News

Diwali – Known as the ‘Festival of Light’

At Cheeky Chums Pinner, this year we celebrated Diwali for a week. We started our celebrations by making clay Diya lamps, cutting and sticking with Rangoli patterns and setting up a display/interest table.

Parents were invited to our Diwali party, were we ate traditional Indian food like Mathiya, Samosas and Jalebi. It was so nice to see our parents taking part with the activities, Rice and Chalk Rangoli patterns, Diya Collage Cards .

One of our parents even made a Rangoli pattern with chalk on our floor. We danced to Indian music and the parents enjoyed their time together.

Preschool children celebrated their last term in Cheeky Chums by inviting their parents to a Graduation Ceremony with three mini plays of their favourite stories. We had a revised version of the “Four Billy Goats Gruff”, Goldilocks’ and the three bears and “Little Red Riding Hood”.

After the plays the parents watched a ten minute slide show of their children’s journey during their time at Cheeky Chums whilst their children changed into their Graduation Gowns.

The sounds of “ooh” and “aaaw” echoed through the nursery as the children walked in and told the audience individually their names, how old they were and the name of the Big School they were going to.

We ended our ceremony with the children doing a French production about parts of their body to show the parents what they do in their French class.

After the graduation we had a lovely tea prepared by our chef. Parents had the opportunity to catch up with other parents and exchange contact details for their children to stay in touch.
On behalf of me the Manager and Staff of Preschool we wish them well and look forward to seeing the children in their new school uniform.

Under our parent partnership initiative, of preparing our children and parents for school life, we were delighted to have Mr Tim Calvey (Head Master at Orley Farm School, Harrow) and Miss Samantha Mowle (Head of Pre Prep, Orley Farm School, Harrow), as our guest speakers, at our Parents  Coffee evening. Mr Calvey discussed the ethos of Orley Farm School, which gave prospective parents an insight into life at one of the leading co-educational independent schools in North-West London. Both Miss Mowle and Mr Calvey shared experiences of some of the current pupils and explained in detail the assessment process including preparation and a typical assessment day for the child.

As the Nursery Manager, I was delighted to share this opportunity with our parents learning about the key preparations. We often have our parents enquiring about what links we may have with the Independent Schools and how best we can help them preparing for the assessments, so this gave me great pleasure to be working in partnerships with the parents and Heads of Orley Farm.

We thoroughly encourage all our children to learn, explore and blossom with confidence as they embark on learning with the Early Years Foundation stage so I was delighted to learn Children have the opportunity to continue to be creative and imaginative alongside being academic.

Cynthia Duncan
Nursery Manager
24th May 2016

On Friday 4th March 2016 we had a Mother’s Day Appreciation Celebration. We wanted to show our appreciation to our mummies, so we invited mummies to come into nursery for games, activities and a special tea. Parents joined in with messy activities, stories and free play activities. The children surprised their mummies with a special song they had been practising all week and children presented their mummies with handmade cards and salt dough hand prints

A note from the manager: I would like to say ‘Thank you’ to all the mummies who attended. It was lovely to see all the mummies socialising together and taking part in the activities. Thank you for all the lovely comments and feedback we received with regards to mummies enjoying their celebration.

Cynthia Duncan

Diwali Pinner – Diwali is known as the ‘Festival of Light’
At Cheeky Chums Pinner we celebrated Diwali by making a display table with Rangoli patterns, tea lights and decorated the nursery with colourful lights.
Staff and children were encouraged to dress up in their finest clothes and both children and staff came to nursery in traditional clothes. Staff read stories to the children about Rama and Sita.
Parents and grandparents were invited to join us in the afternoon for a Special Diwali Party. Parents brought in assorted sweets and savouries for us to share. Our chef made a special tea with Samosas, spring rolls, sandwiches, cakes, biscuits and Diwali Kheer (Rice Pudding).
Parents engaged in our activities. We listened to traditional Indian music and had a choice of making Rangoli patterns with rice or coloured powder, decorating Diya Lamps, having their hands decorated with Henna or dancing with Dandiya sticks

We had the delight of sharing graduation for our Cubs children for Pinner & Uxbridge children. Our special guest and certificate presenter was the Deputy Mayor of the London Borough of Harrow Mrs Rekha Shah.
The performances included a wonderful adaptation of “Nini at the Carnival”, 2 French song performances; which the children have learn during their French classes with Madame Sweety, a Bollywood dance and the Macarena.
The celebration was filled with colour, wiggles, claps, smiles and delighted happy tears as we proudly watched each child shine and perform on this wonderful day. Graduation marks a day of celebrating our big children moving on to their big schools, celebrating all the care and development nourishment we have given to allow them to flourish and soar with confidence. It also brings their time at Cheeky Chums to a close in a wonderful way giving our children recognition that they are about to move on to school. It is also a way of our families sharing and celebrating as they transition too; with fond memories and a confident, motivated, exploratory, little Cheeky Chums star.
As it came time for the graduation ceremony each child proudly introduced themselves, and told all the mummy’s, daddy’s, grandparents and friends in the audience which school they will be going to. The Mayor presented the children with a graduator’s certificate as well as a present.
It is an honour to share in the excitement of graduation as well as see the pride and emotions of all the children, family and staff. A huge thank you to all that participated, practiced and celebrated it was an extremely special day.