Matlock Preschool Playgroup Tin Hut Project

Aim

We want to update and modernise the pre-school, with a special focus on improving energy efficiency and sustainability.

Matlock Pre-School Playgroup - Tin Hut Project

Hi - and thank you for visiting our project page!

We are Matlock Pre-School Playgroup - a charity-run pre-school based in the small town of Matlock in the Derbyshire Dales. 

We are raising money to modernise our pre-school. 

We want to make it more sustainable and environmentally friendly. This project will provide an immediate benefit for the children, staff, families, and volunteers, who use our facilities and at the heart of our plan is ensuring we futureproof the pre-school for many years to come.

• About our Pre-School

At Matlock Pre-School Playgroup we provide care and early years education for children aged 2 to 4 years old. 

Inclusivity is very important to us; we welcome all children into our setting and cater to their needs without discrimination. 

Our excellent staff team work tirelessly to provide a safe, happy and caring environment and our parent-led committee ensures there is the opportunity for family members to be involved. We view the well-being of the families as important as that of our children.

We work in partnership with families to provide a consistently high level of care and ensure we meet their individual needs. We recognise that the Covid19 pandemic has had an impact across all age groups, and we see the detrimental effect on the early years’ experience for our current children.

They have missed out on social interactions and activities and the pandemic has led to delays for children with special educational needs accessing the professional support available. We have already introduced a special sensory room within the pre-school setting and are in the process of landscaping a sensory garden, for the use and benefit of all the pre-school children and families.

This project is a further step towards our ongoing plan to modernise and meet the ever-changing needs of our families.

• Our Project

Matlock Pre-School Playgroup is situated across two sites; The Tin Hut, which cares for our youngest children and Woolley Road, which is for the pre-school year group. 

It is at the Tin Hut our story started - over 60 years ago! Many of our current children’s parents have their own history with the pre-school, as do their grandparents, which all adds to the rich story.

We are called the Tin Hut as that is exactly what we are! We love the quirkiness of our building and the iconic status we have in Matlock - however it is in desperate need of modernisation. 

It is a timber-framed building, clad in metal sheeting, pre-dating the establishment of the pre-school. Although there has been ongoing maintenance to the building, it is now of an age and structure that the environmental conditions could be significantly improved.

We have put together an ambitious project, we want to ensure we can continue making memories for children for generations to come!

Our Vision

• Add new insulation and external cladding to improve the thermal efficiency
• Upgrade doors and windows, improving the internal environment
• Install a sustainable heating source – air source heat pump
• Updated interiors providing modernised kitchen and bathroom facilities and additional storage for pre-school resources, whilst making the room attractive for community hire

Benefits

• A warmer and more pleasant environment for the children and staff
• Reduced energy costs and environmental improvements
• Costs savings we can pass back to the families and invest into pre-school resources
• We recognise and are keen to further expand the role the pre-school can hold in the community. We are continuously developing the social events we offer. We use the pre-school settings to host a mixture of events – stay and play sessions, winter and summer craft and activity fairs, treasure hunts and the opportunity for families to participate in sessions with their children. Whilst these events often generate funds, our core purpose is to foster community and engage with the families in our catchment, building friendship, confidence, and social skills
• The modernised facility would be an active venue as a community space for local groups and the community to hire outside of pre-school hours
• We are very much community-minded and want to bring local families together

 The money we raise will be put towards all our efforts to make these ambitions reality.

Thank you on behalf of us all at Matlock Pre-School Playgroup!

This project successfully funded on 24th February 2023