Newport nursery Clever Cloggs, located at Wellington Road, is appealing for funding to provide the optimum learning environment for special needs pre-schoolers.
The pre-school special educational needs (SEN) hub will be the first to be established on the Isle of Wight. It is hoped the hub will enable pre-school children to flourish in an environment that will suit their individual needs.
It will be in use from 16th May, with the official opening scheduled for September.
A spokesperson for Clever Cloggs has said:
“Over the past 3 years, we have been going through the process of moving early education forward for children with additional needs. These needs could be extra one-to-one support for speech and language groups or more adult directed guidance to support their individual daily needs within the setting.
“In 2020, we made a presentation to the local authority to have grant funding, to provide an office building in the garden. Due to Covid, the process took a lot longer than anticipated but in November 2020 we found out we were successful.
“Due to the commitment of the local authority to complete the project, we were able to gain much needed support. Finally, in February half term, we had the new mobile on site, which changed the office building originally planned for to a hub to take children.
“We have seen all the builders working right up to the last moment to complete the handover. 16th of May is the opening day, making us the first Special Educational Needs Hub for Pre-School children attached to a Pre-School.
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Appeal for additional funds
Although the hub will be opening within a matter of days, the efforts to continue developing the offering don’t stop here. The support of the community is needed…
“Now, we need to provide the correct environment; we need to purchase further resources to be able to facilitate each individual child’s needs and provide the children with opportunities to integrate with the preschool children, and this will support all children for their final transition to school.
“Being a privately run pre-school, we need to provide these resources ourselves while providing new and updated resources to the current preschool. We are asking if the local community can help us fund the costs of these resources to make this the success we know it can be.
“We will also be applying for grants and with the generosity of the local community we will be able to shine. Our success will create the foundation for other settings to apply and support children across the whole Island.
Article continues below this advertisement “The Staff and children at Clever Cloggs appreciate any donations we are able to receive.”
Anyone wishing to donate to the pre-school hub may do so here.
