Chalk Hill Preschool

A church-hall preschool with family-led governance and a friendship with Willingdon Park Care Home gives Chalk Hill a clear community identity. Parents can help shape the setting through its committee, while visits with older residents bring singing, stories and shared activities into children’s experience. This is a preschool whose connections extend beyond its own hall.

At its December 2023 inspection, Ofsted graded Chalk Hill Outstanding across all assessed areas and found its safeguarding arrangements effective. The setting has capacity for 30 children, with a current age range of 24 to 60 months. Its home is St. Mary’s Church Hall in Willingdon, Eastbourne.

Term-time attendance combines morning sessions with longer sessions that include lunch, subject to a minimum booking of two days each week. That gives families a choice between a shorter preschool morning and more time for activities and eating together.

Learning and Activities

The early years foundation stage sets the framework for children’s learning, development and care: play, conversation and practical activity support learning alongside everyday care. Chalk Hill’s December 2023 examples show how those elements can work together, rather than treating learning as a separate lesson.

During that month, younger children searched through sand for gel numbers. Staff used the discovery to introduce number names, connecting a new idea to an activity that already held children’s attention. Older children designed cards and folded, cut, taped and glued them, combining their ideas with the practical skills needed to carry them out. These were different levels of challenge within the same preschool day.

Role play also became a starting point for discussion in December 2023. When children pretended to treat an adult’s injury, a question about recovery time encouraged them to think beyond the immediate game. Staff introduced more demanding vocabulary when children’s interests and understanding supported it. The useful detail is the interaction: an adult extended a child’s idea rather than simply directing the activity.

Outdoor and Community Life

Willingdon Park Care Home is a named community connection, with visits planned across the year for cooking, crafts, singing and story time, alongside invitations for residents to visit the preschool. Sharing activities with older people gives children opportunities to build relationships beyond their own age group. The arrangement is reciprocal, with both settings taking part. The 2025 events included a Preschool nativity production at St Marys Church, giving families an opportunity to come together beyond ordinary sessions.

In December 2023, community outings included library visits and trips to a forest school site. Children also visited a local school, where pond dipping accompanied opportunities to become familiar with the surroundings. These experiences took learning beyond the hall and introduced different places to explore.

Celebrations provided another starting point that month. Staff arranged interest tables around events and beliefs connected to the children attending, giving discussion a link to children’s own lives. Rather than assuming every family has the same experiences, the activities made room for those differences.

At the December 2023 inspection, Ofsted found that staff supported children’s emotional wellbeing successfully, coordinated help for speech delay and prepared children exceptionally well for their next educational stage. Concrete examples make that assessment useful: music and movement helped new children settle, while singing offered a way to participate for children who were more comfortable using their voices that way than in conversation.

In December 2023, staff adjusted encouragement to individual children and used calm explanations when behaviour needed attention. Information moved between families and practitioners, helping staff understand children’s needs. A preschool lending library also allowed parents to take books home, extending the connection between learning at preschool and time together as a family.

The current team structure includes a lead child protection and health and safety role, a SENCO role and a first aider. Butterfly Team and Caterpillar Team each have a room leader. These are useful points of responsibility for families, especially when discussing additional support or the move towards Reception.

Family involvement also has a formal route. Chalk Hill is a charity, and its committee includes parents alongside community volunteers. Fundraising pays for resources and staff training, so participation can contribute directly to what children use and what practitioners learn. Families who enjoy taking an active role have more than an occasional event through which to contribute.

Sessions and Attendance

Morning sessions run from 9.15am to 12.15pm, Monday to Friday. Longer sessions finish at 2.15pm on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday; Tuesday’s longer session ends at 1.15pm. All start at 9.15am, and the minimum attendance pattern is two days a week.

Chalk Hill operates during term time, across 39 weeks of the school year. Lunch sessions are open to children of all accepted ages and provide practice with an everyday routine they will encounter at school. Children staying for lunch bring a healthy packed meal, kept chilled using a large ice pack.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funded childcare includes universal funding of 15 hours for children aged three and four, working-parent funding of up to 30 hours for eligible families, and funding for eligible two-year-olds. Delivery is term-time. Funding applies to the first consecutive hours attended, with extra hours charged privately; families can also purchase sessions when their child is not eligible for funding.

Packed lunches come from home. A voluntary termly contribution is requested towards food, consumables such as wipes, nappy sacks and emergency nappies, and additional activities such as outings. This is a voluntary request, which matters when comparing the funded offer with the wider cost of attendance.

Families complete a funding form each funding term; failure to return it makes them liable for fees. Private fees are invoiced by term and normally paid by bank transfer, with an alternative payment arrangement possible by agreement. The sessions and funding terms explain the charge structure.

Getting There

The address is St. Mary’s Church Hall, Church Street, Willingdon, Eastbourne, BN20 9HT. Enquiries can be made through the contact form, by telephone or by email.

• A preschool timetable. Sessions begin at 9.15am and end by 2.15pm, with a 1.15pm finish on Tuesday, during term time. Match both the weekly pattern and school-holiday cover to your family’s commitments.
• Lunch and contributions. Children staying beyond the morning bring a chilled packed lunch, and the preschool requests a voluntary contribution towards food, sundries and additional activities. At a visit, discuss how lunch routines and any dietary needs will work for your child.
• Attendance and leaving terms. The minimum booking is two days a week, and leaving requires four weeks of written notice covering funded or paid term-time attendance. Missed sessions remain payable, with an exception for hospitalisation when notice is given, so these terms deserve attention before booking.

Chalk Hill suits families seeking either preschool mornings or longer sessions with lunch, within a term-time pattern. Its family committee and Willingdon Park Care Home connection give the setting a community character supported by concrete opportunities to participate. In December 2023, discovering numbers, making cards and extending conversations gave children different ways to develop their ideas. The decisive practical question is whether its early finishes and term-time calendar fit family life.