we give you peace of mind that your
child’s personal wellbeing and development
is building for a better future.
Welcome to Castle Keep Pre-School
Curriculum
Caring
Friendship
Opportunities
Why Castle Keep Pre-School?
Castle Keep Pre-school was formed as a trading arm of Allesley Park Community Association Ltd. in September 1994. From small beginnings, we have now grown in both numbers of children and staff to become a thriving, friendly, and very lively preschool.
We provide your child with an enjoyable, stimulating, and educational time and teach them a variety of skills and social graces to help them follow on to their next big adventure – school!
The Nurturing Environment
At Castle Keep we have excellent facilities to encourage learning, growth and play. From our classroom spaces to outdoors and nature. Discover more below…
Classrooms
We have a large airy U-shaped room which enables us to provide both continuous provisions and change our environment to follow the children’s interests.
Our room consists of many areas of continuous provision including a home corner, construction area, maths area, graphics table, book corner, technology shelves, messy play area, small world corner, nature and exploration table, and craft space. Resources within these areas are changed regularly depending on the children’s interests or to encourage them to explore new play and thinking.
Play Areas
Our outdoor play area is divided into three parts. Immediately outside the door, we have a covered area which means we can be outside in rain and shine, we can play on the music wall, read in the book shed, or cook in the kitchen.
Next, we have a blue soft fall surface where we can climb, slide, jump on the trampoline or hide in the tunnels. At the bottom, we have a large road area with all our bikes, scooters, and cars.
Nature Walks
We are lucky enough to be surrounded by green parkland. At the bottom of our garden, we can find Allesley Park Walled Garden and to the side a large spinney. This means we can see large amounts of wildlife including a Heron, Hedgehogs, Squirrels, and lots of birds.
Within the wider garden area, we also have rabbits, ducks, doves as well as a hedgehog rescue on site. In our bug hotel, we find lots of ladybirds and love to dig for worms. We also go for regular nature and listening walks to the park as well as climbing trees in the walled garden.
Garden
With a greenhouse and 6 raised beds for growing we make sure we have lots of fruit and vegetables from our garden to cook with and eat at snack time. Potatoes, lettuce, and carrots are our favourites along with herbs from the garden and strawberries and gooseberries from our fruit beds as well as apples from our trees.
We also have a digging bed which the children absolutely love, so be warned your child will come home filthy! When we have finished planting and playing, we can sit on the benches in the shade of our tree or use our binoculars to see what we can find from the bird hide.
Term Dates
Autumn Term 2023
Wednesday 6th – Friday 27th October
Half term
Monday 6th November – Friday 22nd December
Spring Term 2024
Monday 8th January – Friday 9th February
Half term
Monday 19th February – Friday 22nd March
Summer Term 2024
Monday 8th April – Friday 24th May
Half term
Monday 3rd June – Wednesday 17th July
Bank Holiday: Monday 6th May
Any changes to these dates will be notified in advance.
During the academic year, a total of 195 days are defined as ‘school days’.
Funding is provided for 190 days and the remaining 5 days are reserved for professional training of Pre-school staff.
Summer Play Scheme
Each year we run a playscheme for four weeks of the summer holidays, this will help your child maintain their routines and can avoid your child having to resettle again in September – six weeks is a long time for a child (and you!). Each child can attend as many or as few of these sessions as you may need although the numbers of children are limited for these weeks. No nursery education funding is available during this time so fees are payable unless your child has accessed the 30 hours Extended Entitlement and has banked hours.
Your children’s education and welfare are our main priorities
Testimonials