News Blog

Proposal for Southgate West Preschool to join the TKAT family

Southgate West Pre-school and The Kemnal Academies Trust (TKAT) would like to propose that the pre-school becomes part of the thriving Hilltop Primary School, managed by TKAT.

Our shared objective is to provide high quality, child-centred nursery education to children and families in the local community within a school setting. We will build on existing links and relationships with parents who have children who attend both Hilltop Primary and the preschool.

As part of TKAT, Hilltop Primary School’s purpose is to work together as a community of schools to ensure that every child, whatever their background, receives a high quality education.

The benefits of the preschool joining the TKAT family will be to:

● align vision, curriculum and personnel development

● promote consistency of practice and procedure between nursery education and Key Stage 1 with a strong focus on oracy, early reading, phonics and maths mastery

● work with families, supporting parents in developing their understanding of early reading, maths, online safety and positive behaviour management, through the community parent hub.

● enhance access to more facilities and resources. The pre-school children will be able to access the forest school area and school activities in local Tilgate Forest, the school’s ICT suite, outdoor amphitheatre, playing fields and gymnasiums.

● provide early intervention - the school’s track record for supporting vulnerable children can be seen through excellent outcomes at the end of Key Stage 2. These outcomes are reflective of both teaching standards and nurture support provided to children and families, which will be extended to the preschool children.

● identify need early - the school’s Special Education Needs (SEND) team will work with preschool families after admissions, to assess any level of need and signpost early interventions and support where necessary. This will ensure that Early Help interventions and SEND assessments, with Education Health & Care Needs Assessments are already in place by the time children are of school age.

● provide more capacity for pre-school staff to focus on the delivery of the curriculum and provision for the children in their care.

The school has strong financial management in place and will take over the financial running of the pre-school, along with human resource management, estates, health & safety, GDPR etc, supported by various staff within TKAT.

We also recognise that a good preschool helps children to become ‘school ready’ and Hilltop Primary and TKAT welcome the opportunity to support this important first stage of education. The preschool team will work closely with the school during the transfer, who will provide a Senior Leader with Early Years specialism, to oversee transition and work alongside the existing preschool staff to provide support with their curriculum offer and ensure successful progression through their Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). Indeed the school has already invited the playgroup manager to join the school’s Early Years staff in attending Early Excellence training. This will continue so both sets of staff have access to high quality continuing professional development.

The EYFS lead and phonics lead will be visiting the preschool to lead staff training in early reading sessions. This will establish
links between the school and preschool staff as well as beginning to develop preschool subject knowledge in the Read Write Inc programme.

What would change?

From a parents perspective there would be very little change. Southgate West Pre-school would continue to serve the local area and also the wider catchment area, meeting the high demand for nursery places in the area and feed into all the local primary schools.

Those children that are eligible for government funding would still be able to claim their allotted hours and all other fees would
continue to be charged at current rates. The schools would continue to operate their separate admissions policies.

The existing staff teams would remain the same and the pre-school children would be accommodated in the existing building in the grounds of the primary school.

Next steps

We’d love to hear your views and answer any questions that you have on this proposal.

This consultation will run from 19 February 2024 to 17 March 2024 and you are invited to submit comments in writing about the proposal above to

Belinda Clack, Head of Asset Development, TKAT, The Atkins Centre, Kemnal Technology College, Sevenoaks Way, Sidcup, Kent, DA14 5AA

or by email to Belinda.clack@tkat.org. Please mark the subject ‘Southgate West Pre-school proposal.

Alternatively you are invited to attend the school on Wednesday 28th February 2024 between 2pm and 3pm to feedback your views.

Following the consultation period, TKAT will consider all the comments and feedback received. These will form part of an application to the Department for Education to seek their consent for the pre-school to become part of the primary school. Updates will be posted onto the primary school website.