Volunteering

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Your child's group will always welcome your support and involvement. In fact, many early years settings actively encourage parents to contribute to the life of the group. You may have specific interests, ideas, knowledge and skills that your child’s setting will find particularly useful.

Benefits for you

Becoming more involved with your child's setting benefits you too. You will have a chance to observe and discover how your child plays and relates to other children in a different environment away from your home. You may also get some new ideas about the kinds of activities they enjoy – and the team at your child's setting will be happy to suggest fun activities to help your child develop and learn outside the setting.

Spending more time at your child's setting is also a great opportunity to meet informally with staff, build relationships and make friends with other parents.

Making a start

Early years settings need volunteers for a range of activities, for example:

to be a spare pair of hands or driver on day trips or in case of emergencies
to share a hobby you may have or demonstrate a craft to the class
to read a book or tell a favourite tale from your childhood
to share your skills in playing a musical instrument – put on a little show or teach the children how your value music and what your instrument can do
to support a child who may have trouble settling in or have additional needs

If you are not able to help at the setting, you can still contribute. Ask if you can do any tasks and projects at home. For example, you could:

cut out patterns or help prepare art or craft projects
repair books or toys
do research on new activities, trips or visits
make or wash dressing up clothes
design and/or manage the setting’s website
tape a story for the children to hear
help gather materials or supplies such as old magazines or fabric scraps
be your pre-school’s contact or member on the local sub-committee or the Pre-school Learning Alliance
set up or support a parent forum to enable parents to become involved in the day-to-day life of the setting

What do settings need from their volunteers?

time that you can give on occasion
ability to enjoy working with children other than your own
patience and a sense of humour
willingness to work on simple projects and take orders from others
ability to go to special events or to chaperone children during outings
a talent or interest that you are willing to share
reliability and commitment to being there when you say you will

More information

For more information, download the leaflets below.