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The 20th anniversary of Lydiard Millicent Pre-school comes at an exciting time in its history, as it plans to expand from its current provision of morning-only sessions for children from their third birthday to offering both morning and afternoon sessions to children from the age of two.
The pre-school, which is still run by a committee of volunteers, has come a long way from when it opened in the local village hall in 1989, founded by a small group of parents who ran the then toddler group. Twelve years later, after a major fundraising effort the pre-school moved to its current location at the village school, where it can currently have up to 18 children.
This popular pre-school received a ‘good’ Ofsted report last year, and was recognized by Wiltshire County Council again in September 2008 for its excellent practices e.g. in child initiated activities.
The pre-school is now planning to expand to continue to meet the needs of the community and its children. For many working families, morning-only pre-schools are a barrier to their child attending pre-school, particularly in rural areas, such as Lydiard Millicent, where other forms of childcare provision are very limited. Moreover, some children who start pre-school at three can only get three terms of pre-school, while parents would like them to experience this social, fun and developmental environment over a longer period.
Jenny Watson, deputy supervisor at the pre-school, has been involved with the pre-school in one way or another for most of the last 20 years, working there for the last 7 years. Jenny says: “We are very excited about the pre-school’s future and looking forward to both taking the younger children and extending our opening hours from January 2009”.
Although there have been a number of changes over the 20 years, at least two things have remained constant – the commitment of the staff and the committee to providing a caring and stimulating environment for the children, and the logo of two handprints, which has remained unchanged since it was designed by one of the founders!
Anyone interesting in finding out more information about the pre-school or enquiring about spaces should contact 01793 772981.
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