Preparing for Pesach starts early at Kisharon with everyone keen to familiarise themselves once again with the Pesach story and traditions.

Few have more to do in the run-up to Pesach than Head of Jewish Living Sara Levin. In Pesach training sessions she teaches staff the strict rules of the festival including the job of cleaning Kisharon’s kitchens and removing all chametz.

She said: “Along with cleaning and kashering kitchens, we’ll be searching for and burning chametz too.”

In addition to training staff, Sara has run learning sessions for Kisharon people in the Good Days programme and organised other Pesach activities in the run up to the festival.

Pupils at Kisharon Noé School got stuck into making matzah with a visit from the Tzivos Hashem Model Matzah Bakery, learning first the story of Pesach. A model Seder is lined up for next week and several classes are making their own cushions to be used at the Seder table.

At Tuffkid Nursery, Pesach cleaning has been taken seriously, with the children using dustpans and brushes, sponges, mops, brooms and scourers to rid the nursery of chametz.

Each child has made their own Haggadah and learned about the Seder, with special attention this week given to the four cups of wine or grape juice.

Tuffkid Nursery staff brought the Pesach story to life – literally – for their young pupils by bringing in live locusts. “This gave the children just a hint of what it might have been like in Egypt with the plague of locusts,” said Nursery Head Janice Marriott.

That wasn’t all. A batch of frog spawn, fresh from a pond, arrived too. Janice said: “The children were fascinated to see the little black dots inside the jelly. However, this stage did not last long as the eggs started to hatch. We now have a container full of tiny, black, wriggly tadpoles and the children are wondering what will happen next.”