Caterpillar Pre-School of Battle Baptist Church

An allotment, a weekly travelling caterpillar toy and a classroom inside Battle Baptist Church give Caterpillar a recognisable character. This is a preschool with a Christian ethos and practical links between learning at home and learning with other children. Its activities reach beyond the classroom, while its parent arrangements bring books, toys and ideas back into family life.

Ofsted rated the setting Good at its 25 September 2024 inspection. The current age range is 24 to 60 months, with capacity for 28 children in total. Those figures describe the whole setting, rather than the size of a child's group.

Term-time attendance can be built from morning, afternoon or whole-day sessions, with an After School Club on selected weekdays. The central decision is whether that calendar, the Christian character and the shared classroom setting match your family's priorities.

Learning and Activities

The early years foundation stage sets the requirements for children's learning, development and care: here, its everyday meaning includes conversation, creative play, movement and growing independence. Practical activities connect learning with things children can handle, change and discuss.

In September 2024, older children used pens alongside music for mark-making. Mathematical language cropped up during snack preparation, while counting objects and recognising numbers gave children practical ways to explore quantity. Paint mixing prompted conversations about colour. These examples connect learning to something children can handle, change or talk about.

Letters & Sounds has a coordinator who plans communication, language and literacy activities. That gives this area an explicit planning role alongside the broader daily programme. At home, Book Bag and Reading Record arrangements encourage children to choose reading material to share with their families; the activity continues beyond the preschool session.

Toy Library Bags extend this further. Their contents include activities involving mathematics, stories, writing, music and movement, with stepping stones and a balance path among the resources. Families can borrow something concrete to use together, rather than relying entirely on suggestions about what to do next.

Curly the Caterpillar, a soft toy with an accompanying diary, goes home with a different child each week. The diary records the toy's experiences with families. It provides a familiar connection between home and preschool, with something personal for children to contribute when their turn comes.

Seasonal Tasks include collecting autumn objects during the holiday and bringing them back for discussion. Cooking activities also travel home through recipes shared with parents. These are small, manageable ways to connect classroom experiences with family routines, without requiring parents to recreate a preschool session.

Outdoor and Community Life

A rented allotment plot gives children opportunities to grow and harvest flowers, vegetables and fruit. It makes changes in the natural world tangible: children can take part in cultivation, rather than only hearing about where produce comes from. In September 2024, children talked enthusiastically about walking there to plant crops, and used additional church space for larger movement activities.

Community participation includes the Battle Scarecrow Festival and Battle Christmas Tree Festival. Celebrations also encompass Thanksgiving, Diwali and Lunar New Year. Together, these provide opportunities to encounter both local events and celebrations associated with other cultures; they sit alongside the setting's explicitly Christian character.

The purpose-built classroom is within Battle Baptist Church. Its environment has been made more neutral with the aim of reducing sensory overstimulation. For parents, that physical setting is as relevant as the activity list: this is classroom-based provision with church space and an allotment contributing different kinds of experience.

Relationships and Communication

Children belong to colour-coded key-person groups, with a co-key-person role covering care routines when their usual practitioner is absent. The arrangement gives families a clear relationship to build while planning for staff absence. It matters because continuity depends on someone knowing the child's routines, rather than simply having another adult present.

Tapestry is the online learning journal used to share observations, photographs and videos. Parents can add their own contributions, and key people use it to recommend activities for home. This makes communication two-way: a skill first seen at home can become part of the conversation about a child's development at preschool.

Other communication includes consultations, contact books, brief end-of-session feedback and whiteboard messages. Termly Parents Evenings create a separate opportunity for a fuller conversation. The combination distinguishes quick practical information from discussion that needs more time.

Resources can also be lent for a child's individual learning needs, including puppets, story bags, threading activities and tweezers. That gives families a practical tool to accompany advice, whether the emphasis is language or hand control. Borrowing and home activities are integrated into parent partnership, rather than being left as an occasional extra.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

At the September 2024 inspection, Ofsted found effective safeguarding, good progress for children including those with SEND, and responsive support involving visual cues, signing and work with outside professionals. The examples matter: support was connected to how children understood activities and communicated, rather than being described only in broad terms.

Current arrangements include a SENCO who plans additional support around children's developmental stages and meets parents when needed. The manager and deputy manager hold designated safeguarding lead roles. These are mechanisms for organising support and responsibility; the dated inspection judgement provides the assessment of effectiveness.

In September 2024, individual conversations using toys and books helped children explore emotions. Staff also used gentle explanations about how behaviour affected friends, alongside encouragement to share. Practical independence included washing, toileting and preparing snacks, while brushing model dinosaurs' teeth made oral-health learning concrete.

These experiences give care a practical dimension. Emotional support, communication and self-care were woven into activities children could understand and attempt themselves. The inspection also identified a weakness in how some changes between activities were organised, so the handling of those transitions deserves attention alongside the positive examples.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is Battle Baptist Church, Mount Street, Battle, TN33 0EG. Preschool operates Monday to Friday during term time, across 38 weeks each year. The classroom day runs from 9am to 3pm, with school-holiday closures.

Morning sessions run from 9am to noon; afternoons run from noon to 3pm. Families can book either separately or combine them into a whole day from 9am to 3pm. That makes the booking model useful for families seeking shorter attendance as well as those wanting the complete preschool day.

After School Club operates from 3pm to 5.30pm, Monday to Thursday. It serves preschool children and children from Battle and Langton School. Friday has a different pattern, so the extension should be considered separately from the five-day preschool timetable.

Enquiries can be made through the contact form, by telephone or by email. Enquiry forms can be submitted during the school year, and the preschool contacts families in the term preceding their intended start. Submitting a form does not secure a place; the registration process follows that initial enquiry.

In September 2024, staff worked with local schools and other settings to help children move on. That is transition support, with attention to the change children experience when leaving preschool.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funded childcare is offered, with 15-hour and 30-hour entitlements described for eligible two-year-olds and children aged three and four. Delivery follows the term-time calendar. Eligibility conditions still apply, and privately paid sessions provide a separate route; current prices come in the preschool's written quotation.

For funded sessions, the voluntary Consumables Contribution supports snacks, cooking ingredients and suncream, alongside local trips and festival participation. Parents are expected to supply fruit weekly and bring the nappies and wipes their child needs; families declining the contribution provide snacks, cooking ingredients and suncream too, with food following the Healthy Eating Policy and Snack Menu.

The distinction is practical: this is a voluntary contribution with an alternative involving supplies from home, rather than a single arrangement covering every item. The fees and funding page explains that structure.

• Changes between activities. In September 2024, children sometimes became unsettled while staff prepared the next activity. Ask during a visit how routines and staff deployment now keep children engaged through these changes.
• Christian character. Christian beliefs and values form part of the preschool's stated purpose. Consider how that fits your family, alongside its participation in celebrations associated with other cultures.
• Friday and school holidays. After School Club runs Monday to Thursday, and preschool follows a 38-week term-time calendar. Families needing Friday afternoons beyond 3pm or holiday childcare need to account for those boundaries.
• Contributions and supplies. Funded sessions have a voluntary contribution and a home-supplied alternative, with fruit, nappies and wipes still expected from parents. Discuss how that arrangement would work for your child when visiting.

Caterpillar suits families seeking morning-only, afternoon-only or combined whole-day preschool attendance during term time, with an after-school extension on Monday to Thursday. Its strongest character comes from the connections between home, classroom, church space and allotment: reading bags, borrowed activities and Curly the Caterpillar give families concrete ways to participate.

The September 2024 position was Good, with positive support findings and a specific concern about activity transitions. The Christian ethos and attendance calendar are equally important to the choice. For families comfortable with both, this offers a clearly defined preschool experience with substantial opportunities to continue learning together at home.