Welcome to the Cwmaber Café — a lively and much-loved role-play area in our Year 1 classroom where learning comes to life through imaginative, purposeful play. This dynamic space continues to support social and language development, but now includes greater mathematical challenge and real-world problem-solving.

Children confidently take on roles as chefs, customers, waiters, and cashiers, using menus, notepads, and tills to role-play real café experiences. As part of their play, they are now encouraged to use real or pretend coins to pay for items up to £1, calculate simple totals, and begin to give change from 10p, supporting their understanding of money, addition, and subtraction in a meaningful context.

The Cwmaber Café also promotes growing independence, as children continue to self-serve snacks and drinks, take responsibility for cleaning their area, and follow simple routines. This nurtures essential life skills such as organisation, cooperation, turn-taking, and task completion.

To keep learning fresh and engaging, the Cwmaber Café is updated seasonally, offering themed menus, props, and role-play opportunities that reflect different times of the year, cultural celebrations, and class topics.

This role-play environment not only strengthens communication, creativity, and collaboration, but also enriches children’s mathematical reasoning and real-life application — all while having fun in a familiar and inclusive setting.