A Man in Child Care

We received confirmation this week of our funding from the British Council, followed by the funds themselves into our bank account. This will pay for our travels and activities over the next 18 months as we work together with our colleagues from Austria, Belgium and Spain in our EU twinning project. We kicked off with a Skype meeting where we introduced ourselves.

I arranged a “Doodle” poll where between us we identified a “window” of availability in the first week of December. Our first project planning meeting will be in Vienna. We will arrange our activities for the rest of the project and get to visit some of the nursery facilities and local places of interest. Mrs W will accompany myself on this first meeting after which we will invite other interested staff members to apply for a trip.

We look forward to our turn at hosting – with the opportunity to show our friends from Europe around the area. We are also excited about the opportunities for our children to learn about other cultures and to extend our skype activities to other countries.

As lead country, we are investigating web hosting facilities for us all to add our contributions on the project. Quotes so far seem quite expensive and probably beyond our budget so we will keep looking.

Now everything is confirmed, I am sure it will be a really positive and exciting opportunity for us all to participate in this experience.

Bizarrely this year, many of the leaves are still on the trees at the end of October – much to my annoyance, as I have just invested in a new leaf sucker. It’s that man-and-machines-against-nature thing. It’s very satisfying to chop, suck, burn and generally master mother nature’s wilder endeavours. Come on leaves, do your worst. I’m ready for you – me and my leaf sucker!

Anyway, it’s started to finally turn a little cooler this week. And it seems that parents thoughts have turned to winter attire. I know this because every time I enter a nursery or preschool I am presented with a fashion show of jumpers, shoes and coats. Generally, boys shoes flash or have Ben 10 imprinted on them somewhere, or a dinosaur. Little girls shoes are often pink with maybe flowers, butterflies and sparkle.

One girl was so excited she ran into the room on arrival, announcing very excitedly – “I have a new coat. Mummy bought it.” She ran back to the coat peg to get it and brought it in to show me. It was the brightest pink, with flowers on.  “We mustn’t jump in muddy puddles in case we dirty it.” she whispered to me conspiratorially.  Like I’m the sort of person to entice anyone into jumping in muddy puddles!

We are coming to the end of the apple crop. We have been submerged in an avalanche of fruit this year. Apple crumble has been a staple of home and nursery menus for some time. We have had a constantly full fruit bowl as well.

It is turning into a season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.

Comes a new year, comes another Paint Pots!   Yes, Paint Pots 7 will be opening its doors in January, as a preschool in St Marks School, Shirley. We are delighted to have won the tender after a prolonged and rigorous application process, including many pages of application form.

It’s very exciting to plan a new venture in the area to complement our existing settings. We already have a list of 26 families who have expressed an interest and 3 completed application forms.

We have staff raring to go and a lock-up full of little chairs, toys, books, scooters and other resources but there are a hundred jobs on the “set up a new preschool” list to get started on.

It was really helpful having the opportunity to test-run the site in the summer when the Howard Road preschool decamped there whilst we had our extension built. We got to know the staff who are really friendly and helpful.

We are eager to join the St Marks School community.

If you are looking for a preschool place in Shirley after Christmas, get your application in fast!