We are delighted to announce that our popular Forest School Eco Sessions will run again this summer holidays. The sessions will run 9.30am-12noon, every Tuesday and Thursday morning between 22 July 2014 and 21 August 2014.

Our Forest School trained staff will supervise children attending these sessions in our Eco Centre. As well as exploring and playing in the forest, organised activities will include:

• Woodland crafts
• Shelter building
• Charcoal making
• Bug hunts
• Pond dipping
• Outdoor cooking
• Water play
• Cooking on a fire
• Mud play

Priority will be given to school-aged children under 8 years old who have registered for New Ark’s 2014-15 playground holiday sessions. There will be some places available for children up to age 11.

The charge is £3 a session per child, including a snack. Places are limited and these sessions are normally over subscribed, so please book early using this form.

You can download New Ark’s summer holiday registration forms from www.newarkplay.co.uk/registrations2014-15. Remember that we also offer additional childcare outside of our normal session times for registered children.

** We’re delighted to confirm that the final total raised at our Summer Festival was £1,945.61. On our Facebook page you will find lots of photographs of the day. Thank you everyone for your support **

Saturday 21 June 2014 11am-4pm

Our annual summer fete gains a festival feel with live music, hot food and lots more. Our city farm and adventure playground will be open and there will be lots of fundraising games, crafts and our summer raffle. Entry by donation.

Confirmed activities so far include:

• African Heritage Centre will be performing and running workshops for children between 12 & 2pm
• Exotic Pet Refuge bringing animals between 1-3pm
• City College Peterborough will be running a children’s arts and crafts stall for us
• Refreshments include hot and cold drinks, biscuits, picnic bags, burgers and hot dogs, ice cream van, homemade cakes
• Activities including face painting, glitter tattoos, bouncy castle, medium & tarot card readings, jam jar tombola, bottle hoopla
• Stalls include: fairground sweeties, bottle hoopla, children’s toy tombola, lucky dip
• Just for fun: wellie wanging, World Cup shoot out, face painting, glitter tattoos, bouncy castle, medium & tarot card readings
• In our Eco Centre you can make dream catchers, stick men, fairy wands / pirate sticks, and buy garden plants & produce
• Summer raffle will be drawn – see underneath picture below for the prize list
• Plus our city farm will be open and children can play freely in our adventure playground and eco centre

 

If you can volunteer to help at this event please contact Charlotte on 01733 340605

We are closed 21-25 April 2014 to undertake Repairs and Maintenance on our buildings and land (and again 1-5 September).

Can you help with any of the following?

• An hour or two of time to help us on any of the days. Unfortunately we cannot have any children on site during this week to help, due to health and safety.
• Donations of cleaning products including bleach, scourers, cleansers, cloths, etc.
• Any unwanted tins of paint – unopened or recently opened

If you are able to volunteer to help during this week, please contact Charlotte on 01733 340605 and say when you can help, how long for and whether you have any mobility issues etc.

You will be asked to come wearing sensible clothing and you will be allocated a job to do, for example painting, cleaning, weeding, tidying games up, mending fences, feeding the animals, etc

We look forward to welcoming engineers from Cummins, to help us mend fences during our April Repairs and Maintenance week

 

Our annual report for 2012-13 is now available to view online as a low res PDF document – please click the link below.

New Ark Guide and annual report 2012-13

If you wish to receive a printed copy, please contact us on 01733 340605 or info@newarkplay.co.uk

Here’s what Jenny from Cummins Business Services said about this year’s report: “The dedication of every one of you comes across in this report – it is a credit to everyone at New Ark Play Association.” Thank you for your kind words Jenny, and thank you Cummins for sponsoring the report’s printing costs!

During the 2013 school summer holidays, we were fortunate in being able to employ extra staff to run small group activities. This meant that children were able to learn new skills and enjoy making and creating within the keep of a sympathetic adult. The funding of £1,000 came from Comic Relief allocated by Cambridgeshire Community Foundation.

It employed several people to do different things with the children so we were able to provide a range of activities:
– craft work (painting fabric for making a wigwam was especially popular)
– baking
– face painting sessions
– wool craft (several children boys and girls, learnt to crochet)
– eco activities including cooking on an outdoor fire and forest woodwork
….and lots more.

The sessions were very sociable with lots of good conversations between adults and children and new friendships forged. Parents were delighted within the children’s excitement and enthusiasm for having a go at something new. Staff were pleased to see the rise of confidence and improvement in social skills.

Here are a small selection of photos…

Painting our tepee material

Erecting the teepee

Papercraft session

Preparing a fire for outdoor cooking in our eco centre

Water play

Tree decorating with natural materials

Baking session

Learning to crochet

 

We are celebrating our second ‘outstanding’ rating in a row from Ofsted following an inspection in May 2013.

Inspectors were impressed with our adventure playground, stating that children “enjoy abundant opportunities to expand their imagination and develop physically and emotionally, such as den building.”

The report also recognised our highly innovative play-led teaching methods, which include Eco (Forest School) sessions and making full use of the City Farm to engage playground children in learning about the natural world and living things. “Children are very keen to learn in the rich and exciting playgroup, farm, adventure playground and eco centre that support them across the prime and specific areas. They have ample opportunities throughout the sessions to make their own choices and decisions about what they do”

Staff were singled out for high praise, with inspectors noting their dedication and passion for early years education and the very low staff turnover. “Children thoroughly enjoy the highly positive involvement from the staff in their activities…warm and genuine interaction actively promotes children’s feelings of self-confidence and value.”

Previously we received an outstanding report following a full inspection in November 2011. Both the 2011 and 2013 reports can be downloaded from the Ofsted website.

Our playgroup manager Nicola Anderson was thrilled with the recent grading. She said: “Our secret is we make full use of our amazing facilities. It has always been our aim to help children thrive through play, and it is wonderful to have an official stamp of approval for everything we are doing.”