RFTS - The Arches Early Years and Afterschool Service

09/10/2026

This week we had a fantastic time exploring Space Week! 🚀🌎 The children had so much fun stepping into the role of astronauts and exploring everything space has to offer. They created their own space helmets, designed their very own NASA IDs and enjoyed a whole-room dramatic role play where they travelled between different planets, explored the moon and climbed aboard our very own rocket ship! 👩‍🚀🪐

It was a week full of imagination, creativity, curiosity and lots of exciting adventures as we explored the wonders of space together! 🌙✨

07/10/2026

02/10/2026

What a fun and creative week we’ve had! 🎨✨

We finally finished our salt-dough decorations from Friday, and the children had so much fun bringing them to life with lots of colour and creativity! 🌈🖌️

We also made the most of the lovely weather by celebrating Rachel’s birthday in the garden! 🎂🌞🎉 There were lots of smiles, fun and happy birthday wishes!

And with autumn officially here, our little artists let their imaginations run wild as they created their very own acorns! 🍂🌰✨

Another week full of creativity, celebrations and lots of fun! 🥰

02/10/2026

This week we had a really busy week in preschool! We celebrated a birthday together, singing Happy Birthday and enjoying some special treats. We also revisited our salt dough creations from last week and had lots of fun painting them, choosing our own colours and adding our own creative touches🎨🖌️

The children have also been very interested in airplanes, so we followed their interest by setting up our own airport role play. The children took on different roles such as passengers and airport staff, using their imagination as they checked in, packed bags and got ready to “fly”. We also created our own airplanes using lollipop sticks, giving the children the opportunity to experiment with different ways of putting the sticks together and decorating their creations.👩‍✈️

Following the children’s interests is an important part of our practice, as it allows us to build on what they are curious about and create meaningful learning experiences that they are excited to be involved in.🤍

01/10/2026

✨Importance of real world connections through play ✨

Real-world play gives children the opportunity to explore, create, and learn through hands-on experiences. It helps build confidence, independence, problem-solving, creativity, physical skills, and positive social relationships.

Our educators this week created an interactive airport activity for our ECCE class, stemming off a conversation from our pre-schoolers about their summer holidays. Our educators created a hands on real world play experience, where the children dressed up in their best holiday attire and quickly made their way through the airport, through the busy security section, all the way to baggage drop and finally to check in before their busy flight ✈️. Our preschoolers were even busy working in the airport as baggage handlers, pilots, air hostesses, and security👩‍✈️

This activity allowed our preschoolers to express themselves through play, spark their creativity and imagination and to boost their confidence 🤍

27/09/2026

This week our ECCE class were feeling the festive spirit on the run up to the Harvest festival, Our educators sculpted targeted developmental activities into the Harvest festival fun 🤍

The children were creating unique scarecrows using different 2D shapes, completing leave painting, and making their own unique autumnal wreaths 🍁.

These activities allowed the children to develop colour awareness, shape development, and connections to their own community all whilst creating new conversations, and strengthening their friendships ❤️

26/09/2026

This week in our afterschool class the children were getting creative, creating their very own decorations🤍

The children created salt dough, which they then moulded into different decorations, unique to their own interests, we had love hearts and shapes, scarecrows for the Harvest Festival weekend and even creating their own initials 😊

This activity allowed the children to express their own creativity, work on their fine motor skills and to express their interests through art work 🎨.

18/09/2026

This week our After schoolers were putting their own stamp on their classroom and creating areas all about them!🏫

We created directed activities in which the children could display their own identities and cultures in our classroom. From creating our own unique culture wall, to creating beautiful art works of what they would like to be when they grow up and even creating individual jigsaw pieces describing themselves and creating a large jigsaw puzzle together all about our afterschoolers, putting their own stamp on our classroom 🫆.

This allowed the children to express their creativity, display their personalities and most of all describe how each one of us are unique❤️.

18/09/2026

This week in Preschool we noticed our preschoolers were arriving with lots of energy!

So we decided to put all that energy to good use with a week focused on gross motor skills and whole-body movement! 🏃‍♀️🤸‍♂️

We had so much fun completing obstacle courses in the garden, chasing and popping bubbles, playing musical chairs and statues, and, of course having LOTS of games of The Floor Is Lava! 🌋

17/09/2026

Process over Product 🎉

In our service we strive to create an environment in which the children can learn, develop interests, create memories and explore. At the heart of all this is the process in which the children take to achieve their goals

Process over product is all about focusing on the child’s experience, learning and creativity. Our educators encourage the children to explore and experiment in their play, to create their own choices in their activities. This approach benefits the children in supporting their creativity, independence, confidence in their own ability and problem solving skills.

This activity is a prime example where our children were hosting their very own Reach for the Stars, The Arches concert and discovered they didn’t have enough instruments for everyone to take part, so they got to work. Showing their creative and artistic abilities to create their very own instruments. Focusing on the enjoyment of their own activities, completely created by themselves ☺️