About us


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Emmer Green Pre-School is a registered charity (1087387) formed from a partnership of parents and staff based in North Reading’s Children’s Centre in Emmer Green. First established in 1965, it was originally based in St Barnabas Church Hall, moving to its current base in the Community Centre in 1990. Throughout this time, the pre-school has seen many changes keeping up-to-date with current legislation and the changing face of pre-school education.

At our pre-school, we aim to provide a friendly, safe and stimulating environment where children under statutory school age can develop to their full potential within a parent-involving, community-based group. We provide opportunities for you and your family to be directly involved in the activities of the group and in your own child’s progress, seeing them become more confident, independent and enjoying learning and sharing with their peers.  Find out more about your involvement here.

Individual care and attention is made possible by our high ratio of adults to children and the support of a personal key worker.  This enables us to provide your child with fun and friendship with other children and adults, alongside a specially tailored curriculum which we enjoy documenting through each child’s ‘learning journey’ book and talking through with you at open mornings and on an ad-hoc basis.

Our OFSTED inspection report can be found here.

Curriculum and Educational Programme

Children in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) learn by playing and exploring, being active, and through creative and critical thinking which takes place both indoors and outside.

We learn through play.  We use the guidance from Development Matters to plan and provide a range of activities, which helps all children to make progress in each area of learning to get ready for school.

We plan our curriculum to help meet your child’s individual needs through the three prime and four specific areas of learning.

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The three prime areas are:

  1. Communication and language;
  2. Physical development;
  3. Personal, social and emotional development.

These prime areas are those most essential for your child’s healthy development and future learning.

As children grow, the prime areas will help them to develop skills in four specific areas:

  1. Literacy;
  2. Mathematics;
  3. Understanding the world;
  4. Expressive arts and design.

How we assess your child’s progress
Each child’s key worker observes and records their general progress in these seven areas with both written and photographed documentation in their learning journey which is given to you to keep at the end of the school year.  As you know your child best, we find it useful to hear your observations of your child; what he/she likes to do at home, as well as any significant events, achievements or concerns.  This assessment of your child helps us to identify and plan their next steps. In addition to our ongoing observations, two reviews of your child’s progress will be shared with you at our open mornings.

Transition to primary school
The move to primary school is one of the most important parts of our summer term programme and something we invest time and care in getting right for each child.

We have very good contact with our local primary schools and work with them to provide as many opportunities as possible for our pre-school children to visit their prospective school in the run-up to the summer holidays. Our aim is to make each child as comfortable and familiar as we can with their new surroundings, lessening anxiety for them and for you as their parents. In addition to the school visits, we encourage you to talk openly and positively about the changes that are going to happen.

Visit your local council websites to find out more about Reading and Oxfordshire primary school admissions.

Emmer Green Pre-School is a registered provider of pre-school education by Reading Borough Social Services.

We are also a member of the PSLA (Pre-school Learning Alliance). The aim of the Alliance is to encourage Learning Through Play with the involvement of both children and parents. It provides training and practical support on the running of our pre-school for staff, committee and parents as well as events for parents that you will see advertised in our newsletter and on our notice board.