Nursery News 3rd February 2025

NURSERY NEWS

3rd February 2025 – Edition 360

Find out About

A.Parent Consultations.

B.Remember to add younger siblings (brothers and sisters) to our contact list.

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

 

A: Parent Consultations.

We aim to hold Parent Consultations every term. Big Nursery Consultations will be taking place during the week beginning 24th February 2025. Parent Consultations are not compulsory, but if you would like an appointment please arrange this with your child’s keyworker when they are outside before sessions begin. These consultations will be on the telephone, will last 5 minutes and be at the following times:

Miss Skai Monday 24th February between 3:15pm and 3:55pm

Mrs Patterson Monday 24th February between 3:15pm and 3:50pm

Miss Howe Thursday 27th  February between 3:15pm and 4:10pm

Miss Cashmore Thursday 27th February between 3:15pm and 4:20pm

 

B. Remember to add younger siblings (brothers and sisters) to our contact list.

You may add a child’s name to our contact list at any time from birth. In light of the new 30 hours funding for working families (from the age of 9 months), we have looked closely at our admissions policy.

In the past, most families chose to take maybe one or two sessions in our two year old class. In most cases we were able to offer spaces to all those children who wanted one.

The financial changes that have been implemented by the Government means demand has grown for our nursery. We have been working towards enrolment and attendance patterns that work for families.

Currently, and moving forward, we will make offers to families at two points of entry, 2+ and 3+.

2+ intake is at the beginning of the term after a child turns 2.                                                      3+ intake is at the beginning of the term after a child turns 3.                                               This means we are enrolling two different groups of children every term.

Many of our families are working families. Almost everyone who attends Little Nursery at the moment are from working funded families. Individual children are filling 15 or 30 hours per week. Less children are filling more spaces.

So, we ask that if you have younger children, get them on to our contact list as soon as possible. In every termly intake, we work down the contact list and make offers to families. So, for example, the current 2+ intake we have been working on for April 2025:

We had 5 full time spaces to offer. So this could be 5 children attending for 30 hours, or 10 children attending for 15 hours, or a mixture of both so we could accommodate somewhere between 5 and 10 children. We had 11 children on our contact list of the age to be considered for one of these spaces. We start with the first person on our contact list who has been on the list the longest. This parent added their child’s name at the age of 4 months! This parent chose how many hours they wanted, and accepted the place. We then work down the list. Sometimes choices of attendance pattern become limited the further you are down the contact list. Child number 11 on the list had their name added one week ago. They were offered a space and accepted it.

We would recommend putting your child’s name down on our contact list as early as possible to increase the possibility of them being offered a space.

In the past we would be able to give siblings priority over others on the wait list. But we cannot afford to leave empty spaces in a termly intake at age two, to wait for a sibling who might join at age three.

For our full admissions policy please look on our website www.willownursery.co.uk

 

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

The theme this week is The Three Little Pigs

This week, the children will be listening to, and learning about the story of ‘The Three Little Pigs’. Children will then be encouraged to get involved in the variety of learning opportunities on offer to retell the story in their own style.

There will be a variety of resources available for the children to use for retelling the story and this will help to build the children’s recall. Outside, the children will have the chance to explore the different houses of the Three Little Pigs. Staff will set up a house made of straw, one made of sticks and another made of bricks. The children will be asked if they would like to make a Pig or Wolf hat in Room 2. Once constructed, they can be worn in the ‘Three Little Pigs’ role play area in the garden, to represent their chosen character.

As a School, we will be focussing on manipulating tools and equipment. There will be wheelbarrows, bricks and hard hats for the children to use as they build homes out of their chosen materials. The smaller children will focus on this by creating textured artwork relating to the story. They will use forks for painting, bricks for stamping and pencils for mark making. All of these tools will improve the children’s ability to manipulate tools and materials, using fine and gross motor skills.

The skill we will be working towards this week is ‘Riding a Bike’. The children will learn how to take it in turns riding the two and three wheeler bikes. They will learn how to wait patiently for their turn, but also, that eventually they will have to give up their bike to a friend, to enable everyone to have a turn. This is a very practical way that children learn to be fair, to take turns and share. We outline the importance of riding our bikes on the roadway, and remind children not to ride too fast as they need to look out for the safety of other children. It is important that we learn how to ride safely to minimise accidents whilst playing.