The village of Overton is set to receive a shiny, new nursery facility in the shape of Overton Children’s House. In response to a very real need for a nursery offering extended provision to cater for working parents, the new Montessori Overton Children’s House is being opened in the New Year.

In January 2011 Overton Children’s House will open, set in the completely modernised and refurbished St. Luke’s Hall in Winchester Street, Overton. The flexible hours are designed to meet the needs of parents and carers in the area. It will start by offering a breakfast club from 8.00am to 9.00am and the option of full days until 3pm to meet demand shown. Overton Children’s house will work with parents to make their life easier as well as giving their child the best possible start.

As well as a fabulous new nursery for the village, the new Children’s House will give a very welcome cash injection for St Luke’s Hall when it opens its doors to the public after its facelift in November 2010. The nursery taking on the usage during the day means a guaranteed income for the hall which is something that staff and management of Overton Children’s House are proud to be part of as residents of the village themselves.

Marianne Preece, Manager of Overton Children’s House explains, “As a result of many discussions about extending our hours with existing parents of our existing nursery school and the opportunity to use St Luke’s Hall practically falling into our laps we are very excited and delighted to be able to bring Overton Children’s House to the village. We already have enquiries about the new facility and hope to be able to offer event more choice and flexibility to parents when we get established”.

Overton Children’s House will be run in conjunction with Montessori accredited Steventon Children’s House and will offer the same child centred care and approach to learning across the facilities.

January hails the start of the spring term and what promises to be a calm start to the year especially following the busy and exciting autumn term. September bought with it a record number of new children and a full Children’s House. The settled in remarkably quickly and were soon busy enjoying the wide range of activities on offer. A typical morning session for one child may consist of making a clay pot, preparing snack, polishing the shelves, pouring sand, looking at letter sounds, exploring solid shapes, raking leaves and singing about combine harvesters. Every day is different for each individual because ‘the adult follows the child’, the only thing we can not alter is the time parents pick up and drop off, everything else is flexible! Parents came in for an information session in October on synthetic phonics and how children learn language with us, this proved very popular and we will hold another session for all those interested in January on another aspect of Montessori education.

Due to popular demand, in January we are extending our hours. As well as offering all day sessions on Tuesday and Thursdays we will also be open all day Mondays. We offer French sessions on Tuesday afternoons and sport sessions on Thursday afternoons and Mondays will consist of a light mix of cooking and music.

In December Marianne and Sharon were invited up to London to be presented with an accreditation plaque at an awards ceremony. After all the work everyone had put into achieving our second accreditation it was lovely to be able to celebrate our achievement. Steventon Children’s House is already accredited with Montessori Education UK and is the only Montessori school in north Hampshire to have received this award demonstrating that we are of the highest possible standard. Our second accreditation is with the Montessori Evaluation and Accreditation Board (MEAB). This demonstrates that we fulfill all the criteria to call ourselves a Montessori school as well as ensuring that all children within our care are covering all aspects of the Early Years Foundation stage. If a school is not accredited or working towards accreditation with MEAB and/or MEUK it is not a recognised Montessori setting and should not call itself a Montessori school. We are proud to be the first Montessori setting in the country to have been awarded both accreditations. This could not have been achieved without a lot of work from our team of dedicated and skilled staff.

In November we started to run a Montessori assistants course from our school. This is a recognized level 2 qualification, run through the Montessori Partnership, and is perfect for parents interested in Montessori, those considering working in a Montessori setting, and staff wishing to gain an initial qualification. It takes around a year to achieve and consists of school based assignments, teaching hours and taught hours. If you would like more details please do contact Marianne.

In 2010 Steventon Children’s House hopes to be expanding further, if you are Montessori qualified and may be interested in joining our friendly team, please do contact Marianne.