Nursery News 4th October 2021

NURSERY NEWS

4th October 2021 – Edition 237

Find out About

A. Parent Consultations for Big Nursery.

B. Parent Consultations for Little Nursery

C. Stay and Play for Little Nursery

D Forest School

E. Pupil with Food Allergies in Big Nursery.

A. Parent Consultations for Big Nursery.

We plan to offer Parent Consultations to parents of children in Big Nursery during the week beginning 18/10/21. Your child’s Keyworker will speak to you, either at the front gate at the beginning or end of sessions, or by telephone to arrange a suitable appointment time.

These consultations will be carried out on the telephone. Appointments will be a maximum of 10 minutes in length. Appointments will be available from 3pm, on the following dates:

Miss Skai Monday 18th October.

Mrs Cashmore Tuesday 19th October

Miss Howe Wednesday 20th October

Mrs Patterson Thursday 21st October

You do not have to have a parental consultation. We aim to offer a Parent Consultation once each term.

Big Nursery’s next parental consultations will be in February 2022.

B. Parent consultations for Little Nursery

This week, (week beginning 4/10/21) will see Little Nursery Parent Consultations taking place.

Miss Tyler will be speaking with parents on Monday 4th October from 3:15pm onwards on the telephone.

Mrs Brinkley will be speaking with parents on Wednesday 6th October from 3:15pm onwards on the telephone.

Miss Gaffney will be speaking with parents on Thursday 7th October from 3:15pm onwards on the telephone.

These consultations are scheduled to last no more than 5 minutes.

C. Stay and Play for Little Nursery.

All the Big Nursery parents were offered the opportunity to stay and play with their child when we returned to Nursery after the Summer Break. We wanted to offer this opportunity for all parents, but due to our staggered settling policy with Catkins age children, we wanted to make sure all children were on roll, and mostly settled, before inviting parents in.

The Little Nursery Staff would like to invite parents of our current Little Nursery children to ‘Stay and Play’ in Little Nursery. Parents are welcome to stay and play within the morning sessions from Monday 11th October to Thursday 14th October. The session must be one of your child’s regular sessions.

The purpose of these sessions is so that you, as parents can play with your child in our setting. This will help you to talk about your child’s nursery experience with them, as you would be aware of the environment that your child is spending their time in. It is also a very good opportunity to speak with your child’s keyworker as you play, and to meet the other staff that support your child whilst at nursery. It may be an opportunity to meet with the other parents of children in the same year group as your child. Firm family friendships often form through children being at school together.

It is not compulsory to come, just come along if you would like to. You know your child best. We know some children may become unsettled if their parent suddenly stays. The choice is yours.

You are welcome to bring your younger children with you, but we ask you look after them carefully in the Nursery. You can stay for as little or long as you like within a morning session. Parents can stay from as soon as we open at 8:45am to the end of the morning session at 11:45am if they wish. You are also welcome to drop in at any time between these times if you would like to stay for a shorter time. For example, you could arrive with your child at 8:45 and stay for just 30 minutes if you would like to. We have decided to offer these stay and play visits over four days to give everyone the opportunity to stay and play (some children only attend one session per week), and hopefully to spread out the number of adult visitors to Little Nursery across the week. We are happy for one or both parents to join their child, but we do not want the children to be overwhelmed by the number of adults in their rooms.

I would also ask that parents should not have their mobile phones out in school. It is an Ofsted Safeguarding requirement that mobile phones and smartwatches should not be used in classrooms to take images of children. Staff will ask you to put your devices away if they see you using them. Staff phones are locked away in the staffroom.

D. Forest School Program

Big Nursery Orange Group have begun Forest School activities with Mrs Brinkley on a Wednesday morning.

Mrs Brinkley spent a year studying part time to become a Level 3 Forest School Practitioner in 2017. In order to support her work in school, all other school staff studied to become Level 1 Forest School Practitioners during the 2018 school year.

What is a Forest School? -this is a quote which outlines what a Forest School is and the ethos of them:

‘An inspirational process that offers children, young people and adults regular

opportunities to achieve, develop confidence and self-esteem through hands on learning experiences in a local woodland environment’ (Forest School (England) network 2002)

Whilst we have some trees and shrubs, we acknowledge that we do not have a ‘Forest’, but Forest School teaching and learning is all about participating in activities in the outdoors, learning new skills, building strong relationships and thinking creatively. Mrs Brinkley has planned 7 activity sessions that Big Nursery children will take part in during their final year at nursery. Mrs Brinkley will work with a small group once a week for 7 weeks. We aim to have worked with Blue, Orange and Yellow group children by Easter 2022.

So, for your information, these are the seven activities the children will be participating in:

1.Fairy/ Gnome Dens. Children will use natural materials that they find in the garden to build a small den for an imaginary fairy or gnome.

2. Making Fairies or small people. Children will be shown how to make a fairy using twigs and clay. Children will be encouraged to make their own character, using their imagination to add hair, wings or other accessories.

3.Larger Dens. Working as part of a small group children will build a den from tarpaulins and ropes. Children will then join Mrs Brinkley inside the den for a story together.

4. Clay Faces. Children will mould a flat circular clay shape onto a tree trunk. Children will then add natural objects to the clay to create a face. Children will be shown how to make marks in the clay using sticks found in the garden. Children will compare their own features with those of their friends. Children will discuss similarities and differences.

5.Bug Hunt. Children will look around the garden areas, trying to find bugs to put into their bug collecting pot. They will tip their collections out onto a white paper surface, then use a magnifying glass to look carefully at the bugs. We will be teaching them about being careful with the wildlife and to look after nature.

6. Mud Kitchens, Mud Potions and Mixtures. Children will be provided with pots and spoons. They will have the opportunity to mix soil with sand and water to make liquid mud. Children will then be able to add leaves and grass, and anything else that they find in the garden, into their mixture.

7. Making Woodland Medals. Children will be shown how to use a hand drill to drill a hole in a small disc of wood in order to make a medal. Children will decorate their medals using felt tip pens

Mrs Brinkley’s Thoughts….

I am really excited to be now teaching our children ‘The Forest School Way’. The children are enjoying the new experience and their ideas are extending learning further. Forest School learning has so many benefits to the child’s learning and covers all areas to support the overall well being of the children.

Welcome to Forest School learning Willow!

E. Pupil with Food Allergies in Big Nursery.

In Big Nursery we have a pupil with a severe life threatening allergy to milk, and a less severe allergy to egg and nuts. Since the beginning of term we have been trying to create a safe environment for this pupil. We have introduced some measures to reduce the risk for this child. We have reviewed our risk assessment and we feel the measures we have in place do not go far enough to keep this pupil safe.

I have decided further measures must be implemented to reduce the risk to this child.

Big Nursery pupils will no longer be offered Milk as part of their snack time. We will continue to offer fruit at snack time, and we will bring all the children’s drinks bottles to the snack room at snack time (10:30am-11:00am) so that they can access their own drink during snack time.

Drinks bottles will be available to the children at all times throughout the day and will be stored on a trolley in the Library corridor. Drinks will be moved to the appropriate rooms at lunchtime, so children can access their own drinks.

For this pupil, consuming even a small amount of milk would poison their body. The child would have an anaphylactic reaction, causing their throat and airways to swell, which could lead to unconsciousness and in the most severe cases, death.

I cannot eradicate this risk, but the strongest measure I can take is to remove Milk from Snacktime.

I will remove all food from curriculum activities. The only food items we will use in Big Nursery will be rice and pasta, used dry as messy play materials, and the ingredients we use to make home made play dough. I have checked the ingredients and allergy statements on these products packaging but I will work together with this child’s parents to ensure they agree these products are safe for their child.

This pupil attends full time, so stays for lunch every day at school. I have allocated member of staff to sit next to this pupil at lunch time, to support the child to eat the contents of their own lunchbox and not to touch anyone else’s food. This pupil is still very young, is very inquisitive, and does not yet understand the enormity of their allergy.

We have to work as a community to keep him safe. Big Nursery lunchboxes will be stored in the front entrance hallway, away from the children, and transported to the lunch areas at lunchtimes, then returned to the entrance hallway after lunch.

Please, can I ask all parents not to place any foodstuffs in their child’s changing bags as these are in the classroom with the children. Milk is hidden in all sorts of foods that may not be obvious and you may not expect.

I feel very passionately about this issue, as I myself (Mrs Davies) have a similar life threatening allergy to nuts, I carry an Epipen and I have experienced a full blown allergic reaction, resulting in full Anaphylaxis, and a very scary night at Accident and Emergency at hospital.