Our Pre-School

The children’s mission statement

  • We want to be happy, but not too happy as it hurts your eyes

  • We want to play with best friends

  • We want to be kind to everyone and little ones

  • We want to play with some balls and lots of toys too

  • We want everyone to play nicely and share the toys.

  • We want to go in the garden and play with dinosaurs and fairies.

Our Teaching

As an experienced staff team, we are always looking at the best way to help support your children’s learning and development.

Our aim is to develop healthy minds and bodies, ready to be motivated and excited to learn.


We are currently following a programme that we adapted for our Pre-school from the Planning in the Moment system led by Anna Ephgrave. Our system ensures that each child is challenged to make progress, supported by knowledgeable and caring staff, lead by their own interests. A good practitioner can deliver learning and development by interacting in the child’s play and demonstrating, modelling, encouraging, questioning, or teaching the child their next steps. This means that each child is involved in their own Learning Journey.


We use an online Journal to show you the progress that your child is making and hope that you will add to this with examples of development and learning from home, this recognises the importance of partnerships between home and school.


We try hard to ensure that every child is given the opportunity to develop the foundations, find the motivation and become excited to learn in readiness for starting school.

We offer our children experiences

  • Stretch and Relax

    Stretch and Relax can benefit those of all ages and abilities. When it comes to children it can help develop wellbeing, mindfulness, and strength. We believe both physical and emotional wellbeing should be a core part of the early years.

  • Talking Tots

    Talking Tots makes learning fun. We welcome the sessions as they develop listening and attention for all children with a focus on speech and communication for younger children as well as phonetical sounds in preparation for older children about to attend school.

  • Rugby

    Physical activity is always a benefit, but our rugby sessions also help develop listening and attention, as well as ball skills. At this age, some children are ready to follow a game with rules.

  • Dancing

    Our children love to move! We encourage their creativity and give them a space to dance to their heart’s content. Dancing develops listening and attention as they focus on the words and notes, as well as rhythm and movement

  • French

    Little ears soak up everything around them, and our French language sessions are a great way to increase vocabulary at this prime age. Many of our leavers go off to school with some of the basics already in place.

  • Forest School

    Our Forest School programme takes place in Belfair’s Woods and sessions run throughout the last school year the children are with us. They have the chance to learn about nature in a holistic way; developing their confidence, and problem-solving skills.

 We pride ourselves on offering our children, and their families, access to incredible experiences - and thanks to the work of our fundraising team, these are contributory, meaning they are fully funded and don’t cost you an extra penny.

Offering children the opportunity to learn and develop at this formative age, allows them to prepare themselves for school and make the first steps in choosing activities and hobbies for themselves.

We are always open to hearing ideas from our families, so if there are any extracurricular activities you would like us to consider, please let us know.

Our Staff

  • Vanessa Calladine

    (+) Diploma in Pre-school Practice

    Vanessa has been at St. Michael and All Angels Preschool for 21 years, 15 years as Deputy Head where she gained a Diploma in Preschool Practice.

    Prior to this, she worked for First Data, a credit card processing company in Basildon, staring off in the I.T. Department as a system security assistant, then moving into the communications department where she was employed as a desktop publisher, designing and laying out internal and external publications, and producing presentation material for the company executives.

    She has 3 children, 2 of which attended the preschool and Our Lady of Lourdes School.

  • Aneta Coyle

    (+) Qualified Level 3

    Aneta is Polish and she has worked at St.Michael and All Angels since November 2004. In Poland, she attended Teacher Training Collage and was awarded the Degree of Licentiate (University Graduation Diploma of English Language Teaching).

    She also holds NVQ3 qualifications in Childcare (age 0-5) and enjoys working with children.

    Aneta speaks Russian and loves reading as well as ice-skating.

  • Carolyne Sanderson

    (+) Qualified NVQ3

    Carolyne has lived in Southend all of her life. She has three grown-up sons who attended Darlinghurst School and Belfairs all three have attended University. Carolyne has worked at the Pre-school since 1998 and has completed her Child Care Qualifications alongside work.

    She has a particular interest in outdoor play and learning and was able to complete Level 2 Forest School Practitioner course based in Belfairs Woods. In Carolyne’s spare time she is a volunteer for the local branch of the RSPCA. She has also been a volunteer at the Belfairs Woodland Centre.

  • Melanie Greenidge

    Melanie qualified in Early Years in the 1980’s and moved to London where she gained lots of experience working as a sole charge Nanny caring for children aged from a few months to 11yrs.

    After becoming a mum in 2007 she worked for the Local Authority with Looked After Children as a Family Contact Supervisor. Since returning to Essex she has worked at a local Children’s Centre, a Nursery and for the Local Authority as a Family Contact Worker as well as volunteering at a local school.

    She has undertaken additional training including Makaton and Planning. Melanie has been employed at St Michael & All Angels Pre-school since 2014.

  • Debbie Houndsome

    (+) Qualified NVQ3

    Debbie started at the Pre-school in 2006 after her youngest son started school. Before joining Pre-school Debbie worked in a day nursery, as a Nanny, and as a Childminder so has lots of experience with children from babies upwards. She has undertaken training through to being fully qualified whilst at the Pre-school.

    Debbie has two sons and a dog, both of her boys attended the pre-school really enjoying their time here and went on to Chalkwell Hall Infants, Juniors, and then to Belfairs.

  • Lisa Bazan

    (+) Qualified NVQ3

    Previous work experience includes working in a bank, as a volunteer on a Kibbutz in Israel, and on a Summer Camp in USA. Lisa was also a holiday rep for a holiday company in Mallorca and worked in Southend Library for a while.

    Lisa has 3 children and her interests include gardening, spending time on my allotment,& playing netball. Lisa can speak Spanish and loves Art & Reading too. Qualifications include C&G in Interior Design and Gardening as well a CCLD levels 2 +3.

  • Claire Doherty

    Claire joined our team in September 2019, she is new to Childcare and Education.

    Both of Claire’s daughters attended St Michael and All Angels Pre-school. Claire is a bank staff member and is also one of our lunchtime team.

  • Emma Shepherd

    Emma worked in London as a legal secretary for 15 years, and after having a family decided on a career change.

    Emma is in her third year of working at the preschool and is working on her Level 3 Diploma in Early Years.

    A mother of two boys who are in infant and junior school, Emma enjoys spending time with her family & friends, movies and baking.

  • Ella Denny

    Ella joined us at pre-school in 2021. she was previously a Reception Teacher at Eastwood Primary School and Nursery.

  • Rachel Alden

    Rachel started at preschool in 2021 after working as an LSA in Eastwood Primary School and Nursery for 5 years.