Nursery 2023 - 2024

Welcome to Team Nursery

The adults who help us in Team Nursery are:

 Miss Kirby – Nursery Lead                                                                               

Mrs O’Brien – Teaching Assistant

In Team Nursery we believe that the children learn best through play and exploration, and we are incredibly focused on the children’s interests being at the heart of everything we do.

Our Nursery offers morning or afternoon sessions for the children.

 Morning sessions are 8.50am - 11.50am

Afternoon sessions are 12.00pm - 3.00pm.

Children are offered snack during their session; this is often a piece of fruit or a toasted bagel with a drink of milk or water.

Throughout their session the children engage in focused adult led activities, both individually and in groups.  Children will also engage in ‘child-initiated play’ where they can access activities and resources within our continuous provision, both indoors and outside.

As Nursery Lead, Miss Kirby will plan activities that respond to children’s interests, ensure that children make progress across all the areas of learning and help them reach their full potential.

Within our continuous provision, children have free access to carefully planned provision, including:

 A creative area - with access to paper, glue and collage materials

• Resources for early mark making - with chalks, paint, crayons and pens
• Sand/Water play
• Playdough
• Book corner 
• Role play
• Small world
• Construction
• Sensory area 

In the Nursery classroom we have a child sized toilet and a sink, where children are encouraged to be independent.  We also have a changing area for children wearing nappies. When children are ready to toilet train, it is important that staff work with families to encourage and support the children to succeed, offering lots of praise and reassurance.  

 The Nursery Classroom has their own outdoor area which the children have access to within their continuous provision and they also have dedicated outdoor play with access to the large outdoor area.

Our Promise to you –

 We will provide an environment full of opportunities that stimulate curiosity and challenge thinking.

 We will observe and listen closely to the child’s play and create a deep understanding of their interest, needs learning and development.

 We will share your children’s nursery experiences and their learning through discussion with you and through Class Dojos.

 We will work alongside parents to create a more personalised environment that will spark your children’s interest.

 We will praise and reinforce positive learning experiences.

Autumn term 2023

 We follow the Early Years Foundation Stage statutory framework (EYFS) in Nursery to support our children to build strong foundations for the future. The EYFS is split into 3 prime areas and 4 specific areas of learning and development.

 The 3 prime areas are – Personal, social and emotional development, Communication and Language and Physical development.

 The 4 specific areas are Mathematics, Literacy, Understanding the world and Expressive arts and design.

 This term the children in Team Nursery will focus on building secure relationships with staff and other children in the class. They will also become familiar with our Nursery routine and boundaries. We will focus on encouraging all children to become independent, whether it be by using the toilet, putting on their own coats and hats themselves or by preparing their own snack.

The focused adult-led activities this term will include lots of ‘funky fingers’ activities such as ‘dough disco’ and threading, to strengthen their hand muscles and improve their fine motor skills. Our topic at present is ‘all about me’ and we will be learning all about our body parts, our emotions and the people who are special to us. 

This term we will also ensure that the children are given lots of opportunities to improve their communication and language skills. We will do this by asking lots of open-ended questions, sharing stories, songs and rhymes, using puppets and by engaging in lots of imaginative play.

We will be exploring various traditional tales in detail, such as ‘The three little pigs’, ‘Goldilocks’ and ‘the gingerbread man’ which will allow the children to explore numbers, counting and also using the language of size by looking at ‘big’ and ‘small’ .

This term the children will also have lots of opportunities to improve their gross motor skills too through completing obstacle courses, music and movement activities and yoga to improve their balance, body awareness and express emotions.