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.