About Spraoi & Sonas Early Learning Centres
Spraoi & Sonas Early Learning Centres offer home-from-home childcare to children from 6 months of age to 12 years. Here at Spraoi & Sonas Centres, we offer Clare & Galway creche facilities as well as full-time and part-time day-care services, before and after school care, pre-schooling services, and sessional services for all age groups in our purpose-designed childcare centres.
All of our centres are fully equipped with age-appropriate equipment for play and learning, and all centres enjoy large, secure outdoor play areas. Our outdoor play areas are fully-stocked with infant-friendly surfaces, climbing equipment, imaginative play equipment, sports and exercise equipment, sensory toys, natural materials, and mark-making materials to stimulate the senses and create an outdoor playroom of sorts.
With a team of highly experienced, fully-qualified childcare professionals working at each of our centres, we believe in offering a safe, inclusive, and nurturing environment for all children in our care.
For more information on our Galway & Clare childcare and pre-school services, get in touch with the team toady.
Spraoi and Sonas Early Learning Centres Services & Facilities
Babies & Wobblers
Our Nurseries and day-care facilities cater for babies from 6 months up to about 12 months, with mobility-specific care and equipment available. After this, little ones move to our Wobbler Rooms, where they are presented with more challenging activities to help them grow and mature and get the most from their time at Spraoi or Sonas' Clare & Galway Creche services.
Toddlers
Our toddler groups experience all that our curriculum has to offer from role play and dress up to mark-making skills, singing, dancing, natural material exploration, and development of gross and fine motor skills. In each setting, we focus on sensory materials including dark rooms, tactile surfaces, music, and more. We encourage safe spaces for children to allow themselves be distracted and engaged in sensory stimulation of all types.
Pre-School
We offer two different pre-school experiences, one tailored to children experiencing pre-school from 2 years and 8 months and one for those children who have already had some experience of pre-school. We adopt elements of Steiner and Montessori in our pre-school programmes but our curriculum falls under the Aistear framework, preparing kids for school while providing a fun and independent learning experience.
After-School
We offer full after-school services for children aged 4-12, servicing primary schools around the Clare and Galway areas. During our after-school services, all children are served a nutritious homemade meal from a carefully curated menu and can engage in play, learning, and socialisation as well as homework help.
Want to enrol your child in any of our services? Get in touch with the Spraoi and Sonas Early Learning Centres team today.
Our Curriculum Statement
At Spraoi & Sonas Early Learning Cenres, our curriculum follows the Aistear Aims and Learning Goals and the Síolta Principles. We link each activity to the four main themes under the following headings, ‘Exploring and Thinking’, ‘Identity and Belonging’, ‘Communicating’ and ‘Well Being’.
Our learning is play based and we are child led in our approach. This means that we take our cues from the children’s expressions of interest and we aim to develop the children’s learning experiences through interaction while they are at play.
Our rooms are laid out to encourage independence and the children have a choice in what areas of the room they interact with. The key areas are rest and relaxation, home, construction, sand and water play and imaginary play.
As part of our day to day experience, we encourage safe risk-taking and we have introduced elements like our outdoor climbing frames to meet this goal. We are conscious of the community in which we are located and we encourage parents and local professionals to get involved in our toddler and pre-school learning experience each year. This can include inviting a Garda, nurse, or fireman in to meet our children and allow the children to ask questions and learn about the community in which they live.
Inclusivity & Learning
We are ever aware of the changing ethnic environment in which we live and we dedicate time in our curriculum to learning about the various types of families and cultures around us. Each week, we have a different topic for the children’s learning experience and we aim to encourage learning using these themes in an enjoyable way.
We encourage independence by encouraging the children to take on tasks like dressing as soon as they are able and work these learning experiences into our curriculum. Each week we display a learning plan for each age group, and this dictates the skeleton of our day to day experiences but we leave flexibility to develop the children’s own ideas and, again, encourage independence.
Our curriculum is emergent in nature in that our focus is on being responsive to children’s interests to create meaningful learning experiences. The primary aim and purpose of our curriculum is to encourage all of the children to become confident and competent young learners through age and stage appropriate activities.
Spraoi and Sonas Early Learning Centres FAQ
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How do we communicate with parents?
We use an application called Childpaths to communicate with our parents. We will regularly post pictures, activities, observations to this app. You can log on daily to see the sleep times, nappies and food logs from each day. Parents can also communicate with the manager and staff via the app.
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Where are your services located?
We currently have 8 creche locations in Galway City, Clarinbridge, Tuam, Gort and Ennis.
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What type of curriculum do you use?
We follow an emergent play curriculum linked with Aistear our National Curriculum Framework. Every week is based on a new theme and we link in with the emergent interests of the children. It is important to emphasise that we use a learn through play approach. Each theme links in with daily activities, stories, songs and discussions in circle time.