does everyone keep their setting fresh and exciting for the children that just come for a maximum of 15 hours or less, as well as the children that come for the full 30 hours. I find we tend to repeat our morning sessions to ensure all children get the same leaning opportunities, but the children that come all week, by Wednesday they can almost predict staff questioning! We have looked at almost splitting the session into 2 separate groups, but as a small setting, we struggle for space. I don't know if i'm overthinking everything! Any ideas and words of wisdom greatly appreciated!

[Cait]

Hi, and welcome to the forum.  My preschool was the same as you describe, and I agree, it was hard for those who were there all week.  The easiest thing we found was to have a 'further developed' activity for those that wanted to move onto something else, and the children who wanted to repeat the activity could choose that.  For example, we might have been examining the innards of a pumpkin and talking about textures and smells or whatever, and then in the afternoon, a few children could choose to take some seeds and do some floating and sinking, balancing some on a raft or just generally washing them.  Then another day, another group of children might do that, and the first group could use their seeds in a different way, maybe planting them in some pots.  Then maybe making a picture with them......  painting them......  counting them ...... do you see what I mean?   

Edited March 15, 2019 by Cait
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