Nursery News 3rd May 2021

NURSERY NEWS

3rd May 2021 – Edition 223

Find out About:

A..Is your child ready to learn?

B. Arrival and collection routines..

C. What the children are learning about this week.

A. Is your child ready to learn?

Parents always look eagerly towards finding out which Primary school their child will be attending. Parents of children leaving us in July 2021 have found out which school their child is going to. We work very hard in school to prepare children for the next stage in their learning at their new school. There are some preparations that parents should be aware of, and can work on with your child in order to make your child ‘School Ready’. There has been a lot in the news recently about young children’s early education being affected by Covid. So together, as teachers and carers, we need to make sure all our children receive the very best possible start.

Central Bedfordshire Council has put together a leaflet which describes some essential skills that your child should be working towards in order to get the best out of school. This leaflet is known as the ‘sixteen ticks’ as it has sixteen things to work towards. In coming weeks we will consider some of these ideas, and look at what we do at Nursery to work towards these ‘ticks’, and explore ideas of what you can do at home to help your child be as ready as possible for school.

These ticks are relevant to all our pupils, even the youngest, because they are all eventually going to go on to Primary School.

I have attached a poster along with this newsletter which details the sixteen ticks and suggests some points for you to consider (click here for poster)

In coming weeks we will consider some of these ideas and look at what you can do at home to help your child.

There is an additional link sent with this newsletter. This is the 16 ticks poster.

Please have a look at it, to see the variety of skills children need to have in place in order to have a successful start in their primary school.

One of the sixteen ticks: To open and enjoy a book

Does your child see you reading books, newspapers or magazines? Do you share books at bedtime? Do you visit the library?

What happens at Willow?

Children need to become confident with books, learn to talk about the pictures that they see and begin to turn the pages in the right direction. Children begin to learn about the story structure and what letters look like. We spend lots of time with the children exploring books. We tell lets of stories using regular sized books and large sized books at grouptime.

This week Miss Howe is working outside in the garden. Her focus will be minibeasts. She will be providing some factual books about minibeasts for the children to look through and identify bugs that they find. Miss Howe has also made some fact cards that she will read with the children.

B. Arrival and collection routines.

We are now into the summer term, which is our busiest term in Nursery. During any one session we probably have 70 children in the building. The Government advised schools that parents are not allowed into the building and children should be dropped at the front door. We have had organised drop offs and collections throughout Covid, but never with this many pupils.

We are trying to keep to our specified times. For example, in the morning, Catkins, Blue and Orange Group should arrive for 8:45am.

Green Red and Yellow are invited to come in from 8:50am.

This means that Catkins Blue and Orange should all be in by 8:50am.

We do understand that the new children that have just started will need a little longer to separate from parents to begin with.

We have noticed an increase in the number of children arriving late.

We are aware that parents sometimes need to drop off at more than one school and cannot be in two places at the same time. We accept this, and I have had a number of conversations with parents telling them that I am OK with this arrangement.

However, we do have to ensure a swift loading of the school. If you are in Blue Orange or Catkins class and you arrive after 8:50, (when Green/ Red/ Yellow group have started to be admitted) we would ask that you wait near the Catkins wait point until a member of the Catkins/Blue/Orange bubble returns to the gate to collect children. This will be after the Green/ Red/ Yellow children have been admitted.

This should avoid bubble staff and children mixing with other bubble children/staff.

So if you can, please arrive on time, and if you can’t, please wait patiently. In this way we can get all the children in and out as swiftly as possible.

C. What the children are learning about this week.

Minibeasts is the theme for the entire school this week!

The younger bubble (Catkins, Blue and Orange) will be doing lots of counting and matching using minibeast toys and picture cards. Miss Tyler will be helping children to make glittery spider webs by drizzling glue into spider web patterns and then adding glitter.

The older bubble will be making butterflies from recycled tubes with Miss Skai. She will also explore making ladybird patterns, using a potato masher dipped in paint to create printed spotty ladybirds. Mrs Patterson will also be playing lots of number games this week, including the Ladybird Game form the Orchard Toys brand of boxed set games.

Everyone will be bug hunting in the garden!