Ladybird Playgroup Thriplow

About Us
The Playgroup Setting & Activities

The Playgroup Setting

Our modern, purpose-built Playgroup provides excellent indoor and outdoor play facilities for children aged from two years and three months to school age. We are located in a beautiful rural setting, within the grounds of Thriplow Primary School.

What Happens at Ladybird Playgroup?

Playgroup Activities

The Wild-Space

The children love the outdoor space behind Ladybird, where there are lots of areas to investigate with logs to step on, hills to climb, Bugs to hunt, a mud kitchen to create in and our wooden house to explore.

Activities for pre-school year children

To help children in the pre-school year prepare for the transition to school, we do 'stepping up' activities to Thriplow C of E Primary School, which include watching school plays in the school hall and having story time in the 'Ants' reception classroom.

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We focus on different topics, chosen to reflect the interests of the children. As well as providing learning opportunities to help support them with their individual Next Steps.

The usual weekly activities are interspersed with a range of special events such as local outings, family days for parents and visits from interesting people such as the fire service, Dentist, Nurse or a vet, for example.

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Meet The Team

Sharon McGinty - Lead Practitioner

Sharon has enjoyed working at Ladybird Playgroup for over 25 years. Prior to this she was a Civil Servant.

Qualifications include Level 3 Childcare; Paediatric First Aid; Child Protection DP, Safeguarding DP; ENCO/SENCO DP; Food Hygiene, and Designated Behaviour Member of Staff.

Alice McGinty - Deputy Practitioner

Alice has worked at Ladybird Playgroup for over 9 years. Qualifications include Level 3 Childcare Qualification, 2nd SENCO DP, Child Protection, Food Hygiene and Paediatric First Aid. Alice also is our Health and Safety Officer.

Georgie Sims - Deputy Practitioner

Georgie holds a Level 3 Qualification in Early Years, with Emergency Paediatric First Aid, 2nd Child Protection and Safeguarding DP, Food Hygiene.

Karen Brogan - Early Years Trainee

Karen is an Early years trainee since January 2025.

Emergency Paediatric First Aid, Food Hygiene.

Rachael Bray - Early Years Trainee

Rachael joined us as a trainee member of staff in June 2024.

Emergency Paediatric First Aid, Food Hygiene.

Angela Mulholland - Playgroup Administrator

Angela has previously been been Administrator of the Thriplow Daffodil Weekend Committee after being a Paramedic for over 10 years, Child Protection.

All Ladybirds Staff have also completed their Safeguarding, Prevent, FGM Training and are kept up to date in all areas through regular Staff meetings, 1 to 1’s, Annual appraisals, peer on peer observations and several publications.

Meet the Parent Committee

Ladybird Playgroup is run by the management, a voluntary parent Committee and a great team of qualified staff. The Committee is involved in planning and running fundraising events, reviewing/agreeing the Playgroup's policies and procedures and much more besides. It is a great way to meet other parents at Playgroup and also be involved in supporting the Staff on site.

If you would like to join the Committee, please do contact us as we would love to hear from you.

Committee members

Diane Eichelesheim

Julie MacGiffin

Guy Trussell

Jayne Pashley

Davide Di Girolamo

Sharon McGinty

Chair Person

Treasurer

Secretary

Committee Member - Policies

Committee Member

Playgroup Leader

OFSTED rated Good Playgroup and Pre-School - January 2020

We are extremely pleased and proud to say that Ladybird Playgroup was awarded a rating of Good in our January 2020 OFSTED inspection! Download the new report here.