Life at Little Lancing is always busy and this term the children have been out and about whenever the weather permitted.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a joy to see everyone playing in the garden once the weather became a little kinder and the Baby room and Investigators children are enjoying being taken for walks in our buggies and the Little Lancing kiddibus. There is now a safe path down to the riverbank and past the airport, back towards New Monks Farm for the return to nursery, with plenty to see along the way.<\/p>\n
Together, the nursery children have celebrated a variety of occasions, including Valentine\u2019s Day, Mother\u2019s Day and the run-up to Easter, with a wide selection of colour-themed activities and crafts. We marked World Book Day with a week of storytelling. The children were encouraged to bring in their favourite books to share and enjoyed story time each day. We promoted the use of our book swap library in the nursery foyer and the children took their World Book Day vouchers home to use towards a new book. We used a red theme for Comic Relief in March and our nursery chef baked cookies which were sold at the end of the day to raise funds for this cause.<\/p>\n
In Preschool, there has been a real focus on developing and strengthening our Enrichment Programme, which is for those children who are approaching their final year with us. It\u2019s a mixture of nursery-provided activities, such as cooking school sessions in small groups, which is very popular with the children, with particular highlights each season. This term saw the return of a clutch of chicken eggs and accompanying incubator and equipment. The children were thrilled to see the eggs start to crack open and the chicks soon arrived at first looking somewhat bedraggled but soon fluffing up. They were with us for ten days and we were delighted at the end that they were collected by Farmer John to add to his flock of chickens at the Lancing College farm.<\/p>\n
Preschool have continued their forays into the community, with trips by minibus to Lancing Prep and Kingsland House care home in Shoreham-by-Sea where the residents have been delighted to see them and shared fun activities, mostly recently an Easter Egg hunt and icing Easter cookies!<\/p>\n
We have also put in place visiting instructors to take sports-based activities and a dance session each week. The children have loved them! We also arranged with our near neighbours, Coombs Farm, for our older Preschool children to go on a visit to see the lambing. We have taken two groups this side of Easter, with two more due to visit shortly after Easter. They have loved seeing the farm and the animals, with the tractor ride a real treat. We have more enrichment activities planned for the summer term, we can\u2019t wait!<\/p>\n
Looking ahead, we received the exciting news that Lancing College obtained planning permission to convert the Barn Cottage adjoining our site into a new home for our Preschool. This will be linked to our existing footprint, with its own outdoor play area, as well as access to the main nursery garden. It is scheduled to open in September and enables the nursery to expand its numbers, so that going forward we will have the capacity to take more children in every age group during the year. Work has already started and we are looking forward to seeing the plans take shape over the coming months.<\/p>\n
We held a very successful open morning in February and with the reconfiguration of the nursery rooms, we were pleased that we have been able to offer places to everyone who requested a start in our baby rooms from September to March. We are continuing to work through the allocation of spaces for the 2+ and 3+ year olds, which is good news for the future as we have had to turn away many families of older children over the past couple of years due to pressure on places.<\/p>\n
All in all, the future is looking bright and we are working hard to ensure that Little Lancing will continue to go from strength to strength.<\/p>\n\n\t\t