Sat Sep 4 2010

Community

Our work with the community is varied and covers all age ranges. It is based mainly on the Gamesley Estate but also covers the Glossopdale area.

The following community work takes place from and within the centre:

Work with the elderly


Our kitchen provides for a luncheon club for senior citizens every Tuesday and Friday. Approximately 20 members attend. Social services provide the funding for this and arrange for volunteers and paid workers to serve the meals.

Every year we have a grandparents open day in July. Children invite grandparents and great grandparents to spend some time at the nursery with them. The children act as hosts and serve strawberry cream teas. Photographs are taken as a memento of the day. It is a very popular activity at the Centre.

Organised community groups

We are represented on several community groups, namely:

  • Gamesley–on-the-Go - A partnership board which has been set up to make decisions on the spending of an SRB budget of £500,000 to make improvements on the estate
  • Gamesley Residents Association - A forum to discuss all issues concerned with the community and the estate
  • Healthy Living Centre - Gamesley has successfully bid to the lottery to become a Healthy Living Centre
  • The Geoffrey Allen Church and County Centre Management Committee - This group comprises of members who represent the community who use the community Centre.

Literacy projects


Derbyshire and Derby LEAs organise and fund through a variety of funding sources a very successful literacy project known as READ ON – WRITE AWAY! (ROWA). We have been fortunate enough to be involved in several initiatives:

  • Books for Babies:
    • working with the health service and library service every baby aged nine months old in the area received a book, a bag, puppets, a rhyme card and a library card to encourage parents to start reading to their children early and to develop children’s interest in reading early.
  • Better Reading Partnership:
    • this is a very successful initiative to encourage lay persons and parents to train in hearing children read and develop pupils reading skills. They spend volunteer time in schools working with one or two children a term at a time. The effect of this has been to increase the reading ages of children by several years over a relatively short period. The out-of-school club staff have undertaken training and work with the children in the club.
  • Story Sacks:
    • we have run several story sacks groups – for parents and for child minders. Each adult chooses a story book from which to create a sack with props, puppets, games, story tapes and a non-fiction book linked to the story. The story is then ‘brought alive’ by the adult’s use of the contents of the story sack.
  • Literacy Day:
    • we have had several literacy days, within the centre and also within the town of Glossop with the schools, playgroups and private day nurseries, all funded and supported by ROWA. We have had story tellers, puppeteers, drama groups etc, we have given away story books and dressed up a characters from books on these special days.

Other projects created by ROWA include ‘The Back-Pack project’, ‘Writing boxes’ and ‘Keeping up with the Kids’.
LINK TO ROWA WEB SITE – http://www.rowa.co.uk/

 

Adult education classes

Adults of all ages attend the Centre for the following classes: (Funding source in brackets)

  • 11 computer classes (Life Long Learning ESF Funding)
  • NVQ level 3 course in early education and acre (Life Long Learning ESF Funding)
  • Creative crafts
  • Soft Furnishings (Life Long Learning)
  • Healthy Eating on a Budget (Health Authority)
  • First Aid (Life Long Learning)
  • Parent Groups
  • Positive Parent group
  • Family Literacy and Story Sacks (DCC Read-On Write Away!)
  • Parents and Child Groups
  • Baby Massage
  • Mother and Baby Club
  • 2 Parent and Toddler Groups
  • Stay and play group

Minibus

We have a minibus, which is used mainly by the out-of-school club and the nursery. Local groups e.g. the youth club and the walking club and Social Services also use it.

Local playgroups, day nurseries and child minders

Our staff work with the private and voluntary early years sector sharing good practice and encouraging networking. We have also set up a child minders toy library, a child minders support group and a child minders toddler group. We provide training for practitioners in the private and voluntary sector.

Liaison worker

We have a co-ordinator, Karen Armstrong, who liaises between Gamesley Primary school and our centre. She sets up courses and recruits parents to groups and classes. She works with parents and sets up links between establishments in order to increase the communication between us for the benefit of the community. She co-ordinates attendance at our computer classes and at our out-of-school club and any other learning opportunities which are on offer in the community. She also works with ROWA to help parents and children access the many learning opportunities which they offer.

Transitional links

Children visit our local schools before they attend and the teachers come to see the children in their nursery environment. We have set up web cam links between our local school Gamesley Primary mainly for the children’s use.

Gamesley school children come to read stories to our children on a regular basis. There are regular teacher exchanges when our teachers visit the reception classes and Gamesley school teachers visit our nursery children.

Key stage two links

Children from key stage two attend ICT classes in the computer suite in twilight. Sessions are from 3.30pm to 5pm.

Out–of-School club

We collect and deliver children from five different schools. We have a computer club within the club when we use the computer suite. We also have sports coaching, art club and drama club. More details on the out-of-school club can be found in the Care Provision section of this web site.

Dissemination of practice and training

We have links with several schools in the area. A designated member of staff works with reception teachers on ICT in the Foundation Stage. Two members of staff work with schools which have playgroups on their premises. The out-of school club co-ordinator works with schools which have out-of-school clubs. Our training and information officer, headteacher, teachers and ICT co-ordinator works with the advisory service and EYDCP in training teachers of the Foundation stage curriculum.

Crèche

We provide a crèche for Gamesley school parents who wish to access courses at primary school.

Schools

  • we work with the reception teachers of several local schools in developing ICT in the early years
  • we train practitioners from local schools in ICT in our computer suite
  • we hold late afternoon classes in ICT for key stage 2 pupils from local schools, these start at 4pm
  • we hold staff training sessions at the Centre in Foundation stage curriculum subjects for practitioners in schools
  • we have links and transition arrangements with two local primary schools
  • we work with school-aged mothers from the local secondary schools and also accept students on work experience
  • we collect children from five local schools to attend our out-of-school club
  • it is part of our remit to welcome visitors from schools in Derbyshire and from outside the county to visit our center to look at our practice.

Health service

  • we have close links with two health services
  • we share the teaching of parenting classes
  • we have help with speech therapy and use the occupational and physiotherapy service and the health authority dietician runs healthy eating classes at the Centre
  • we work closely with the Health Visitors where we have families of concern. 

Library service

We work with the library service on the 'Books for Babies' programme and organised literacy days.

Parents

Our work with parents is of primary importance and it threads through every thing we do. It includes family support and involvement with the education of children.

  • a member of staff prior to starting nursery visits all families at home and subsequent visits are made to discuss assessment and progress
  • parents/staff consultations are carried out at home or in the nursery to discuss progress and make plans for future development
  • parents are given home-school links to help their children at home
  • home visits are also made to aid family support
  • parent meetings are held on a regular basis
  • we have several parents’ notice boards, photograph books, power point presentations and displays to inform adults about courses and classes, children's activities, topics, visits and trips and curriculum
  • parents are represented on our governing body
  • we have a parents’ forum which meets once per term
  • parents attend trips and visits
  • parents work in the nursery as volunteers in the nursery, toy library and parent and toddler groups
  • we offer a counselling service for parents
  • we offer specific courses for parenting, including 'positive parenting', mother and baby group, baby massage classes, 'Better Reading Partnership' and 'Books for Babies'
  • we hold several open days for parents during the year.

Art exhibition

We hold an annual art exhibition for children and adults in the halls of the Geoffrey Allen Centre. The first of these was a great success with many exhibitors. Prizes were provided through Gamesley-on-the-Go funding.