The most momentous year Winford Village Pre-school has ever seen drew to a close with it’s annual sports day and leaver’s ceremony on the last day of the summer term in July. No longer confined to the small garden at the back of the village hall, the pre-school was this year able to enjoy the ample space of the school field, yet another benefit of the wonderful new building that arrived in November 2007.

This year’s ‘graduates’, who are all going up to form the Reception Class at Winford CE Primary school, were the very first to enjoy the new pre-school building, situated in the primary school grounds, with many of them being present the day it finally arrived in last year’s summer holidays. To the children who will enjoy it’s benefits in the coming years it will simply be know as ‘pre-school’. But to this year’s leavers it will always be known as ‘The New Building’, and most are aware of how lucky they have been to be the very first to use it.

Sports Day itself was a great success, with the forecast rain managing to hold off – mostly – until much later in the day. All the children were rewarded with ice lollies and the leavers were presented with a selection of goodies and the traditional gift of the P.E bag they will use at ‘big school’. They all went home happy and excited and not the least bit worried about starting school in September, largely due to the great efforts made by Mrs Wendy of pre-school and Mrs Rigby of Reception, and the fact that they have been in school grounds since last November. The transition from pre-school to school has been the smoothest Winford as ever enjoyed, and we wish all the children the best of luck.

Tuesday 13th May 2008 saw the Pre-school go on what has become an annual outing to Red House Farm on a Bluebell Walk. The children were once again welcomed by Maggie Patch – a huge Thank you to her - and spent a glorious morning walking through her beautiful woodland.

During the walk the children saw a squirrel, a badger set, some deer prints, made friends with a horse and enjoyed the wonderful scent of wild garlic. Nettles and Dock leaves were also seen and experienced a few times! Feathers and fir cones were collected and a snack of milk and biscuits was enjoyed on the lawn.

WINFORD VILLAGE PRE-SCHOOL RECEIVES OUTSTANDING OFSTED REPORT

All the hard work of the last five years and more, the fundraising and the building work, paid off in the most glorious terms for Winford Village Pre-school, when their first Ofsted Inspection in their new building took place in January. The Ofsted Inspector sat in with a normal pre-school session on Jan 22nd, and promptly returned a report stating "The quality and standards of the care are outstanding".

Wendy Cleghorn, Pre-school Playleader, was over-joyed with the report, saying "this simply reaffirms how very much we needed our new building". The pre-school had been operating out of Winford Village Hall before moving into the new purpose built classroom in the grounds of Winford CE Primary School in November 2007, and had been struggling to keep up with the environmental aspects of their Ofsted requirements, due to the condition of the Hall. This latest Ofsted Inspection goes to show that the hard work of the staff and all the parents over the past few years has been worth it.

Only 4% of British pre-schools enjoy the rank of "Outstanding", so the pre-school and the primary school are delighted with this result. Sarah Thomas, Chair of the pre-school committee says "It is difficult to find words to express our feelings about this report. Wendy and the staff deserve this very public and official credit, as their patience when working at the Village Hall seemed endless, and to be rewarded in this way now that we are in our new building is more than we could ever have wished for. We must also extend our thanks to Winford Village School for all their help and support in getting us to this wonderful position."

The pre-school children and parents celebrated their wonderful result by having a tea party at the end of the last session of term 3. The children all made special party hats for the occasion, and cakes and biscuits (a very special treat) were enjoyed by all.

Read the report at the Ofsted Website.

Pre-School says goodby to much loved seceratary

December 14th was a sad day for the children and parents of Winford Village Pre-school, as they bid farewell to their committee secretary who, with her family, has relocated to Reading. Vicki Jenkins joined the committee as secretary in 2005 when her son joined the pre-school, and during her 2 and quarter years in office, went above and beyond the call of duty, personally raising over £22,000 through grants and funding for the pre-school’s new building.

When Vicki volunteered for the role of secretary, she did not expect to find herself driving the pre-school’s New Building Project aswell. She became the main contact point for everything to do with this massive project, organising meetings, applying for planning permissions, grants and funding, and often being the pre-school’s only representitive at site inspections. This was all done whilst juggling her three children, a husband who worked away and, more recently, a dog!

Vicki intended to remain pre-school secretary until the end of the current school year, when her youngest daughter would leave the pre-school and start school in the Reception class, but in September 07 she announced that she and her family would be moving away from the area, as her husband had secured a new job. Due to complications with the move, their departure was a little delayed which meant that Vicki was still here to see the arrival and opening of the New Building that she had worked so hard for, and her youngest daughter got to use it for a few short weeks.

The pre-school committee would like to extend it’s over whelming graditude to Vicki, who has been enourmously important in getting their new building. At the annual Christmas Party, this year shared with the village Toddler Group Winford Ducklings, the evening was briefly hijacked so that Vicki could be presented with, amongst other things, a beautiful tree collage that the pre-school children had made for her new house.

Vicki will be greatly missed by all of us, and we wish her and her family the very best of luck in their new home.

Wendy Cleghorn, Pre-school Play Leader says “it’s wonderful to finally be in this new building. We can offer the children so much more now in terms of session times, play space and independence. We can also integrate far better with school now we are on the same grounds, and we look forward to getting involved a lot more with the Reception class and other school activities. At the same time, school can now get more involved with us, and have already spent time visiting us and making us lovely welcome cards”.

The Primary school really did get involved on Friday November 16th, when it opened up it’s school hall to host the official opening ceremony of the new pre-school building. Many past parents and committee members were able to attend, as well as a number of those who have donated funds towards the project. The ribbon was cut by Guest of Honour Dr Liam Fox (MP), who was then shown round the new building by the children. A special cake (donated by Sainsburys) was cut by Wendy and the oldest member of the pre-school, and the committee took the opportunity to Thank all those who had helped us reach this special day.

It is very important to us that EVERYONE who has helped us over the years knows how very grateful we are. We could never have got here without the support we have found within the village and the Chew Valley, as well as from large companies who have heard of our plight and dug deep. We must also say a huge Thank You to the committee of Winford Village Hall, who enabled us to run for 20 odd years from their building and helped us as much as they could with our storage problems!

At the time of writing, our fund raising continues, as we have not finished paying for everything yet!! See our fundraising page to find out more.

The Chew Valley community "clicked" last week when Winford Pre-School children turned supermodels for a day in their latest intiative to raise funds for their new class room, to be built on the grounds of Winford CE Primary School.

Thanks to local children’s portrait photographer (and pre-school Mum) Clare Potter and Bristol’s IKEA store, who teamed-up for the special day, the pre-school were able to sell framed photos of their dinky divas with all proceeds going to wards the New Building Fund.

Sarah Morris spokesperson for IKEA Bristol explained: "As a store we are keen to support local children and schools. We believe children deserve the best and were delighted our range of frames helped complete the photo shoot and ensured all the children had a memento of their modelling session.”

Over twenty children modelled on the day, with the weather allowing for all the shots to be taken in the pre-school garden. A change from the usual school photo, photographer Clare Potter captured natural, black and white images.

Pam Sayer, Winford Pre-School’s public relations rep said: "This was a great way of exposing our need to continue to raise more money to ensure the pre school children in the village get their new classroom. Clare completely captured their personalities and we captured the parents’ hearts as they all donated to our campaign".

Sports Day 2007

Our Sports Day this year was held on the last day of term, Friday 20th July, which meant we could combine the fun and games with saying goodbye to this year’s leavers who are now ready to go up to "big school".

The weather did not not want to join in the fun, so all activities were confined to the village hall rather than our garden. Never the less, great fun was had by all. . We managed to stage a running race, an obstacle race, a tower building race, a ball passing race and a dressing up race. All the children were awarded prizes of special “end of term” sweeties and then some much needed ice lollies when all the racing was over.

As well as saying goodbye to our leavers, we also said good bye to staff member Eve Wilkins, who has been a helper with us for 4 years, and to one half of the the Committee Joint Chair, Sarah Sealey. Sarah has put in a huge amount work over the last year, reviewing and updating a large number of our pre-school policies, and we felt we could not let her go without showing our appreciation. Both ladies were presented with flowers and cards.

Certificates for the sponsored "I Can Challenge" which took place during the summer term, were awarded to all the children that took part, and special prizes awarded to Callum Knipe and Aoife Preston who each raised over £70.

As per tradition, all the children leaving for big school were presented with bags that they will use at school, as well as some fun goodies, pieces of artwork that they have done during their time at pre-school and all the notes their carers had made about them over the past year. The children carrying on at pre-school in the next school year all received party bags so they would not feel left out!

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the staff and parents who helped out at our Sports Day and throughout the school year. We look forward to meeting new parents and, more importantly, new children, in September.