Goldstone Crescent
Dunstable
Beds
LU5 4QU
Phone: 01582 662600
Email: office@willownursery.co.uk
Latest News
Nursery News – 1st December 2025
NURSERY NEWS
1st December 2025 – Edition 392
Find out About:
A. School Photographer.
B. Information regarding the beginning of the Spring Term in January 2026.
C. Big Nursery Parents joining us for Music Time.
D. Christmas Cards
E. Labelling hats, scarves, gloves, coats.
F. Lost Property
G. What are the children learning about this week?
H. Christmas Parties
I. Snack time- Answers to questions.
A School Photographer.
The School Photographer delivered the school photographs last Wednesday. The office staff have been handing them to families, to ensure everyone has the correct pack.
Some parents ordered digital downloads. If you ordered digital images, they have already been emailed to you by the photographer. If you have not received your digital images, check your spam folder in the first instance, and then if you still do not have them, call or email the photographer directly:
Victoria Mitchell 07845 676258
victoria@victoriamitchellphotography.com
B. Information regarding the beginning of the Spring Term in January 2026.
School reopens on Tuesday 6th January 2026
In January we will be welcoming 13 new families to our school. There will be 9 new 3+ Green group children joining Miss Gaffney.
Little Nursery welcomes our 2+ January intake. We have 4 new families joining us. These children will be known as ‘Little Blue Group’ whilst in Little Nursery and their Keyworker will be Miss Tyler.
Please be aware that each new term brings additional children. There will be more families waiting at dropping off and collecting times. If we all work together we can keep our routines running smoothly. These routines rely on families arriving on time, please try your best!
C. Big Nursery Parents joining us for Music Time.
We sent out invitations to all Big Nursery parents (by email on 18th November) to join us for ‘Music’ time. The invitation detailed the date and time of the Music session that your child takes part in. If you would like to join your child to participate in our Music Activity ‘Pigs on Holiday’ then please just turn up at the date and time specified and you will be made very welcome. There is no need to book. Sessions last 25 minutes.
D. Christmas Cards
We as a staff, would like to ask parents to consider sending just one Christmas card in to school, written ‘To all my friends at Willow’. These cards will then be displayed for all to see in the library corridor.
E. Labelling hats, scarves, gloves, coats.
The weather has now become very cold. Children are wearing more items of clothing to school. At the end of each day we end up with a huge pile of gloves, hats and scarves on the floor. We try very hard to match them to the correct child. Please ensure that all removable items are labelled. It does not have to be anything fancy, just your child’s initials written on the manufacturers label in biro would be very helpful. Unlabelled items will be placed in our Lost Property boxes, if staff do not know who the items belong to.
F. Lost Property
We have accumulated a number of items of clothing in our Lost Property box. These items are outside in the Library area. There are three drawers in the top of a cabinet labelled ‘Lost Property’. If your child has lost an item of clothing in the Autumn term: Please check to see if anything belongs to your child, and take it home. We will dispose of any unclaimed items at the end of term.
G. What are the children learning about this week?
The theme this week is Winnie the Witch
The children will be looking at, and listening to, the story of Winnie the Witch and learning all about Winnie and her cat, Wilbur. The story is all about Wilbur the black cat, living in Winnie’s completely black house. Winnie cannot see Wilbur and often trips over him and gets hurt. Winnie thinks the answer is to change the colour of Wilbur so he will become easily spotted in the home. Wilbur is not happy that his colour is changed again and again, until Winnie realises how sad it has made her friend. She changes him back to black and brightens up her home instead.
Staff will use this story as a teaching opportunity to introduce colour and colour mixing to the children. There will be lots of ways for the children to explore colour in the nursery, including drawing with chalks, mixing powder paints and creating spinner paintings.
As a school, we will be putting up our Christmas trees this week. This is always very exciting for the children and will link nicely with our weekly theme, as staff can talk to the children about all of the colourful lights that they can see. Our Christmas decorations are a conversation starter for the children as they often like to share their own experiences of putting decorations up at home.
H. Christmas Parties
Friday 19th December. The school is open for Christmas parties only.
Children are invited to attend one party for their age group.
These parties are for all our children regardless of the days you attend.
Unfortunately parents will be unable to stay during the parties as we do not have enough room! Staffing ratio’s will be maintained.
Little Nursery Party.
Who is invited? Miss Gaffney’s Green Group, Mrs Chiriac’s/ Mrs Cashmores Red Group, Miss Allen’s Little Yellow Group
When: Friday 19th December
At: 9:00am to 10:00am
The Plan:
9:00 Doors Open
Children work in small groups for Christmas crafts.
9:20 Party Snacks.
9:30 Surprise visit from Father Christmas
Songs for Father Christmas
Father Christmas leaves gifts for all children.
9:35 Back to groups for music time.
10:00 Parents arrive to collect all children.
Big Nursery Party
Who is invited? Mrs Pattersons Blue Group, Miss Skai’s Orange Group, Miss Howe’s/ Miss Cashmore’s Yellow Group.
When: Friday 19th December
At: 11:15am to 1:00pm
The Plan:
11:15 Doors Open
11:25am Party Food
11:45am Surprise visit from Father Christmas.
Songs for Father Christmas.
12:00 Christmas Magic Show
1:00pm Parents arrive to collect all children.
I. Snack time- Answers to questions.
As I expected, I have received some emails (5) regarding my decision to cease offering snack time in school for safety reasons. I have replied to parents to say that I will write a full response for my next newsletter, so parents can hear our full reasoning about this issue.
Parents had some questions, so I will try to answer as many as possible within this response. I am not suggesting all parents should read this, but it is included here for those that would like to.
There have been new changes (in September 2025) to the safeguarding rules within the statutory guidance that we must follow
EYFS Statutory Framework for group and school based providers.2025
One of which is new requirements to ensure safer eating:
As follows:
3.68 Babies and young children should be seated safely in a highchair or appropriately sized low chair while eating. Where possible there should be a designated eating space where distractions are minimised.
3.69 Children must always be within sight and hearing of a member of staff whilst eating. Choking can be completely silent, therefore, it is important for providers to be alert to when a child may be starting to choke. Where possible, providers should sit facing children whilst they eat, so they can make sure children are eating in a way to prevent choking and so they can prevent food sharing and be aware of any unexpected allergic reactions.
We have reviewed our lunchtime plans to ensure we comply with this safeguarding strategy.
At lunchtime we have 3 staff in the room in Big Nursery. The staff sit strategically around the classroom to ensure between us we can all see every child’s face.
At lunchtime we try very hard to meet the needs of pupils with allergies and intolerances.
- Each staff member looks after the same two tables of children every day, so that she can learn the needs of individuals.
- Children have their specific seat at their table that they sit in every day.
- Children with severe allergies are very closely monitored. We choose children to sit each side of the child with allergies with care. Choosing children who are tidy with their own food, and children who will not touch the child with allergies food. (to avoid cross contamination of food products).
- Staff monitor the contents of all lunchboxes to ensure there are no allergens present, for example we check chocolate pancakes/ croissants, to ensure the chocolate spread does not contain hazelnuts. Unsafe food is returned to children’s lunchboxes with a note explaining why.
- Staff remind children not to eat each other’s food.
As for choking, we also ensure:
- Food is cut to specific sizes for safety, ie grapes cut in half lengthways. Whole grapes are sent home, with a note explaining why.
We have also reviewed the way we manage lunch for behavioural reasons:
Previously the whole group would have to remain in lunch for 30 mins, as all staff were involved in lunch, or on a break, and there were areas of school closed.
Since Easter in Big Nursery we have reorganised our lunch routines. This has been possible because we now have children attending two and a half days or 30 hours only, so the only lunchtime which requires ‘Going home routines’ is on a Wednesday lunchtime.
Holding children for 30 minutes in lunch was not positive. Safeguarding officers at the Local Authority are clear that children cannot be asked to sit down on a chair against their will, or indeed be asked to sit and eat at lunchtime, if they choose not to. Children have to have the right to leave immediately. We are not allowed to close a classroom door to contain the children.
Due to pupil ratios we have to have 5 staff on duty to support big nursery. The government very carefully only provide just enough money for the number of staff that are required to enable us to maintain prescribed adult to child ratios. We do not have spare money for extra staff.
We decided to improve the lunchtime and play offer. We wanted to make school free-flow throughout the day, including through lunchtime. Children then could choose to eat, and then leave the dining area to go to resume play around the school both inside and out. To make this work, I had to add on three staff to the Lunch routines, including myself and Mrs Evans and the office staff. This way we do not have to pay for extra staff at lunchtime, but management staff are now used at lunchtime from 11:30 until 1:10 to make lunchtime work.
We have enhanced our staffing levels during lunchtime to comply with the new safer eating rules.- Using every member of school staff.
As for snack:
This has to happen mid-morning. In the middle of free flow choosing time. We have been offering snack in room 5 at 10:30am. At this time Rooms 1,2 and 3 are all open with one staff member in each. The outside space has 2 staff on duty, as staff feel that 2 staff are needed outside as it is a big space. That equals 5 staff, the number of staff required to be on duty. During the morning session we employ one extra member of staff to provide cover, to allow specific group time teaching in room 5, and for snack-time.
One member of staff operates snack. Milk cartons and fruit portions are prepared in advance. We set up two hexagonal tables in room 5, each seating 6 children, so a total of 12 children can be seated. Children can free flow in and out. Children are offered milk and fruit.
We have photos up on the wall of each child that has a food allergy or intolerance that may be affected by the milk or fruits on offer.
We have a number of children with milk allergy.
We have children with allergies to basic fruits including apples and oranges.
Staff have 30 minutes to set up the room and support snack then reset for the next activity.
Staff have to offer snack to individual children.
Remove used cartons of milk, empty the unfinished cartons down the sink.
Wipe tables to remove spillages.
Look after the behaviour of the children in the room, including those arriving/leaving/ choosing not to leave.
In light of the new requirements for observing pupils whilst eating staff are uncomfortable because one person cannot see everyone’s face.
We have a number of children that are allergic to foodstuffs. If there are only one or two children to keep safe, it is manageable for staff to keep all the necessary information in their mind when serving individuals. There are too many variables. There is a high risk of human error.
There are too many tasks for a staff member to do alone and be able to watch the children’s faces whilst they are eating. Staff are concerned that they can no longer manage snack safely and comply with the new safeguarding safer eating requirements.
What choices did we have?
Parents have asked if we took time to discuss different options?
We discussed the matter at length at our weekly staff meeting.
We discussed how we could improve snack time.
To upgrade Room 5 snack-time to the minimum quality of support we feel that it needs we felt snack time would require 3 members of staff to support it safely.
One adult to serve the fruit and milk to each child.
One adult to sit at each table to monitor the children, looking at their faces to check for choking, and checking the foodstuffs provided are safe for that individual.
(I still do not think children would be safe, due to number of children with allergies/intolerances and the possibility of human error.)
We only have 6 staff on duty?
We would have to close a significant space for at least 30 minutes. Outside time? Or 2 inside classrooms?
We are trying to keep free flow open to support pupils needs and decrease ‘dysregulated’ children feeling angry or frustrated.
We need to spread the pupils out, supported by all the staff that are on duty.
We are working very hard to give all children free choice during the day to choose where to play. Behavioural needs of children have shifted in recent years. Some children need to have the freedom to choose to go outside to regulate, at any time. If we chose to close outside, or two classrooms, the calmness we are trying to sustain would be lost. Some children would run up and down the interior corridor, pull on the exterior doors to go outside, and become angry. This does have impact on all the children around them.
Parents have asked if snack can operate similarly to lunchtime?
Yes, like lunchtime children could sit at a regular seat, at the same table every day, with a member of staff who really knows how to carefully protect each individual child they are responsible for.
This would involve completely stopping free flow, staff and pupils would have to go back to base rooms. Base rooms would have to be tidied away completely to facilitate this. By the time we get started for the morning session we’d be having to close down for mid-morning snack. The three base room’s would have keyworker groups in each supported by two staff in each room.
This would mean all staff are tied up observing children for choking.
If one child finishes their snack or chooses not to eat or drink and wants to move off….where do they go?…. who will supervise them? Children cannot be asked to remain in a room.
We decided this plan to facilitate snack time was not proportionate to the gains to be made. We were considering a huge disruption to provide a drink of milk and a small snack, we provide: 1/6 of an apple, half a small satsuma or a quarter of a small banana.
I think parents would be surprised at the small portion of fruit which we offer. Our fruit offer has only ever been a small portion to be offered alongside their milk. I calculate the energy nutritional value of our fruit offer is 10 to 15 kcal per portion.
As a staff, the behavioural gains we are working hard to maintain would be completely lost to support snack time.
We currently do not have the financial resources to support snack time in the way the government requires with the new safer eating requirements. I cannot offer additional resources to staff to ensure that they feel safe and adequately supported.
I and the rest of the staff are monitoring the impact of this change. A few children have asked ‘When is snack time?’ last week. The majority of the pupils in lunchtime do not eat the entire contents of their lunchbox. I have monitored food consumption at lunchtime to see if more food was consumed due to no snack time, but the three lunch time staff agreed, in their opinion, we have not see children eating more lunch at lunchtime compared to the previous week. As a school, we constantly keep all aspects of school life under review.
Nursery News 24th November 2025
NURSERY NEWS
24th November 2025 – Edition 391
Find out About:
A. School Photographer.
B. Food Allergies and Snack-time.
C. What are the children learning about this week?
A School Photographer.
The School Photographer has collected all photo orders.
We will let parents know when photo packs are ready for collection.
B. Food Allergies and Snack-time.
We currently have a very high number of pupils with food allergies in our school. The staff want to do their very best to keep all our children safe.
The website ‘Anaphylaxis UK’ describes an Imperial College London study, that found food allergies are most common in young children, with 4% of those under 5 affected.
Currently in our school we have 42 children who are our 2026 Leavers. Of these we have 6 children who have food allergies. This is 14% of these children.
In January we have 41 children who will be our 2027 Leavers. There will be 4 children with food allergies. This is 10% of these children.
So in total we will have 10 children with allergies, out of 83 children, so this equates to 12% of our pupils. This is 3 times the average rate (compared to 4%).
We have pupils who are allergic to milk, as well as all kinds of fruit. The staff have considered a variety of options, but the only outcome we are happy with, in terms of risk, is to discontinue operating snacktime.
In this way, the only food that will be offered to your child to eat during the school day will be food you provide in your child’s lunchbox, to be eaten at lunchtime. We are very aware of allergies at lunchtime, and work hard to ensure children only eat their own lunch.
As a parent group you have been wonderful at providing fruit, but we are asking that you no longer send in fruit donations.
As for milk, the Nursery Milk scheme provides all children under 5 years old, who attend an eligible setting for 2 hours or more, a 189ml (1/3 pint) carton of milk, each day free of charge.
We want to assure parents that we want to continue with the free milk scheme. We will provide cartons of milk, on a trolley outside, near to the queue at going home time, for children to take home a carton of milk each if they would like one.
We may have to adjust the amount we order each week over the first few weeks to meet demand.
We recently suggested to parents to send in ‘Birthday Fruit’ to help celebrate their child’s birthday, but unfortunately we will no longer be able to celebrate in this way. We do make a fuss of individuals on their birthday, or very near to their birthday if it happens to fall at the weekend or in the school holidays. We have an iced (fake) birthday cake with candles on. We light the candles and the class sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to the child, before the Birthday Child blows out the candles, and then chooses a birthday sticker with their age on it.
I hope you can understand how important it is that we keep children with allergies safe. There is a sliding scale of reactions to food allergens from mild to life threatening. We want all our pupils to be safe and well.
C. What are the children learning about this week?
The theme this week is shop role play.
It will be an exciting week in Nursery as the children will have shop role play spaces set up in different areas. The role play areas will be adapted to suit the children’s different stages of development and staff will tailor the teaching areas to suit the needs of the children.
Some children will have a greater knowledge of what happens when we go shopping, or when we order items online and get them delivered to our houses.
Other children may have a simpler perception of shopping, where they might go to a shop and put items in their basket. Staff will use these teaching opportunities to incorporate the children’s prior knowledge of what happens when we go shopping and add to them as they model different scenarios. They will give visual and verbal prompts to the children to expand their role play and communication skills. Children will learn how to build on their imagination, using real life experiences that they have had with their families.
Role play opportunities such as this are perfect for supporting the children with learning good manners, children will be reminded that when we buy thing in shops, sometimes we have to queue and wait for our turn to pay. It is also a good time to remind our children that we should always try and remember our manners and say ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you’ to all people that help us, including shop keepers.
There will be lots of opportunities for the children to expand their skills through play, as they write shopping lists, interact with other children and recall familiar experiences.
Our learning intention this week is to learn familiar songs, for example pop songs, songs from television programmes, nursery rhymes and songs from home. To achieve this outcome, there will be lots of musical activities and opportunities throughout the nursery. As the children choose and share their favourite songs and rhymes, they will encourage others to join in, improving their social skills and boosting each other’s confidence. This learning intention allows the children the freedom to express themselves in a supportive environment and the opportunity to find out if they have any favourite songs in common with their friends.
Nursery News 17th November 2025
NURSERY NEWS
17th November 2025 – Edition 390
Find out About:
A School Photographer.
B. Walk in the Dark event
C. BBC Children in Need.
D. An Open School Event: For Big Nursery Green Group Parents: Basic Skills. A reminder
E. Open School Event: For Big Nursery Children ‘Music Time’. Week beginning 1st December
F. What are the children learning about this week?
A School Photographer.
All orders for school photo’s should be returned to the school office by today.
B. Walk in the Dark event.
Thank you to all the families who joined us for our Walk in the Dark event last week!
It was very dark and in the garden which made it all the more exciting.
We praised all the children on Friday, as they did not play on the climbing equipment in the dark
The event was very well attended- with 88 people signed in! It is one of the staff’s favourite events during the school year. We hope you enjoyed it too.
C. BBC Children in Need.
Friday 14th November was Children in Need day. Miss Gaffney shook her little red box with a picture of Pudsey Bear on the front, to make a collection for the Charity.
We raised £85:00
D. An Open School Event: For Big Nursery Green Group Parents: Basic Skills. A reminder.
Mrs Patterson’s Blue Group parents have been invited in to observe a 30 minute reading/writing activity on Wednesday 19th November.
An invitation letter was sent out last week to Blue Group parents advising the time of their child’s group. We look forward to seeing you on Wednesday.
E. Open School Event: For Big Nursery Children ‘Music Time’. Week beginning 1st December
All children in Big Nursery participate in five planned group times per week. Throughout the year children will participate in groups such as: Storytimes, Big Books, Oxford Reading Tree, Theraplay Sunshine Circles, Music Time, Phonics, Maths Stories, Dance, Number time. We usually offer these activities in blocks of 10 or 20 weeks across the year.
For example children will have one 25 minute music session per week for 10 weeks. The sessions are carefully planned, to increase children’s skills and abilities with music, week on week, building upon what they have learned in previous weeks. For ‘Music Time’ the staff received tuition from the DeCapo organisation, and we then worked together to plan music sessions around the resources they provided us with.
We would like parents to come in to school and see how we teach your children. Throughout the year we are going to invite parents in to school to join in/observe our grouptimes.
We would like to invite all Big Nursery parents to join us for ‘Music’ time. Each parent of a child in Big Nursery will receive an email tomorrow detailing the date and time of the Music session that you can choose to attend, during week beginning 1st December. If you would like to join your child to participate in our Music Activity ‘Pigs on Holiday’ then please just turn up at the date and time specified and you will be made very welcome. There is no need to book. Sessions last 25 minutes.
F. What are the children learning about this week?
The theme this week in nursery is ‘Keeping Ourselves Safe’
Staff will teach the children about staying safe as an overall theme but teaching will include road safety, using equipment safely, stranger danger and maintaining privacy when changing or using the toilets.
Throughout the nursery, the staff will be encouraging the children to be as independent as possible in all areas. They will be supported where needed, but encouraged to practice getting changed by themselves, put their hats, coats and gloves on to go outside and to be independent with toileting needs. These are important steps for the children to take to become independent and school ready. As the children learn to do these tasks for themselves, they will be reminded of the importance of keeping themselves safe.
When changing, we encourage the children to take off and replace underwear as swiftly as possible, so their genital areas are exposed for as short a time as possible. We encourage similar privacy when children are using the toilet, ensuring children know that there should be only one child in each toilet cubicle.
It is very important that the children understand how to keep themselves safe and to understand that some parts of their bodies are private. We will be using the NSPCC guide on PANTS to explain in age appropriate terms, please see the attached link: https://www.nspcc.org.uk/advice-for-families/pants-underwear-rule/
There will be lots of safety talk in the nursery as the children will learn the significance of staying safe while on the roads, in their homes and out in public. They will learn about the importance of wearing seat belts in cars, crossing roads with adults, holding our adult’s hands when walking and not talking to strangers.
Our 7 C’s learning intention is for the children to be able to solve problems in different ways. To support the children to achieve this goal we will encourage them to talk to us about their problem. Once a problem has been shared, staff will help the children to consider different possible solutions. As the children start to become critical thinkers, it will become easier for them to make decisions that support their needs.
Nursery News 10th November 2025
NURSERY NEWS
10th November 2025 – Edition 389
Find out About:
A School Photographer
B.Best Start In Life
C. Walk in the Dark event THIS WEEK
D. BBC Children in Need.
E. Baking Sessions
F. Wipes and Nappy Sacks
G. Local Visits
H. An Open School Event: For Big Nursery Blue Group Parents: Basic Skills.
I. What are the children learning about this week?
A School Photographer.
The School Photographer has returned ‘proof card photo packs’ of your child’s image to school.
We are distributing these to individual children (and their parents) when they attend school. Any Parent is welcome to come in and collect their child’s ‘proof card photo pack’ during school office hours (8:30am to 2:50pm) Instructions of how to order are included in the photo packs.
B. Best Start In Life
The Best Start in Life parent hub is a new government website to be found at www.beststartinlife.gov.uk
‘From pregnancy to childcare right through to starting school, get advice and support for your child’s development.’
This website has lots of information for parents. I’ve had a look and there is a wide range of information including:
- Week-by-week guide to Pregnancy.
- Breastfeeding support
- Baby and toddler teeth care
- Learning to talk
- School readiness.
Importantly, this website now replaces the Childcare Choices Website.
Best Start in Life has a Childcare and Early Years Education information tab which enables you to find out more about:
- 15 and 30 hours childcare support
- Universal Credit Childcare
- Tax-Free Childcare
There is also a Childcare support checker. By answering a few questions, the childcare support checker will check what support you could get.
You can then read more about a scheme, find out who qualifies and then apply.
You can also sign up for personalised weekly e-mails tailored to your stage of pregnancy or your child’s age, with personalised tips and activities to support your child’s health and development.
My message is: take a look……
C. Walk in the Dark event THIS WEEK.
Miss Howe is organising a ‘Walk in the Dark’, an activity for children and their parents to attend together, after school, on Thursday 13th November at 5:00pm.
Children will need to arrive, wrapped up warmly, ready to search the Nursery Garden for hidden soft toy animals. Children will need to bring a torch, because the garden is very dark in places! Brothers and sisters are very welcome too.
To keep everyone safe during this event, we would ask that children do not play on the fixed climbing equipment.
Staff will remind children of this rule. We hope all parents will assist us with this.
We will provide refreshments for everyone who attends. (Free of charge). We plan to offer hot dogs/ cheese rolls, biscuits and squash.
If you plan to come, please send an email to Mrs Selth cselth@willownursery.co.uk entitled ‘Walk in the dark’ detailing your child’s name and how many adults and children will be coming, so we can buy enough food…. We find this is a very enjoyable social event for the children, and for all the adults. It is a simple idea, but the children never usually see their school or garden in the dark and it looks very different.
D. BBC Children in Need.
Friday 15th November is Children in Need. As in previous years, we will collect money in Charity buckets, should anyone wish to donate.
E. Baking Sessions
Mrs Griffiths, a long standing volunteer at Willow, will be coming into nursery on a Tuesday morning to do some baking with the children. We will be baking things like pizza, biscuits, cakes and scones. We do try and make the recipes as healthy as possible. The same recipe will be offered for a number of weeks allowing all the children who want to bake to have a turn. If children have any allergies, we will speak to parents beforehand to ensure that everyone is safe. Children will take their baking home at the end of the day, with a list of the ingredients used in the recipes.
F. Wipes and Nappy Sacks
Please remember to put a pack of wet wipes and nappy sacks in your child’s change of clothes bag.
Nappy sacks are important, so that we have somewhere to place your child’s wet clothes to send them home. School is busy. Nappy sacks are not just used for toileting ‘slips’. Clothes become wet or messy through fun nursery activities or can become wet or muddy due to the weather conditions in the school garden.
If we are unable to find a child’s nappy sacks or wet wipes inside a child’s change of clothes bag, we will place a reminder note inside the bag to remind parents to include some.
The Local Council is pushing childcare settings to charge parents for consumable items such as nappy sacks and wet wipes. I am resisting this, as I feel free childcare should be just that – ‘Free’ . However this means parents must help us by providing these consumable items for their own child
G. Local Visits
All Big Nursery children will be going out of school in very small groups (max 10 children) during week beginning Monday 17th November to explore their local environment, from Goldstone Crescent to the postbox at the junction of Wilbury Drive. Staff to child ratio will be 1 adult to every 2 children. More information will follow in next week’s newsletter.
H. An Open School Event: For Big Nursery Blue Group Parents: Basic Skills.
Mrs Patterson teaches Big Nursery Blue 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.
We would like to invite Mrs Patterson’s Blue Group Group parents in to observe a 30-minute reading/writing activity on Wednesday 19th November.
A further invitation letter will follow to Blue Group parents so that we can match up time slots, so parents can join their child’s small group.
Big Nursery Orange Group will have their Basic Skills groups in the Spring Term 2026 and Big Nursery Yellow Group will have their Basic Skills groups in the Summer Term 2026.
I. What are the children learning about this week?
The theme this week is ‘Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see?’, which is one of our core books, and we will be focusing on reading skills.
Children will have the opportunity to read this story in the classroom, it will be offered to them as part of a group read. When we share ‘group reads’ it means that staff sit with a small group of three or four children, and we look through books together. We will make sure the children follow the pace of the book at the same time, turning pages and looking at the words and pictures on each page as a group. Staff will ask questions to encourage children to look closely and talk about what they can see. Our core book will also be available for children in the library, for those that want to sit quietly and enjoy the book at their own pace.
The children will learn about all of the animals and colours from the story as they hunt for story characters hidden around the garden. Once children find an animal character, they will be reminded of the story and asked to share what they can remember. Staff will model lots of descriptive words when they talk to the children about the characters and prompt children to do the same.
One of our learning intentions this week is to listen to and join in with stories and poems, when reading one to one and in small groups. We would like for all the children to share their favourite stories, rhymes, songs, poems or jingles and to show an interest in books, anticipating what might happen next.
We will also be teaching the children different ways to be kind and caring towards others. They are beginning to understand the school rules now and know that we must use kind hands in the setting. It is important for the children to learn that we can be kind to people in other ways such as helping them to find a friend or helping them to find a toy. Staff will provide lots of praise and encouragement when they see children being kind to others.
Nursery News – 3rd November 2025
NURSERY NEWS
3rd November 2025 – Edition 388
Find out About:
A. School Photographer visiting.
B. Parent Consultations, Big Nursery this week.
C. Walk in the Dark.
D. Can you help with some Tissues?
E. BBC Children in Need.
F. What are the children learning about this week?
A. School Photographer visiting.
A little reminder that a school photographer will be here on Wednesday 5th November and Thursday 6th November.
B. Parent Consultations, Big Nursery this week.
Big Nursery will be having their Parent Consultations this week! Parents have made appointments with Keyworkers, here are the times staff will be speaking to parents on the phone, as a reminder:
Monday 3rd November, Miss Skai’s Orange Group Consultations, 5 minute telephone consultations between 3:15pm and 4:20pm.
Tuesday 4th November Miss Howe’s Yellow Group Consultations, 5 minute telephone consultations between 3:15pm and 3:45pm
Tuesday 4th November Mrs Cashmore’s Yellow Group Consultations, 5 minute telephone consultations between 3:15pm and 3:55pm
Thursday 6th November Mrs Patterson’s Blue Group Consultations, 5 minute telephone consultations between 3:15pm and 4:20pm
Each appointment lasts only five minutes. Please help staff to remain on time.
C. Walk in the Dark.
Miss Howe is organising a ‘Walk in the dark’, an activity for children and their parents to attend together, after school, on Thursday 13th November at 5:00pm. Children will need to arrive, wrapped up warmly, ready to search the Nursery Garden for hidden soft toy animals. Children will need to bring a torch, because the garden is very dark in places! We will provide refreshments for everyone who attends. Brothers and sisters are very welcome too. If you plan to come, please send an email to Mrs Selth cselth@willownursery.co.uk entitled ‘Walk in the dark’ detailing your child’s name and how many adults and children will be coming, so we can buy enough food….
D. Can you help with some Tissues?
Sometimes we ask parents for some specific donations that help our school.
In Winter months’ we see a rise in the number of coughs and colds within the school community. We teach all the children about the importance of using tissues hygienically to blow their nose, to try to stop the spread of germs. We think that the hygienic use of tissues, combined with frequent handwashing helps maintain a cleaner, healthier school environment. So, I am asking if all parents could help us by donating a box of tissues for the children to use, to help keep everyone healthy.
E. BBC Children in Need.
Friday 14th November is Children in Need Day. Parents often ask us what we are doing for Children in Need. –So as in previous years, we will collect money in Charity buckets, should anyone wish to donate. We do organise activities with a Pudsey Bear theme, and we try to share with the children that we are fundraising to help other children. Sometimes the Nursery children want to dress up because they see their older brothers and sisters dressing up for their school’s event. We are happy for children to dress up, or not to dress up. We do not wish any family to feel under pressure.
F. What are the children learning about this week?
The theme this week is Festivals and Autumn
The children will be learning about colour and light, especially the colours they may have seen in fireworks. Some children may have experienced fireworks due to having celebrations such as Bonfire Night and Diwali.
The learning intention this week is for literacy; to show interest in illustrations, words in print and words in the environment. There will be lots of opportunities for the children to look at words and pictures in different areas throughout the school, we have a large library and cosy corners for the children to snuggle down and explore some books. Staff will also encourage children to look for signs and logos that are around the school and talk about what they mean.
Our seven C’s learning intention is to show an interest in others. We have been working on learning everyone’s names and similarities and differences. We will teach the children to remember to use names when talking to their friends and to show an interest in what their friends like to do at school. This makes playing with others more fun, because the children are sharing their interests and allowing others to join in with their play.
