Nursery News 10th March 2025

NURSERY NEWS

10th March 2025 – Edition 364

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A. A reminder: An Open School Event: For Big Nursery Red Group Parents: Basic Skills, on Wednesday 12th March.

B. Bedtime Stories: A well-attended event.

C. Fees Increase from April 2025

D .  A reminder to renew Funding for working family codes

E. Phonics program Big Nursery: Slithery Snakes and Ants on my Arm

F.  What are the children are learning about this week?

 

A. A reminder: An Open School Event: For Big Nursery Red Group Parents: Basic Skills, on Wednesday 12th March.

Miss Skai teaches Big Nursery Red Group children ‘Basic Skills’ on a Wednesday morning. The children move to a quiet space in Room 5 where they work in small groups (approx. 8 children) to learn reading, writing, mathematical skills and problem solving.

This character on the left is Biff, she features in the Oxford Reading Tree Scheme books that we use to help teach reading skills. The group on Wednesday will focus on a story about Biff losing her toy aeroplane. We look forward to parents coming in to observe their child in a taught session.

 

B: Bedtime Stories: A well-attended event.

Thank you to all the parents who attended the Bedtime Stories event last week. We had around 15 families here. The staff always get a little bit nervous when they have to read in front of the parents, but they all said the event went well.

Mrs Patterson read Where’s My Teddy? By Jez Alborough. She had a Gigantic Teddy with her, that was taller than the children and a ‘Tiddly Teddy’, like the ones in the story.

Mrs Cashmore read Little Rabbit Foo Foo by Michael Rosen. Little Rabbit Foo Foo is a challenging little rabbit that carries a little hammer whilst riding around on his motorbike ‘Bopping’ animals on the head. The Good Fairy eventually puts him straight! Miss Cashmore had a squeaky hammer which she used as she retold the story to hold the children’s interest.

Miss Howe read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. She used one of our Storysacks to retell the story. Every child was able to hold a piece of food and feed it to the Very Hungry Caterpillar. Our Very Hungry Caterpillar is made of fabric, and food can be put right inside him. The more he eats the fatter he becomes until he has a ‘stomach ache’, before eventually turning into a butterfly.

Miss Skai read the Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson. This group had a little visitor! The mouse from the story was hiding in the pocket of Miss Skai’s dressing gown!

The children were all very well behaved. As a school, we love books and storytelling, and we hope our enthusiasm rubs off on the children (and maybe the parents too!)

C. Fees Increase from April 2025

Very few parents know how we receive our funding to finance the school. Willow Nursery School staff are employed by Central Bedfordshire Council, but our wages are not paid by the council directly. Our funding comes to the school to pay all our costs, including: staff wages, building and grounds maintenance, utilities, educational resources, ICT resources (our admin packages), Insurances, Staff training etc.

The government looks closely at the cost of providing Early Years Childcare and Education. Funding comes from Central Government to our Local Authority, Central Bedfordshire Council. The Local Authority decides how much we are funded per pupil per hour. This rate is increased slightly each year, on the 1st April.

In the past, we always tried to keep our fees as low as possible, to help parents. However, in the current financial climate finances are much tighter for us. Last year the school governors decided that we will increase our fees annually from 1st April each year, to be in line with the hourly pupil funding rates we receive from Central Bedfordshire council.

We receive £7.88 per pupil per hour for Two year olds entitled to funding through the Working Families initiative, or funding for underprivileged two year olds.

We receive £5.38 per pupil per hour for three year olds funded through the Universal 15 hours funding for three and four year olds, or three and four year olds entitled to an additional 15 hours funded through the 30 hours funding for Working Families initiative.

Our fees from April 2025 will be: £16.14 for a three hour session for 3+ aged child, and £23.64 for a three hour session for a 2+ aged child.

Children who receive 15 or 30 hours free funding do not pay fees for their free funded sessions

The rate for two year olds is higher than the rate for three and four year olds because two year olds are required to have a ratio of 1 member of staff for every 5 children and three and four year olds are required to have a ratio of 1 member of staff for every 13 children.

 

D. A reminder to renew funding for working family codes

Parents who are entitled to 30 hours free funded Nursery hours in Big Nursery must ensure a valid code is in place by 31st March 2025 if they wish to have 30 hours funding for the summer term 2025.  Codes need to be renewed approximately every three months. The government does usually send out reminder emails directly to parents. Do check your Junk Mail or Spam folders, as sometimes the reminder can end up there.

If the code is not valid your child will not get the funding from the government, and would have to fall back to 15 hours attendance or choose to pay for the additional 15 hours.

Similarly, the Funding for Working Families initiative- the 15 hour Offer in Little Nursery– Parents must ensure their valid code is in place on 31st March.

 

E. Phonics program Big Nursery: Slithery Snakes and Ants on my Arm

Phonics began two weeks ago in Big Nursery. In week one your child will have learnt their first sound ‘s’. We begin every session by reminding all children that each letter has a name and a sound. The name of the letter is ‘S’ and the sound it makes is ‘sss’. As a parent it is important to teach your children both the letter names and sounds at the same time. Children need to use letter names when spelling words out, and letter sounds when trying to ‘read’ or ‘decode’ words.

We tell a story about a snake in the grass. We try to make our sessions interactive and playful. The children all made a sock Snake hand puppet, to retell the story which they will have hopefully brought home by now. Children will remember the ‘sss’ sound if they have fun playing with their snake, making a ‘sss’ sound. We show the children the letter ‘s’ that represents the sound ‘sss’. We ask them to move their hand like a snake whilst saying the ‘sss’ sound.

We also teach a song for each new sound. The ‘s’ song is:

‘The snake is in the grass, the snake is in the grass, ‘sss’ ‘sss’ , the snake is in the grass.’ (To the tune of ‘The farmers in his den.)

In week two we introduced the sound ‘a’. We tell a story about friends having apples at a picnic. We share some slices of apple for the children to eat. (Again, trying to make a link in their memory that lasts.) In the story a child finds some ants on her arm. We make a very simple ant finger puppet, so the children can move an ant up their arm whilst singing:

‘Ants, ants, ants on my arm, Ants, ants, ants on my arm, Ants, ants, ants on my arm, They’re causing me alarm.’ (To the tune of ‘Skip, skip, skip to my Lou)

Each letter sound will come home on a Jolly phonics page, which allows the child to colour in a picture associated with the sound, has some dotted practice letter shapes to write over, and has a little picture at the side of the page to show how the movement should be made that supports the memory of this phonic sound.

Adding a movement to the sound does help children to recall it at a later date. Spend just a few minutes each week going over the sounds at home.

If you build up your child’s letter knowledge, week by week, adding new letters to the already familiar letters, they will progress with their phonic knowledge.

Give this a go. This will REALLY help your child to learn their phonic sounds which will in turn help them to read and write! If you do this with us, your child will be very prepared for reception class. They will have most of their phonics sounds in place for when they join reception. 

 

F What are the children are learning about this week?

The theme this week is people who help us – Doctors.

The children will have role play areas set up to explore this topic. They will learn about the role of a doctor and the tools that doctors use to help people. Staff will model lots of language to the children to expand their vocabulary and teach them the correct terms for objects that they might see in a doctor’s surgery. Staff will join in with the children’s role play and model language such as ‘appointment’, ‘medicine’ and ‘prescription’. Staff will provide first aid kits for our ‘doctors’ to use as they look after the babies that are hurt or sick. There will be bump notes for our doctors to write for the babies and an ambulance station set up in case any patients need to visit the hospital.

Our learning intention this week is for the children to learn how to name and identify different parts of their body. This will be taught by playing games, reading books, singing songs and interactions with adults.

We will provide lots of resources for the children to use as they explore this topic, these will include a shared read of Doctor Maisy, mirrors for the children to explore their reflections and learn about their body and dressing up outfits to spark the children’s imaginations.

Staff will talk to the children about their own experiences of visiting the doctor’s surgery and encourage the children to recall times where they, or someone they know may have visited the doctor.