interest question - what do kids do at pre school in the UK?

**Bluebabe75** · 17-05-2012, 07:32pm

Em is in the youngest pre-school room at nursery (she is 2). They also have a room for 3 year olds and a room for 4 year olds. The 4 year olds room is in an annexe and separate from the younger ones, and I think the activities are more like school nursery. They are not with the younger ones, although there is some integration between Em's room and the next age group up.

Em does craft activities (painting, drawing, collage), messy play, indoor and outdoor free play, Monkey music, circle time, soft play...

**Duckie** · 17-05-2012, 07:39pm

Mine go (went) to a private Montessori preschool which is absolutely lovely, and even at just about 5 when she started school there is no way Anna had 'out-grown' it. She was ready for school, I felt, in terms of emotional maturity but in terms of the variety of activities and experiences offered at preschool she could have stayed there a lot longer.

This week at preschool, Elliot has made honey biscuits as they're learning about the life-cycle of bees and watched the Very Hungry Caterpillar, related to learning about butterflies. He plays outside every day when it's dry and in the rain as long as it's not absolutely chucking it down. He does activities related to learning how to look after himself such as laying the table, polishing, buckling belts, threading activities, number activities and phonics. He has circle time with stories and songs every day too. I don't really know exactly what he does as he normally 'forgets' every time I ask him but I know he's busy all day as he's usually exhausted afterwards

. I don't feel he's ready for school yet as he's very young for the year so have deferred his place until after Xmas but there will be plenty of other children about the same age still there as the headmistress actively discourages children starting school until they're ready for it, and believes that at just turned four they're too young.

ETA. Just reread my post and remembered other stuff he does, eg. painting, chalking, writing practice, planting seeds, they've got a vegetable patch which they'll be working on soon too. They also go on nature walks and look for bugs etc., use the computer sometimes and group activities such as cooking, games, songs etc.

**scatterbrain** · 17-05-2012, 09:18pm

oh yes, Abi does cooking & planting seeds & they have discussion topics on a Friday. I think it's the smaller groups & organised activities that the children can choose from and are designed to develop them that makes a school nursery different from *some* other nurseries. I only have experience of two - one was very good & seperated the older children out into smaller groups & seemed to care about how they were developing & the other just had loads of kids running around making lots of noise & no organised activities at all. Abi prefers the more 'structured' environment, although in terms of structure it's all still play based and they choose what activities they want to take part in.

**Mrs B** · 17-05-2012, 09:27pm

DD goes to the preschool attached to the primary school her brother goes to; it has a pretty similar set-up to what most others have mentioned here.

I love it because it's predominantly free-play (which I feel it should be at age 3) but they have some structure in place like registration, group carpet activities, story-time, waiting on the mat til they are collected etc. Gives them a flavour of what is coming next year, so makes for an easy transition. The Reception teacher comes in several times a week too, so they'll know their teacher when they start school proper.

**jamsplat** · 17-05-2012, 09:55pm

Thank you for all your replies, it sounds like basically they are all doing the same sorts of things

I did ask dd2 (4) what her favourite thing at kindergarten was and she thought for a while and said 'when the fire alarm went off and the fire engine came'

guess you can't beat that.

There does seem to be less emphasis on formal pre reading and writing skills here, the view seems to be that schools work with their intake at whatever level they are at, and obviously given they start school relatively late its not unusual for them to be reading and writing before school. They do have '5 year olds club' for the kids the year before they start school but that seems to be more about helping them mature than any academic focus, with activities including going to the forest and chopping wood

Its also fair to say that although there's alot of free play there is also a fairly high density of staff so not so much of the running round chaos, at least not inside. Last time I stopped in for coffee for example there were 3/4 kids using hama beads and one of the teachers was sitting with them and there was a discussion about colour and pattern going on, 2 girls were playing a memory game with one of the staff, there was a gang on the sofa listening to a story, a couple of them were playing with a floor puzzle, and some of them were playing with playdough.

**scatterbrain** · 17-05-2012, 10:04pm

It actually sounds pretty similar then.

**cheeky_biscuit** · 17-05-2012, 10:08pm

Its interesting to get a view of education from a different country for me.
If you're interested the girls experienced a Daycare/school in Penang Malaysia about this time last year. They went for 2.5wks (well dd2 prob did 5days altogether) Dd1 (6)went in the 6yr olds room with about 5 other 6 yr olds and one teacher, dd2 (3.5) went in the daycare room with 2 & 3yr olds at my request. 99% of the students were Chinese Malay. A typical day
8:30am rice porridge for breakfast
9:00 National anthem - all children together, standing to attention singing in Malaysian
9:05 off to lessons. For dd1 this was 3 hours of sitting at a desk doing worksheet activities. Everything was taught in English with the exception of bahasa Malay for 30-60mins.
Dd2 learnt how to hold a pencil correctly and colour in lines - if she went out of the lines she would have to start again.
They did a science project in the 6's class where try filtered water though stones/grit/soil.
12:00 lunch time (chopsticks!)
12:30 shower time!!!! But this was no Uk shower it was a wash with a pan of water over the head (dd2 opted out, it was dd1s favourite part of the day)
Until 2pm free play (garden & inside - films in English to enhance their language development).
They also used the cane and sent home tonnes of homework from 4yrs old. A lot of the children had additional lessons at an after school place (my 2 did art classes so I saw the others doing maths/English etc).
It was a huge eye opener for all of us, it would definitely not have been a long term option for me.