We are very lucky living in the Bishopston area to have many of fantastic local pre-schools. One such pre-school is Horfield Welly Pre-school which is based at Horfield Parish Church Hall on Wellington Hill, Horfield and which has been operating for over twenty years.

Horfield Welly takes children from aged 2-4 years on a Tuesday to Friday mornings, and operates a small rising 3’s room for younger children called Little Wellies, and a larger pre-school room for the older children called Big Wellies.

The pre-school also runs a popular parent and toddler group on a Monday morning in term-time (please see the Bishopston Mum Baby and Toddler Timetable for details).

Charlotte Stiley, manager and teacher at Horfield Welly Pre-school, describes the pre-school’s aims:

“Our aim is to provide high quality child care, ensuring all children and parents needs are met, as well as providing a fun, caring, stimulating, challenging and nurturing environment, where staff support the children to become independent, motivated and confident learners.” 

And, this year’s Ofsted inspection for Horfield Welly Pre-school backs up the success of the pre-school with an “Outstanding” rating.

Charlotte explains:

“We were delighted to be visited by Ofsted in March this year, it was long-awaited inspection, (we had been expecting them for over a year). We don’t get any notice of inspections so every morning opening the doors we were expecting to see an inspector, quite a stressful time!

“When our inspector arrived we were all really nervous but she did try to put us at ease, and we got along really well with her, she seemed to really understand the constraints that we work under in a shared hall where we need to get out and pack away all our resources every day and we were able to shine.”

Charlotte puts the successful Ofsted rating down to all involved in the pre-school:

“We can’t praise everyone involved in the pre-school highly enough, our outstanding staff, brilliant children and amazing parents it’s by all working together that we make Welly the great place it is to have fun, work and learn, we’re a real family unit and it’s great.”

The good news for Horfield Welly Pre-school does not stop there, however.

The pre-school staff have also recently heard the news that their bid to the council to get some funding to update and expand the Little Wellies room has been approved which means that the pre-school can take more two-year olds next year.

The pre-school was awarded just under £100,000 to completely redesign and rebuild the room at the hall that the Little wellies use.

Charlotte explains:

“We are really excited about this as our plans include dedicated child height toilets a nappy changing area, big child height windows overlooking the field and our garden, outside storytelling mini amphitheatre and a disabled access ramp to the garden, none of which we have at the moment.

“We’re also looking into using this new space to possibly extend our opening hours for working families in the future.”

Horfield Welly regularly organises exciting activities for its pre-schoolers; this Summer activities included a Sports day, a trip to the Aquarium, plus a visit from children’s entertainer Nutty Noah.

Another exciting feature of Horfield Welly Pre-school is regular trips to Forest School, having a qualified forest school leader who takes small groups of children into the overgrown part of the rectory garden next door to the pre-school; a haven for bugs, beasties and wildlife.

Charlotte describes the benefits that forest school brings to the children:

“The children have an amazing time, learning about being outdoors, how to stay safe, explore and investigate their environment, make bug homes, sit around an open fire, make dens and new paths through the garden, share hot chocolate and sometimes cook on an open fire.

“They all come back filthy, smelling of smoke with big grins on their faces, having had an excellent morning, It’s the highlight of the summer term.”

Many congratulations Horfield Welly Pre-school – keep up the great work!

*   *   *

For more information about Horfield Welly Pre-school, please visit https://horfieldwellypreschool.wordpress.com/.

You can also see details about Horfield Welly Pre-school and all other local pre-schools on the Pre-school Education page of Bishopston Mum.