Newsletter – Welcome to Cullompton Pre-school

Contacts – You can contact us on (01884) 35018. The Pre-school mobile number is 07927057415. We can also be contacted at admin@cullomptonpreschool.org Our website address is www.cullomptonpreschool.org See our website for general information and our weekly blog and photos of what children have been doing and learning. ‘Like’ us on Facebook to see regular updates of our session activities. Don’t forget to check Tapestry for info and updates too!

We’d like to wish all our children and their families a very warm welcome back to Pre-School. We hope you all had a wonderful time over the Christmas and New Year break!

Committee Meetings – The next committee meeting will take place at 7.30pm on Monday 2^nd February 2026 via Microsoft Teams. Committee meetings are open to all parents and we would welcome your support. If you would like to join the meeting, please let the office know and we will send you the link.

There is a Facebook page set up by some of our parents and the committee members are ‘admin’ for the group. The group is called ‘Parents of Cullompton Pre-School’. If you would like to join/follow simply scan the QR code – it will take you straight to the correct Facebook page.

For Pick up and Drop Off times at Preschool, there can be a bit of a delay at the door sometimes as we have lots of children coming and going. We try our best to keep things moving smoothly but sometimes it is unavoidable and we appreciate your patience at these times.

We kindly ask if there are any minor worries/ lost clothing/ general updates etc, then parents can email us at admin@cullomptonpreschool.org and we can pass the message on to the relevant person asap. By doing this it helps the transition of children arriving at Preschool a little smoother. If you have important information to pass on to your child’s keyworker, then please let us know and if it is possible, you can come in and speak to them (sometimes due to our child & staff ratio this isn’t always possible straight away). If it isn’t possible and if you are happy to leave to the information with someone who is available, then we can ensure the message gets passed on. Alternatively, we can arrange for a suitable time for you to speak to them. Thank you for your support!

Behaviour Support

We work really hard at pre-school to support all the children here to make fantastic progress among friends. At times friendships and sharing and turn taking and listening can be hard for many reasons. We are all managing lots of different feelings at a time and add in a moment when something goes wrong, and it is hard to stay calm and regulated! Remind yourself how you feel when the shopping bag breaks or someone makes a demand on you when you are already busier than is healthy, when you stub your toe while rushing to get to work or when the car is iced up and you are in a rush. It is hard to manage feelings even as an adult, so we take a lot of time to teach self-regulation to the children and teach them to think and feel at the same time is a big concept. It takes time and patience and while we are learning, some behaviours will continue.

Behaviour is communication – every behaviour comes from a feeling, a frustration, an upset, stress, anxiety, worry, fear, happiness even – some children will dysregulate and run around and throw toys when they are really happy and excited! Our job at pre-school is to help children recognise feelings, to understand triggers, to understand home situations that might make that harder and friendships that might be testing their listening and sharing skills. We all want to support a really positive day at pre-school and as a staff team we are committed to ensuring every child is safe, listened to and is able to share their views and know they will be heard. The Thrive approach is central to our Ethos – www.thriveapproach.com – If you have concerns about behaviours at home that worry or upset you we can create a plan for your child at home which we can mirror at pre-school. I am the Behaviour Support Lead at pre-school and am always happy to chat – Amelia

Healthy Eating

Children absolutely love to bake, mix and concoct create using food! One of the most

popular activities we do at Preschool, is when we make our own snack – we will be

starting to do this again and will be using recipes from our housekeeper Anna, to cook

various healthy low sugar foods. For example, our Oat Cookie recipe is very popular with

the children and they love to eat it for snack!

We have also used lunchtime as a learning opportunity to see what fruit we have in

our lunchboxes in the past and the children have helped me take a tally chart for each

fruit. We take it in turns to say what fruit we have and then make a mark by the right

name of the fruit. It helps the children learn the names of fruits which are not familiar to

them and helps them identify which item on their plate is a fruit, distinguishing it from cucumber or peppers for example.

We follow Ofsted guidance for our teaching and “a healthy diet” is part of our curriculum

and we would like to remind you that just one sweet item such as a yoghurt in a lunch is

okay, and a pot of crisps is healthier than a whole bag, especially for crisps which are for adults.

Grandparents coffee morning

Grandparents of children who attend Preschool on Tuesday mornings are invited into Preschool for a tea & coffee morning with the children to celebrate how important grandparents are in their lives!

9:05am until 10:15am on

Tuesday 10^th February

*Please RVSP to admin@cullomptonpreschool.org if your child’s grandparents can attend so we can have an idea of numbers.

Thank you!

If your child doesn’t attend on a Tuesday, then don’t worry as we will be holding other events like this later in the year so more families get the opportunity to join in.

Pre-Loved Preschool Uniform

If you have any Preschool t-shirts or jumpers that your children have grown out of, we would love to add them to our ‘pre-loved uniform’ collection so others can enjoy wearing them too! Any Preschool uniform donations can be handed into the Office.

Thank you!

Our dropping off and collecting times are shown below, please share this with all family members or friends who drop off or collect your child.

AM Drop off and All Day session	9.05am
If you are unable to arrive before 9:30am, we would appreciate it if you could wait until after 10:30am to bring your child in please. This is because we have circle time at this time and it can disrupt the special focused time each group have together.
AM Collection	12.05pm – Doors open at 12pm
PM Drop off	12.05pm
If collecting early* please let us know beforehand	2.40pm
PM and All Day collection	3.05pm

Dropping off and collecting at the correct time is very important. People arriving late to drop off can impact our session and can upset children who are a little unsettled.

While we understand that sometimes you may be running a little late, we would be very grateful if parents could ensure they come at the correct times. Thank you for all your co-operation and support!

Date	Details
Tuesday 20^th January 2026	Tiny Travels – a visit from Nadia about Music & Culture from all over the world
Tuesday 10^th February 2026	Grandparents Coffee Morning 9:05am – 10:15am (for grandparents of children who attend Preschool on Tuesday mornings)
Monday 16^th – 20^th February 2026	Half Term – Pre-closed is closed
Thursdays & Fridays throughout March 2026	Robot Reg visiting our school starter groups (Suns & Moons) – learning about phonics!
Tuesday 3^rd March 2026	Moon group visit to the Library – info will be sent nearer the time
Wednesday 4^th March 2026	Sun group visit to the Library – info will be sent nearer the time
Thursday 5^th March 2026	World Book Day!
Monday 16^th March – Friday 20^th March 2026	Sponsored Bike Ride Week! – info will be sent nearer the time
Monday 23^rd April 2026	Sun group visit to St Andrew’s Church – info will be sent nearer the time
Wednesday 25^th March 2026	Moon group visit to St Andrew’s Church – info will be sent nearer the time
Thursday 2^nd April 2026	Last day of Spring Term
Monday 20^th April 2026	First day of Summer Term