Latest News

From events to Professional practice we’ve got it covered here…

Happy New Year to all!

Happy New Year to all of our Pre School families (past, present and future!). We hope that everyone had a restful Christmas and we’re all ready to go for Term 2. We look forward to seeing the children…

The Wonderful…OddSocks! (Fizz Whizz Pop)

We had our usual Christmas visitor come and put a show on for the children as part of their Christmas celebrations. We absolutely love Fizz Whizz Pop…and she always put on a wonderful, belly-laughin…

It’s Christmas time….

At Extended Service, we felt it was just about time to get the Christmas tree up! The Extended Service children enjoyed decorating the tree all by themselves and they are as proud as punch with their …

Important dates for the Admissions Process

Our Admissions Criteria will be released on the Education Authority website on the 12th December. Please also refer to our Admissions page on our website for more information. Application process open…

Phone number changed

Our old contact number is no longer in operation please contact the Pre School on 07561759647 or you can email the Pre School Leader Kylie Scott on: kyliescott.stbernardspreschool@hotmail.com

Hello again!

Welcome back new class of 2023-2024! We hope our Pre School families have had a happy and restful Summer Holiday and are ready to take on their Pre School adventure. I’m sure there are mixed emotions …

End of year Celebrations!

Well, we have had a fantastic last week to end off the Pre School year! The children watched a funny Puppet Show on Monday supplied by Carnival Promotions which ended with a bit of a boogie to show of…

Exploring Famous Artists

For the last week (before our End of Year Celebrations!), the children explored the works of Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet. The children shared words relating to the artworks and what it reminded …

Here comes Summer!

Hip hip hooray! Summer is finally here…I hope that you have all been enjoying the glorious sunny and warm weather. The children have enjoyed some ‘Summer’ themed set ups in our indoor and outdoor cl…

Wonderful Woodwork

The children have enjoyed creating wonderful woodwork creations at our Woodwork Station. The children even used paint to finish off their works of art. Don’t they look brilliant on display? Well done …

Visit from Dental Health HSCT

This morning the children had a special visitor. Lynn came to talk to the children on how to keep their teeth clean and shiny! Lynn brought along her range of animal friends (equipped with their own t…

Busy at the Woodwork Station!

In Term 2, we were very excited to add a new area to our classroom – a wonderful, little Woodwork Station. All of the children received their training and since then have been given opportunities to m…

Media Initiative Programme

This Term, the children are being introduced to our Media Initiative puppet friends. The programme is an excellent attribute in the promotion of ‘The World Around Us’ area of the Pre School curriculum…

Notification of allocated places for the year 2023-2024

For those who have applied for a Pre School place for their child for the year 2023-2024, you will be able to view the outcome of their application from Thursday 27th April 2023. The EA have sent inf…

Happy Easter everyone!

It has been a very busy Term 2 for the Pre School children! The children have experienced lots of activities relating to all of the usual Winter to Spring themes and celebrations! To end Term 2 off, t…

Mud Kitchen focus this week – ‘Bog Baby’

As part of outdoor play, the children have been exploring the story ‘Bog Baby’. Ms Mulhern read the story about Bog Baby – a creature that 2 sisters discover in a magical pond and they take it home an…

Shrove Tuesday

At Extended Service for Bake Day, the children made their own pancakes! All of the children combined their own ingredients and had the opportunity to do some cooking and flipping using a portal hob. T…

Amazon Jungle NI!

This morning the children received some close encounters with some amazing reptiles! Catherine from Amazon Jungle NI came to Pre School and introduced the children to all of the wonderful reptiles etc…

Applications for Pre School & P1 opens from tomorrow!

Happy New Year everyone! We wish all of our Pre School families a happy and healthy new year ahead. Tomorrow, Tuesday 10th January at 12 noon, the Admissions Portal opens for applications to Pre S…

Merry Christmas from all at St. Bernard’s Pre School!

A wonderful last day of Term 1 was had by all! We had a yummy Burger King meal as a last day treat whilst watching a Christmas movie and then the Extended Service children made some lovely Christmas C…

Who’s hiding in the Christmas grotto?

On Friday, the children welcomed a special visitor to the Pre School….the wonderful and very busy, Mrs Claus! Mrs Claus met all of the lovely children and chatted to them about their Christmas wishe…

The Wonderful Oddsocks (FizzWizzPop)

Today we took a little break and enjoyed a wonderful, spectacular, festive performance by Oddsocks (FizzWizzPop). The children and staff thoroughly enjoyed watching the magic unfold and the children h…

On the News – Article in relation to Pre School funding

You may or may not have seen the Pre School on the BBC NI News on the 22nd November. I just want to briefly explain a bit about what this was in relation to… This happened as a result of Ms Mulhe…

Come along to our Open Day!

We will be having our Open Day for the new intake of children 2023-2024 on Saturday the 10th of December 9:30am – 11:30am. Please come and meet the wonderful Pre School Staff and find out more about w…

BBC Children in Need – a big thank you!

On Friday 18th November, the children wore their pyjamas to Pre School to raise money for Children in Need. We all had a lovely cosy morning and with the help of our Pre School families, you all raise…

Staff Training Day – Alice Sharp workshop

On Thursday 10th November, the staff team attended a workshop hosted by the wonderful Alice Sharp! Alice is an established educational consultant who specialises in the the education of children in th…

Happy Halloween!

I hope that everyone has been enjoying the Halloween Break and enjoying some lovely treats! Throughout October the children enjoyed creating Halloween crafts, listening to Halloween themed stories and…

Woodwork & Creativity Training

Last week all of the St. Bernard’s staff attending an exciting training session on Introducing Woodwork into a Pre School setting. The staff even got to get creative and use the tools and materials fr…

Here we are in Autumn!

Just like that, we are now in the Autumn season! The children have been busy talking about the leaves changing, the shape of trees and creating lovely artwork based on their ideas! We have also been b…

Hello again!

Welcome back new class of 2022-2023! We hope our Pre School families have had a happy and restful Summer Holiday and ready to take on their Pre School adventure. I’m sure there are mixed emotions (for…

Goodbye class of 2021-2022!

We want to say a big congratulations to the class of 2021-2022 in completing their Pre School Year. It has been a wonderful year and it has been great working together with all the children and their …

End of Year Celebrations!

As a follow on from last weeks events and in keeping with the celebrations, for special treats we had an ice cream party and a Burger King meal & movie! The children have been a joy and an absolut…

Puppet Show by Carnival Productions

Yesterday the children got a wonderful treat to start off the End of Year Celebrations! Carnival Productions put on a hilarious Fairytale themed puppet show and played lots of dancing games (including…

Releasing the butterflies!

We picked a lovely sunny day to release our butterflies in the garden area. As soon as we brought them outside their wings were flapping and within 10 seconds of opening the net, off they flew up to t…

Butterflies & Stick Insects

Over the past month we have made home to caterpillars and stick insects. We now have 12 stick insects in total and our caterpillars are now underway in their transformation as they are now chrysalides…

Dental Visit

This morning we had a visitor from the BHSCT to talk to the children about keeping our teeth healthy. The children listened to a story, met some puppet friends and answered all of Lynn’s questions. Ly…

Greenspace Bernie Project

Before Easter, the Extended Service children helped plant willow to create a large willow dome for the Pre School’s garden. The Greenspace project joins together the Primary School, Pre School, Scouts…

Notification Of Allocated places for Pre School Year 2022-2023

For those who have applied for a Pre School place for their child for the year 2022-2023, you will be able to view the outcome of their application from Thursday 28th April 2022 at 10:00am. This ca…

Congratulations to our Easter Raffle Prize Winners!

A huge congratulations to our Easter Raffle Prize Winners: – Parents of Eamonn J who won our 1st prize – the 1 night stay awayParents of Ava who won our 2nd prize – the wonderful Easter treats bas…

Easter Raffle & Easter Holiday Dates

As we are approach the Easter Holidays, we will be doing a Easter Raffle for our Pre School families and we have some fabulous prizes to be won! Pre School will be closed to children on Thursday 14…

Happy Mother’s Day!

St. Bernard’s Pre School want to wish all the Mummies, Stepmums, Aunties, Grannies, Mother-figures, pet-mums, mums-to-be and mums-in-waiting a wonderful Mother’s Day. May you all get a well earned res…

Beautiful Bird Nests

This week, the children have been learning about the lifecycle of a Frog, but another activity the children have been doing is creating beautiful birds nests at our Mud Kitchen area. Firstly, the chil…

Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone!

We are closed for St. Patrick’s day (tomorrow 17th March) and Friday 18th March for a Staff Development Day. The children have been busy this week making St. Patrick’s hat-masks and some of our Extend…

Celebrating World Book Day!

Today the children celebrated World Book Day by dressing up as their favourite character or wearing an outfit relating to their favourite book. The children loved showing off their outfits and discuss…

It’s a Jungle out there!

We had a fantastic visit from Catherine (The Amazon Jungle Show) last week for all of the children. Catherine shared her knowledge and expertise as well as showing her wonderful animals. This was a gr…

Play areas getting an upgrade!

Ms Mulhern is always seeking new ways to update our existing play areas to enhance play and learning experiences. We have been able to add a new seating unit to create a more cosy feel in our library …

EA Pre School Admissions now open!

The Admissions portal is now open from today (10th January 12 noon) until Friday 28th January at 12 noon. Details on how to apply to St. Bernard’s Pre School can be viewed on our website under our â…

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to you all! We hope that all of our Pre School families and staff enjoyed a restful and relaxing Christmas break and we look forward to welcoming children back on Thursday the 6th of Ja…

Christmas Celebrations!

It’s hard to believe that we are now in Christmas week and soon we will be entering 2022! It has been another busy year impacted by COVID-19 for many families but I’m delighted to say that the childre…

Fizz Wizz Pop!

As part of our Festivities – we had the amazing Fizz Wizz Pop come and put a show on for the children! We had Fizz Wizz Pop come and visit for our end of year celebrations in June and we couldn’t resi…

Christmas Showtime!

Triplevision Productions were back at it again but this time it was for the Pre School’s Christmas Show! (and also for the children’s play video on Wednesday)The children worked really hard and it wil…

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas……

….at St. Bernard’s Pre School! We are already feeling festive – even though it’s only November. The children have been busy the past few weeks prepping for their Christmas Show and will be starting …

Our Prospectus for 2022-2023 is now live!

You can download a PDF copy of our Prospectus above. The Prospectus is for the year 2022-2023 for applications made in January 2022. Please have a look through to gain an insight into what St. Bernard…

Staff Development Day – Puppet Training

On Friday 22nd October, Donna Mulhern the Pre School Manager led training on ‘Using Puppets as a teaching tool in the classroom for behaviour management and Social & Emotional Development’. At Pre…

Pre School place available!

Due to a change in circumstances, a place as come available within the Pre School. We are opening up our usual criteria in relation to area and you do not need to reside in a BT6 or BT8 address, but a…

Back to outdoor play!

Now all of the children are well in and settled, this years group of children started play in their outdoor classroom as part of their morning routine. Whilst the space may be small, Ms Mulhern our Ou…

Hello September!

A big welcome to all of our class of 2021-2022! We have started phasing the children in from the end of August and our settling in period runs through to the end of September with all children in from…

Just to say Hello!

A BIG HELLO to all of our Pre School families! I hope you have all been enjoying the summer holidays so far. A major change in the weather now, but I hope you have all been able to get out and about a…

A belated End of Year Celebrations post!

This is very much a belated post in relation to our End of Year Celebrations for Class 2020-2021! But I couldn’t not share what we all got up to at the end of June as looking back now, it all went b…

5-a-day for Outdoor Play (and Extended Service!)

This week the children made ‘Superhero Salads at our mud kitchen area! Ms Mulhern provided children with a range of different vegetables, herbs, spices and oils throughout the week to encourage experi…

Our roof is on & wonderful new play spaces!

Our direct outdoor space has been out of bounds the past few weeks due to our roof being put on by the wonderful Freddie! We have been wanting a roof on our outdoor space as this helps us weatherproof…

Promoting wellbeing – The Colour Monster

We have been super busy over the last weeks and now we are into the swing for our last term this year, we ae focusing on project themes each week. To coincide with Mental Health Awareness week 2 weeks…

Hello Butterflies!

A few weeks back, we had some new residents at Pre School. We had our lovely caterpillars, whom we have been observing closely as one of our themes for this term– lifecycles. We have enjoyed creatin…

General updates – Reminders, issues with email & Acceptance of Pre School places

I hope you are all enjoying the Bank Holiday weekend (shame about the weather!). This is a reminder to current parents (as per email) that we we open tomorrow to children (4th May), even though the Pr…

*Change to notification of allocated places for new intake 2021/2022*

As stated in a previous Blog Post, I had mentioned that the Pre School would be sending letters to those who have successfully been allocated a place in the Pre School for the year 2021/2022. There h…

Spring has sprung!

A big Happy Easter to everyone from the staff team at St. Bernard’s Pre School!We hope you have all been enjoying a chocolate egg or two and some of the sunshine over the past few days! We have lov…

Week 7 (1st – 4th March) theme – The Rainbow Fish

For our seventh week of our planning cycle and as part of our weekly project themes, Ms Mulhern and the children explored the story sack ‘The Rainbow Fish’ – a story by Marcus Pfister. This sto…

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Reminder: We are closed Wednesday 17th – Friday 19th March. We hope everyone has a safe and restful St. Patrick’s break! We are happy to continue the attendance of all children week commencing the …

Week 6 (22nd – 25th February) theme – Ringo the Flamingo

“When you hug people, it makes their heart go faster” – Emilia For our sixth week of our planning cycle and as part of our weekly project themes, Mrs Scott and the children explored the story sack …

Somewhere over the Rainbow…

We’re back after the mid term break and welcoming our key worker children back into Pre School. We’re delighted to hear that all of the children will be back on Monday 8th of March and an email has be…

Week 4/5 (1st – 11th February) Theme : Celebrations – St. Valentine’s Day

For our fourth and fifth week of our planning cycle and as part of our weekly project themes, Ms Mulhern and Mrs Scott brought two celebratory themes together! One of our celebratory themes was St. Va…

Week 4/5 (1st – 11th February) Theme : Celebrations – Chinese New Year!

For our fourth and fifth week of our planning cycle and as part of our weekly project themes, Ms Mulhern and Mrs Scott brought two celebratory themes together! One of our celebratory themes was Chines…

Week 3 (25th – 28th January)theme – ‘Mrs Rainbow’

For our third week of our planning cycle and as part of our weekly project themes, Ms Mulhern and the children explored the story sack ‘Mrs Rainbow’ – a story by Neil Griffiths. This story is about a …

Week 2 (18th – 21st January) theme – ‘The Gruffalo’

For our second week of our planning cycle and as part of our weekly project themes, Mrs Scott and the children explored the very well known book ‘The Gruffalo!’ – a story by Julia Donaldson. In …

Week 1 (11th – 14th January) theme – ‘Whatever Next!’

For our first week of our planning cycle and as part of our weekly project themes, Ms Mulhern and the children explored the book ‘Whatever Next!’ – a story by Jill Murphy. This story is about a baby b…

Part 2 of our Home Learning Programme

As part of our Remote Learning programme, we are also recording activities from the classroom that involve a range of activities such as reading stories/exploring story sacks, number & action rhym…

Our Remote/Home Learning Programme

Our Remote/Home Learning programme is underway! This has been devised in response to lockdown and ensures that the resources provided to parents are helpful in engaging and working with their child th…

Videos by Triplevision Productions!

Just before the Christmas break we had Triplevision Productions come in and record show-around videos of the Pre School! Triplevision Productions are a production company from Northern Ireland and Eam…

Pre School Admissions are now open!

The Admissions portal is now open from today until Friday 29th January 2021 at 12noon. Details on how to apply to St. Bernard’s Pre School can be viewed on our website under ‘Admissions’ or on the Edu…

Pre School Closure – COVID-19

Hello everyone. It’s very hard to comprehend that unfortunately we are still dealing with this unforgiving virus and the impact it is having on our provision. In relation to updated guidance we have h…

Reminders

Christmas Holidays We are closed Thursday 24th until Wednesday 6th of January 2021. Children’s last day will be Wednesday 23rd and we look forward to seeing all of the children back on Thursday…

Professional Practice

At St. Bernard’s Pre School we are always keen to develop on our existing practice and keep refreshing our training (both external and in-house training). During the month of November, Mrs Scott co…

St. Bernard’s Pre School’s Christmas Jumper Day!

On Thursday the 10th of December we had a Christmas Jumper day for Save the Children Charity! We have so far raised £297 which is absolutely fantastic and St. Bernard’s Pre School has still to make…

Who came to see the children at St. Bernard’s Pre School?

On Tuesday 8th of December, we had a very special visitor for all of the children. We had Mrs Mary Claus come to visit! The children went into see Mrs Claus in her very own house and received chocolat…

Our outdoor space

We have been wanting a direct outdoor space for many years and due to the impact on our facilitates as a result of COVID-19 we have been delighted to fast track our aim and begin creating a direct out…