Nursery News 13th July 2026

NURSERY NEWS

13th July 2026 – Edition 417

Find out About:       

A         End of Term arrangements July 2026

B          Leavers Day –Friday 17th July- 8:50am-11:50am

C          Lost Property

D         Remember to put your younger children on our wait list.

E         School re-open dates for September 2026

F          The end of the 2025-2026 Academic Year is rapidly approaching!

 

A. End of Term arrangements July 2026

The last day of term in July 2026 for all children will be Thursday 16th July.

This day will run as a normal Thursday. Timings of the day will be the same as all Thursdays.

 

B. Leavers Day –Friday 17th July- 8:50am-11:50am

On Friday 17th July school will open only for the Big Nursery children that are leaving us. The session will be from 8:50 am to 11:50 am. All Big Nursery leavers are invited to attend this session, regardless of your child’s normal attendance days. As children are attending for the morning only, no child will require a packed lunch. Children will require their water bottles. Children should arrive at 8:50 am and wait outside as usual.

11:50am Going Home Time- Parents to collect children from the front gate. Children will be dismissed in the regular way, with Blue group first, followed by Orange group then Yellow group.

 

C. Lost Property. Our Lost Property will be emptied at the end of term, and any unclaimed belongings will be disposed of. Please look through the Lost Property boxes that are in the storage trolley in the outdoor Library area.

 

D. Remember to put your younger children on our wait list.

Please remember to add your younger children’s names on our contact list.  We are no longer able to give preference to children who have had brothers and sisters in our school. We look purely at how long children have been on our contact list for each termly cohort when we allocate spaces. Please encourage friends and family members to put their child’s name down as soon as possible, to have the best chance of being offered a space in the future.

 

E. School re-open dates September 2026

Tuesday 1st September School Closed Staff Training Day

Wednesday 2nd September School Closed Staff Training Day

Thursday 3rd September School Open.

  • Brand new families have been advised of their start date.
  • Existing families should continue with their child’s current attendance pattern.
  • Some existing families have increased their child’s sessions from 15 to 30 hours. These children will start on 3rd September.

 

F. The end of the 2025-2026 Academic Year is rapidly approaching!

We find ourselves rapidly approaching the end of another year at Willow. I have some ‘Thankyous’ that I would like to share. Firstly, I would like to thank each and every parent who has chosen Willow for their child. Parents rarely realise that our funding is directly linked to the number of pupils we have, so without your children, there would be no Willow.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to our collection of boxes and tubes for the children to build models with. The sellotape that parents donated has been constantly in use. There is always a little group gathered by the sellotape dispenser waiting for a turn. Thank you to all the families who have responded to our requests for tissues throughout the year. Parents have been very generous. All support is very appreciated.

A very big thank you is given to our two volunteers who have given their time regularly throughout the year to support the teaching and learning in the classrooms. This support really alters the adult to child ratio’s we can provide. We can offer a wider range of activities, but ultimately the greatest benefit is there are more people to hold conversations with your children.

 

The 2026 Leavers are a group of very individual children. The majority of children play in pairs or trios. The children always seem to be trying to build friendships with each other, as we repeatedly hear ‘Will you be my best friend?’

We have some very strong personalities within our group of leavers. Some of these individual personalities clash in what appear to be love-hate relationships. In some situations, we hear raised voices as two children have a disagreement, but we also have times where the same pairings caringly look out for each other saying ‘Are you okay?’ and behave supportively.

We seem to have some very wise and tolerant characters too. They have wide and varied talents.  This group of leavers has a very large amount of children who joined the nursery aged just two and then enrolled for 30 hours (for working families) when that became available. It was this cohort that began the shift in attendance pattern, so that the majority of pupils now attend for 30 hours. We have tried hard to expand our planned opportunities to keep these children busy and engaged. We have really got to know this year group. They are a close ‘family’ of pupils. We will miss them.

 

What will the next year group bring?

Strong friendship bonds are already forming. Staff know the children very well. The 2027 leavers now step up to be the ‘Big Children’ and that brings a level of responsibility to them.

The tiny two year olds just like taking their shoes off and dancing with big smiles on their faces, and that is how life should be when you are two.

 

So to the families that are staying with us, I look forward to seeing the progress that your children make in the next twelve months as they grow and mature, and I hope all the children will experience some fun with us during that time.

The only thing left for me to say is ‘Have a Safe Summer’.

Leigh Davies