CHILDREN and staff at Heydays Pre-school in Four Marks played host last Tuesday to former Masterchef winner Jane Devonshire, who was on hand to open officially a new £11,000 outdoor learning space.

With significant changes being implemented by the Government to increase the affordability and supply of childcare, Heydays has seen a significant increase in the demand for pre-school places. As a result, during the summer holidays work started to create a secure outdoor learning area with an additional quiet learning summerhouse classroom for small group learning and to support special educational needs and disabilities.

Jacqui Perkins and Louise Mills manage the pre-school and Jacqui said: “The area has been created specially to encourage the children to develop physically, socially and emotionally.

“The benefits of an outdoor classroom from an educational perspective are well documented. There are also many other benefits in terms of behaviour, social skills, health and wellbeing, resilience, confidence, enjoyment, engagement with learning, and a sense of space.”

Once finished, the project will have cost £11,000 – financed through the many fundraising events the pre-school has been involved with over the last few years, as well as community grants from Waitrose, Tesco, The Breeze, and Four Marks Parish Council.

Louise said: “Fundraising is ongoing for us so we are constantly sourcing new ways of raising money for future projects. This one has been our biggest yet, but will obviously have a huge impact on the children’s learning.”

The group has a building fund in place, which has helped support the project, and parents and supporters were generous, with one parent, a builder by trade, providing a digger, wood chip, logs and tyres.

And she added: “Heydays is thrilled to have the additional outdoor classroom. The provision of an outdoor educational area will strengthen the experiences of our children and greatly improve our ability to respond to their learning and support needs.

“We want to be able to give our children the opportunity to experience and learn about nature and this new outdoor learning space will give the children the opportunity to enjoy, respect and care for the environment.”

Heydays has expressed grateful thanks to the enthusiastic participation of parents, past and present, who helped to complete the transformation of the garden area and supported the project, and for the community grants.

Based on campus at Four Marks Primary School, Heydays Pre-school is open from 9am to 3pm, Monday to Friday.

To discuss availability of places at Heydays Pre-school for 2018, call Jacqui or Louise on 07955 288741.