The Barker-Mill Foundation has made a donation totalling £4500 to The Acorn Community Pre-School in Totton for the school to extend and enhance their outside learning areas. The donation will also be used to improve the use of their online educational assessment tool to support their pupil’s learning and development. Acorns Community Pre-School has been providing childcare for children from two years to school age in Totton since 1987.
The welcome funds will be used by the school to replace the leaky shed which houses their outside resources including bikes, gardening equipment and games. The sunshade needs replacing, and a new all-weather shelter will allow children to play and learn outside during all weathers.
The donation will also replace four mini iPads which are used by the staff to record observations relating to every child’s learning and development. They will also be able to access the schools online Educational Assessment tool which is used to tailor support for individual children’s learning goals.
Liz Gaida, Acorn Community Pre-School’s Manager comments: “The donation from Barker-Mill is a fantastic boost to the work we do here with our children. They enjoy a wide range of experiences to support their early learning goals and the outdoor area is a vital part of that. The activities like soft play, mud kitchen and the growing area all offer great ways to encourage learning. We have limited funds to pay for developing and improving our facilities and the area was suffering from wear and tear so was in much need of a makeover. The £4500 donation will make a huge difference to helping us continue, extend and enhance our interesting, stimulating and varied safe outdoor learning areas and improve the use of our online Educational Assessment tool.”
As Liz Gaida highlighted, the benefits of the donation go beyond replacing worn out facilities. The donation will support Acorn’s aim to continue to provide a friendly, happy and supportive place for those within their local community and support their current and future pupils.
Tim Jobling, Barker-Mill Trustee, said: “Acorns Community Pre-School is clearly an asset to its local community and we are delighted to make this donation to enable the school to continue and improve the creative ways in which they support the children’s first experience of education.”