New Ark Play Association

A City Farm, woodland and an Adventure Playground give New Ark Play Association a preschool setting with an unusually strong outdoor identity. The preschool uses these facilities alongside its main building in Peterborough. For children who enjoy animals, movement and exploring natural materials, the surroundings offer much more than a conventional playroom.

Ofsted rated the setting Good at its inspection on 12 May 2021. That is a dated judgement, rather than a description of today's daily practice. New Ark has 40 places in total; this is whole-setting capacity, not the size of a preschool group.

The Preschool Playgroup welcomes children from 2 years. It sits within a wider community charity whose services also include activities for families and school-age children. Those different services matter: a parent attending with a toddler is using a different arrangement from a child attending preschool.

Learning and Activities

Play drives the preschool's approach to learning and social development. Children use the main building and the outdoor facilities, giving their day opportunities for both indoor activity and exploration beyond the playroom. The EYFS provides the required early-years educational framework: children develop their learning through play, including communication, physical development and relationships. The farm and woodland provide concrete settings for that learning.

The Adventure Playground includes structures built on site from traditional materials and reused industrial components. Across the playground, playworkers support children in judging challenges and deciding when help is needed. For parents, the attraction is an approach that gives children room to attempt things themselves, with adults supporting their play.

Outdoor and Community Life

The Eco Centre combines woodland with a sensory garden and a small orchard. Plants offer colours, smells and shapes to investigate, while wildlife gives children opportunities to observe living things. Natural loose materials sit alongside constructed play features. This is a setting where the outdoor space is part of the preschool experience, rather than simply somewhere to run around between indoor activities.

Animals add another dimension. At the City Farm, children learn about handling and caring for animals and birds with staff supervision. That gives contact with the natural world a practical element: living creatures need attention and care, as well as observation.

The wider Eco Centre also contains a mud kitchen, bug hotel and woodland pond, plus an indoor classroom with a kitchen and toilets. These are site facilities, rather than a promise that every preschool session uses each one. Their value is the variety of physical spaces within the same setting.

Animal handling takes place with staff guidance. For families attracted by the farm, that supervised contact is an important part of the offer: children have opportunities to learn how to care for creatures, rather than simply watching them from a distance.

New Ark employs childcare workers and professional playworkers. Its management committee consists of local volunteers, and volunteers also help with tasks around the site, including the farm. This gives the setting a clear community character, with paid childcare and play roles alongside practical voluntary support.

The Parent/Carer and Toddler Group provides a separate option for younger children attending with an adult. Children explore the Eco Centre and City Farm and practise playing together with guidance from trained staff. It should be understood as a family activity, rather than interchangeable with preschool childcare.

New Ark is at the rear of Hill Close, off Reeves Way, Peterborough, PE1 5LZ. The preschool shares the main building with the playground, across the green from the Play Support Service building. The Eco Centre and City Farm are nearby, making the main building the useful landmark for preschool families.

Parking outside the Hill Close shops is restricted; spaces behind the shops and unrestricted parking on Reeves Way provide alternatives. The Citi4 bus serves Hospital, City Centre and Parnwell, with Hill Close shops the stop to use.

General enquiries can be made on 01733 340605. Alongside preschool, the Parent/Carer and Toddler Group meets in term time on Wednesdays, from 1pm to 2.30pm, for children aged 0–4 with their parents or carers. This accompanied group has its own purpose and attendance arrangement.

• Outdoor fit. Preschool uses the Adventure Playground, Eco Centre and City Farm. Consider whether an active day involving natural materials and animals matches your child's interests.
• Preschool arrangements. The toddler group is accompanied, while preschool is a separate service. At a visit, ask how preschool attendance, settling and funded hours would work for your child, including meals and consumables in the written quotation.
• Parking plan. Restrictions apply in front of the Hill Close shops. Build your collection routine around the alternatives behind the shops or on Reeves Way.

New Ark suits families seeking a preschool experience shaped by outdoor play, animals and a community setting. Its strongest practical asset is the preschool's use of the Adventure Playground, Eco Centre and City Farm. The accompanied toddler group serves a different family need. Choose it for that concrete combination of spaces and experiences, while keeping the May 2021 Good judgement in its proper time frame.