Happy Hearts PlaySchool

General information

Happy hearts playschool is a small, nurturing and loving playschool run by myself Laura. With 2 small classes and an excellent teacher child ratio, we cater for children from 1- 5 years, half, ¾ day and full day with 2,3,4 and 5 day options. We aim to provide a nurturing, stimulating, educational and happy environment for your child where they are respected, loved and made feel like the special, wonderful little people they are. Our beautiful classrooms and playground have been carefully pieced together in order to offer your child maximum learning and play experiences. We also offer a full CCTV facility where you are able to log in from any device and view the school at all times, in order to give you piece of mind
Classes:
We offer 2 classes, a junior class and senior class. The junior class takes children from 1 years old until 3 years old and the senior class takes children from 3-5 years old. Both classes take a maximum of 15 children with 1 teacher and 1 assistant. Mixed age group classes carry many benefits for a child. We have mixed age classes for many reasons but mainly because the younger children learn so much from the older children and the older children learn many wonderful social skills in helping the younger children. Also, in doing mixed age classes we are able to teach your child according to their abilities rather than according to their age. Although we are a playschool and many of our activities are play based we do follow the CAPS curriculum to ensure that your child is ready for Grade 0, however we implement various teaching styles that enables your child to develop holistically and have fun whilst doing it. Our curriculum and teaching style incorporates both Reggio, Montessori and ECD principles and materials. Our unique approach allows for as much one on one time with your child as possible as well as allowing us to work with your child at their individual pace. We focus on improving and developing fine motor skills, language, literacy, numeracy, perceptual skills, problem solving, creative thinking, social skills, emotional skills and gross motor skills as well as. Our curriculum will consist of various themes that last for 2-3 weeks. Maths, literacy, arts, science, social sciences, music and technology will all be presented in fun ways using the current theme. There will also be baking/cooking, gardening and messy/sensory play once a week.
School Facilities:
Indoor play area consisting of: fantasy play area /reading/quiet time area, block/construction play area, maths and science area, art area, fine motor and perceptual play area.
Outdoor play area consisting of: jungle gym, sandpit, water play area, outdoor play equipment.
School hours:
We are open from 07:00-17:30, Monday – Friday excluding public holidays. We do follow a 4 term schedule however holiday care is provided every school holiday except for December, for those needing it.
• 07:00-12:30 Half Day
• 07:00-15:00 ¾ Day
• 07:00- 17:30 Full Day
Daily Time Table:
7:00- 8:30: Arrival, breakfast, toilet routine, free indoor play
8:30-09:00 Circle time/ Language ring
9:00-10:00 Fine Motor, math, literacy and perceptual activities and art activity
10:00-11:00: Outdoor free play, snack, toilet routine
11:00-12:00: Second language ring, music/ gross motor/baking/ messy play/ science
12:00- 12:30 Lunch and story time
12:30- Home time for half day, nap time for full day
14:30- 17:30: Aftercare and snack

Discipline

Discipline is an important part of a child’s development. Safe and firm boundaries make a child feel secure. At Happy Hearts we prefer to use discipline methods that will help a child’s development in the long run rather than cause harm. Children act out when they are experiencing a problem and it is our job as teachers/adults/ parents to help them navigate and solve the problem rather than punish or shame them. We do not make use of a naughty corner, time out, or reward charts as although these methods encourage good behaviour they do not solve the problem that the child is experiencing and it only encourages the child to do something in return for something. We prefer to focus on intrinsic discipline and motivation. Should your child be acting out at school or behaving in a way that we feel might be cause for concern, we will discuss in detail with you what could be the problem and also how to resolve this.
Food:
We offer a healthy and sugar free menu and the children will receive a morning and afternoon snack consisting usually of fresh fruit/yoghurt/ raw vegetables/ crackers/cheese/ frozen homemade smoothie/popcorn/ rice cakes/avo/ hummus. Most of the food provided at the school is organic and the meat and dairy come from free range, non-grain fed animals sourced from local farmers. Many of the vegetables will come out of our very own veggie patch that your children will help plant and look after. We also try to avoid sugar and processed food as much as possible. The menu is nutritionally balanced and any dietary requirements will be catered for. All meals are prepared by me. Please ensure that your child eats breakfast at home or your are welcome to pack them breakfast to eat at school should you need to drop them early, please also pack a healthy lunch box for them to eat at lunch time, please do not pack sweets, chips, chocolate, cake or fizzy coldrink.