(Ofsted Inspection Report January 2008.)

Background and Location

Established in 1999 and situated within St Peter's C of E School, Little Acorns Pre-School has grown over the years into a highly regarded and well-attended setting, serving Mawdesley and the surrounding area. As a registered charity, run by management committee, we raise our own funds, claiming grants wherever possible. Little Acorns is a member of the Pre-School Learning Alliance and also benefits from strong links with other Early Years professionals and specialists via the LEA.

Our attractive learning environment welcomes the children, and our trained staff help to settle them in, encouraging early socialisation skills as well as independence. Early learning and development is stimulated through the provision of carefully selected resources and activities thus promoting our ethos of learning through play.

Curriculum and Resources

At Little Acorns we use the Government's 'Early Years Foundation Stage' document to plan and assess through the following six key areas of learning: personal, social and emotional development; communication, language and literacy; problem solving, reasoning and numeracy; knowledge and understanding of the world; physical development and creative development. In addition to our daily 'focused activities' which involve small groups of children or individuals, we also offer ten play areas of 'continuous provision'. We have carefully designed these areas to encourage independent selection, and the children can move freely between each activity throughout the session.

Session Details and Tariff

Our sessions run Monday to Friday every afternoon, from 12.30pm to 3.30pm and Wednesday morning from 9.00 am to 12pm. Each session involves a wide range of activities, as previously detailed and also includes a healthy snack of fresh fruit, accompanied by milk, water or fresh fruit juice. We also offer a 'wraparound care' scheme - offering a lunch-time session from 12pm to 12.30pm Monday to Friday - with trained staff collecting the children from Mawdesley Pre-School Playgroup at the village hall if required. It is financially beneficial for us to claim the Government's funded nursery education places for your child but otherwise the current session fees are detailed below:

Mighty Oaks from Little Acorns grow…!