If your child is at the age where you are starting to look into finding a local pre-school for her or him, this review of Filton Park Pre-school might be helpful.

This friendly pre-school is located on Charborough Road in Filton, very close to Gloucester Road. It is open every day in term-time and offers both morning and/or afternoon sessions.

Please read the review below to find out more about Filton Park Pre-school from a parent’s perspective.

Why did you choose Filton park Pre-school for your child?

The pre-school is close to where we live, so we chose it as it is convenient.

How did the staff manage your child’s settling-in process?

We started off with being asked to attend shorter sessions, where some of the earlier ones we could also ‘stay and play’ if we wanted too.

Our child was shown round, and introduced to the facilities, garden, toys and other children by members of staff.

She was also assigned a specific member of staff as a ‘key worker’, and has been her ‘key worker’ throughout all of her time at preschool.

What do you like best about Filton Park Pre-school?

The staff have to be our favourite thing. They are ALL wonderful.

What do you like least?

Such a hard question, as there is nothing we really dislike about the preschool!

The building is old, and could do with some TLC (responsibility of the council… and we all know what they are like when it comes to spending money…).

What kind of activities are on offer?

Daily sessions of things like painting, drawing. play-doh etc. They have all manner of toys which are regularly rotated to keep things new and exciting for the children, and also a book/reading sofa/corner.

They are encouraged to use their imaginations in role play area. A FABULOUS garden with a sand pit, mud pit, trees to climb up, bushes to hide behind, three wonderful wooden play houses, one of which has two floors, also bikes and scooters to ride on, blocks to build and outside chalks.

Every week there is a specific topic, and the children are encouraged to bring an item relating to that topic in from home which is placed on the ‘show & share’ table – they all sit down with a teacher and discuss what has been brought in.

They do singing every day, often using musical instruments.

There are regular fun trips organised for the children and parents to go on, which include a trip on a train to a local city farm, the seaside, and play parks.

What do you think of the staff?

They are all absolutely WONDERFUL. Kind, well organised, fabulous with the children. They all clearly love working together at the preschool as well, which always makes for a pleasant and jolly atmosphere within the pre school.

The warm team feeling encourages the children to also work together and share what they are doing/be kind to each other.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

As I touched on earlier, the building itself is in poor repair, and although I fully understand the current austerity situation we are in, meaning councils aren’t funding like they used to, it does sometimes affect the running of the pre-school (for example, the boiler has packed up on a number of occasions when the temp drops below a certain level, meaning the pre school cannot open.)

This is NO reflection on the way the staff run the preschool, or the wonderful results they achieve with the children, and also their utter enthusiasm for their job and for ensuring the children are happy, healthy and confident.

I would hope someday, extra funding will come from somewhere, meaning the building can be upgraded and properly maintained. That would be wonderful!

To find out more about Filton Park Pre-school please read this post about my visit there last month.