Guernsey Press

Monkey Puzzle pre-school celebrates 25th anniversary

MONKEY Puzzle has celebrated its 25th anniversary, with a surprise celebration for its founder Caroline Blondel.

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Monkey Puzzle staff and children celebrate the pre-school’s 25th anniversary. (Pictures by Peter Frankland, 33658831/3)

The pre-school was set up on 4 October 1999 at La Couperderie in the former physiotherapy studio.

‘It pretty much had a kitchen, a toilet and the tiniest playroom, there was no furniture or nothing on the first day, we had four staff and four children,’ said Ms Blondel.

‘We started as a standard nursery and had no idea what it would grow into. It’s quite amazing really.’

The pre-school moved to its current site at Les Cotils in November 2000, replacing the previous Montessori school based there.

Ms Blondel and her staff attended the auction to buy back the furniture from the previous school when it closed.

Monkey Puzzle was also approached to occupy a building at King’s for its nursery.

The nursery is standard practice, while the pre-school follows the Montessori method.

‘Montessori now runs alongside the same ideas within early years, it’s about giving children an individual journey, but the main difference here is that we have a huge amount of outside space and we’re very much using the nature around us to learn,’ said Ms Blondel.

‘We not only learn about the trees and leaves and flags that are flying, but we use these types of things for general maths.

‘As far as literacy is concerned, it’s about chatting and talking and we’re outside, no matter what the weather is, there’s no such thing as wrong weather – only wrong clothing.’

The pre-school has small classes and teachers with different qualifications and strengths.

Traditional nursery teachers help children, particularly in the first year at pre-school, as it is believed they still need to be nurtured before educated.

Over the past 25 years the main thing that has changed is the rules and regulations, she said.

‘There weren’t a lot of regulations to start with, I was lucky that all of our staff were qualified and we had a good basis to work on and grow from,’ said Ms Blondel.

‘Another main difference is finding good quality staff and finding baby spaces. There have always been challenges – they just change each year.'

Ms Blondel said the best part of the job was seeing happy children.

‘You can’t help but stand up and feel proud when you bump into them later in life,’ she said.

‘We remember everyone, even if we have to be reminded of their names.’