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Nursery News 23rd February 2026

Monday, February 23, 2026

NURSERY NEWS

23rd  February 2026 – Edition 400

Find out About

A. An Apology, regarding the date of Big Nursery Children’s Bedtime Stories .

B. An Open School Event: For Big Nursery Orange Group Parents: Basic Skills.

C. Can you help with some Tissues?

D. What are the children learning about this week?

E. Phonics program starts this week!

 

A. An Apology, regarding the date of Big Nursery Children’s Bedtime Stories .

I made a mistake in my last newsletter with regard to the date of bedtime stories.  So to clarify, Bedtime Stories will take place on Thursday 5th March 2026 at 5pm.

 

B. An Open School Event: For Big Nursery Orange Group Parents: Basic Skills.

Miss Skai teaches Big Nursery Orange 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 Miss Skai’s Orange group parents in to observe a 30 minute reading/writing activity on Wednesday 11th March. A further invitation letter will follow to Orange Group parents so that we can match up time slots, so parents can join their child’s small group. Blue Group had their Basic Skills groups in the Autumn Term 2025, Yellow Group have Basic skills in the Summer Term 2026. Eventually all parents will be invited to observe Basic skills sessions when their child is being taught.

 

C. Can you help with some Tissues?

Sometimes we ask parents for some specific donations that help our school.

I last asked parents for a donation of tissues at the beginning of November. At that time parents were very generous, and we received lots of donations. Enough in fact for 16 weeks of runny noses!  We have almost run out of tissues. So please, when doing your shopping consider picking up a box of tissues for our children.

 

D. What are the children learning about this week?

The theme this week is police and firefighters

The learning intention this week is to show an interest in different occupations and ways of life indoors and outdoors. This can be shown by children displaying a curiosity about people and showing and interest in stories about people, animals or objects that they are familiar with or that fascinate them. It can also be investigated through pretend play, when children imitate everyday actions and events from their own family and cultural background. This can be everyday routines such as drinking tea, going to the barber, or even pretending to be an animal that they have experience with such as a cat or dog.

We will focus on the police and fire services this week as we teach the children about people who help us. Staff will set up a role-play area where the children can act out the roles of police officers, criminals and people that need help. Staff will provide lots of resources to support and recreate different scenarios that might need the support of the police. We will provide a police role-play area and a role play fire station. The children can use the resources provided and their imaginations to act out many different scenarios. As the skill this week is scissor skills, the children might choose to work on these by creating their own ID badges to support their role play.

Our 7 C’s learning intention is to be able to use their bodies to achieve goals, to have a positive sense of self and to talk about people and experiences that are important to them.

 

 E. Phonics program starts this week!

Willow Nursery School Phonics Programme

‘Phonics’ is one tool children can use when they are beginning to learn to read and write. A definition of phonics follows on the next page.

The Department for Education (DfE) produced a phonics resource called Letters and Sounds: Principles and Practice of High Quality Phonics, which splits the teaching of phonics into six phases. At Willow, we work on phase 1 activities all the time. Phase 1 describes using activities such as storytelling and singing songs, rhymes, music, role play and listening games. This will give the children opportunities to listen carefully and talk extensively about what they hear, see and do.  Phase 1 activities are designed to underpin and run alongside activities in other phases.  Phase 2 is an introduction to more formal phonics work and involves teaching the children sets of letters in a specified order. The first set of letters to be learnt are s.a.t.i.p.n because these letters make a greater number of words than any other 6 letters in the alphabet. We feel that the children at Willow are ready to begin focussing on letter sounds in a fun and practical way.

 

What are we going to do?

  • Each child will participate in 1 x 25 minute phonic sessions each week
  • We are going to begin teaching 6 letter sounds, s.a.t.i.p.n. and will continue with one letter sound each week until the end of term
  • We will teach the children that all letters have a name, and that these letters make a sound. For example: the letter S makes the sound ‘sss’
  •  We will use a mixture of songs, games, tongue twisters, art, drama and movement activities to teach the letter sounds.

 

We will use ‘Jolly Phonics’ with the children. Jolly Phonics is the name of a program used to teach phonics. Each week we will:

  • Tell the children a story, which includes focussing on the sound we are trying to teach.
  • Teach an action to represent the sound
  • Send home a picture (linked to the story) for the children to colour, and they can practise writing the letter which represents the sound.

For example: The ‘s’ story involves finding a snake which goes ‘ssss’. The action for ‘s’ involves making a snaking movement with your hand and forearm and saying ’ssss’. The picture to take home is a picture of a snake

 

Helping at home:

The picture your child brings home will explain to you how to make the action to represent the sound. Talk with your child about what they have learned at school. Learn the actions along with your child. Making the movement may help your child to remember. Have fun!

 

Phonics

What is phonics?

Phonics is the word used to describe the sounds the letters make. In simple terms, the word ‘cat’ can be read from its three sounds: c-a-t.

These are not the names of the letters as we say them in the alphabet, but the sounds these letters make. The word ‘thick’ is made up of three sounds: th-i-ck, where pairs of letters combine to make a single sound. Similarly, ‘rash’ is made up of three sounds: r-a-sh.

There are 40+ sounds in English but only 26 letters that are used to represent these sounds.

 

The five basic skills for reading and writing are:

  • Learning the letter sounds
  • Learning the letter formation
  • Blending
  • Identifying sounds in words
  • Spelling the tricky words

 

When reading, children need to understand the meaning of the words. Before they can do this, they have to be able to work out what the words say. The phonic skill for this is to look at the letters, say the sounds and hear the words. This is called blending.

 

The main phonetic skill for writing is to start with the spoken word, then listen, identify and write the sound in that word. The ability to hear the sounds in words is called phonological awareness. For example, with the word ’bin’ if you listen you hear the sounds ‘b……i….n’. Then if you know how to write those letter sounds, you can write the word ‘bin’ without help. This is the opposite to the skill needed for blending.

 

The letters for the 42 Sounds of English:

See below:

a ……ant, sand, caravan

ai……aim, aid, drain, (long a)

b……bat, bend, crab

c ……cat, cot, duck

d……dog, dip, sudden

e……egg, end, shed

ee……eel, creep, tree (long e)

f……fog, lift, fluff

g……goat, gap, digger

h……hop, hit, hill

i……ink, indian, drink

ie……pie, tie, die (long i)

j……jelly, jet, jumper

k……king, kind, kettle

l……leg, lost, shell

m……man, mill, shrimp

n……nut, nip, spin

o……orange, on, spot

oa……oak, oats, boat (long o)

p…….pig, pet, step

q……queen, quick, quin

r……run, rabbit, barrel

s…..sand, sun, twist

t……top, tug, mat

u…….up, under, lung

ue……due, Tuesday, cue

v……van, vet, give

w…..wind, went, swim

x…..x-ray, ox, flex

y……yell, yes, yellow

z……zoo, zebra, buzz

sh……ship, shop, wish

ch……chop, chick, much

th……this, then, with (voiced th)

th……thin, thick, thimble (unvoiced th)

ng……song, bang, string

oo……look, room, foot (little oo)

oo……moon, spoon, shoot (long oo)

ar……art, arm, start

er……kerb, stern, sister

or……order, corn, storm

oi……oil, ointment, spoil

ou……out, cloud, found

 

Nursery News 9th February 2026

Monday, February 9, 2026

NURSERY NEWS

9th February 2026 – Edition 399

Find out About

A. Continuing Problems with our Phones and Internet

B. Parent Consultations. **CANCELLED**

C. February Half Term Holiday dates

D. Birthday Sweets /Cakes

E. . Children’s Personal Bikes parked in pushchair/bike area.

F. An Evening Event, For Big Nursery Children: Bedtime Stories Thursday 5th March 2026 at 5pm

G. What are the children learning about this week?

 

A. Continuing Problems with our Phones and Internet

We continue to have problems with our telephones and Internet. We are convinced that our internet connection fluctuates. Every time our internet speed drops our telephone cuts off. Sometimes we can have a full 10 minute telephone conversation, but at other times the telephone call cuts off after just a few seconds.

Any parent who has been talking to us on the telephone recently will be aware how frustrating this is! Mrs Evans has been pushing everyone to get this resolved.

After a thorough investigation from Partnership (our ICT consultants), BT (Phone Supplier), Open Reach (internet cable provider) and Talk Straight (broadband provider) the conclusion is that we need move from a copper wire connection to full fibre broadband. We are instructing this upgrade to go ahead.

We have been told that it will take at least 30 days to upgrade to a fibre system……

So:

B: Parent Consultations. **CANCELLED**

After discussion with all the staff we have decided to cancel all parent consultations scheduled for the coming weeks.

The telephones are working very erratically. We fear the experience of these phone consultations would be very poor, and would feel very unprofessional for the staff involved.

Obviously, staff are happy to talk to parents before school, and if you have something important to discuss with your child’s keyworker that requires privacy, or more time, please speak to your child’s keyworker about this, and we will try to arrange something for you.

 

C. February Half Term Holiday dates

We are approaching our February Half Term Holiday. The school will be closed from Monday 16th February 2026 to Friday 20th February 2026

 

D. Birthday Sweets/Cakes.

We are working very hard within school to meet all the allergy requirements of our pupils, to keep everyone safe.

Last week, as part of birthday treats at our front gate, one of our pupils, with an egg allergy, took a cake and ate some of it before their childminder realised it may contain egg. On this occasion the child did not have a reaction, but it has highlighted to us that this event may have had a very different, more serious outcome.

For safety reasons, we are now asking that parents no longer bring sweets or cake to celebrate their child’s birthday, to share with other children at school.

We know some of our parents are creative, and will suggest handing out other non-food treats. We are going to say no to these suggestions too. We want to make going home time as swift and safe as possible for everyone.

What do we do in school for Birthdays?

We have a ‘Birthday Board’ in school where we display the names of staff and pupils who will be celebrating their birthday within the current month. We celebrate every individual child’s birthday during Keyworker time, with their colour group. We have a very real looking iced ‘fake’ cake with candles on. Staff make a fuss of the children on their special day (or near to it if their birthday falls at the weekend or in the school holidays). The birthday child is invited to sit at the front of the group, with their Keyworker. Everyone sings ‘Happy Birthday’ and the birthday child blows the candles out. The birthday child receives a special birthday sticker.

 

E. Children’s Personal Bikes parked in pushchair/bike area.

We have a place where children can leave their bikes from home at the front of the school, when they ride their bike to school in the morning. Please can we remind all parents that our pupils should not be allowed to ride other children’s bikes.

 

F. An Evening Event, For Big Nursery Children: Bedtime Stories Thursday 6th March 2025 at 5pm

All Big Nursery children are invited to bring a parent along for a bedtime story at Willow Nursery School. (Big Nursery children are Blue, Orange and Yellow group, those who will leave Willow in July 2026.)

Children and parents will join your child’s keyworker for a bedtime story. Children can come in their pyjamas and bring a teddy bear or favourite cuddly toy with them. Older and younger brothers and sisters are welcome, but please remember the stories will be aimed at 3 and 4 year olds. Parents will be asked to monitor the behaviour of brothers and sisters, and will be expected to take noisy or wriggly children out of the story circle so as not to upset the quiet atmosphere created. We expect stories to last approximately 30 minutes (perhaps less for the youngest children) and we will then have warm ‘Hot Chocolate’ and cookies together.

If we know your child has a food allergy, your child’s keyworker will talk to you prior to the event and make necessary adjustments to meet the needs of your child.

 

 G. What are the children learning about this week?

The theme this week is Chicken Licken

This week the children will learn the story of Chicken Licken and his friends, and how they go on an adventure to tell the King that the sky is falling. Staff will read the book throughout the week and the children will be supported in retelling and exploring the tale in a variety of ways. These include making hats based on their favourite character, playing duck themed maths games and using the magnetic story board to sequence the story. We will also look at how all of the characters in the book have rhyming names and the children will be encouraged to think of any other rhymes they know including nonsense words.

Each room will have lots of conversation starters to engage the children, staff will urge the children to think about the characters in the story and consider their personalities. Were they kind and trustworthy or were they sneaky and not to be trusted?

The learning intention this week is to explore a range of their own marks and signs to which they ascribe mathematical meanings. This includes using number words like one or two and sometimes responding accurately when asked to give one or two items. Children may also begin to notice numerals in the environment. There will be some Chicken Licken hunts available for the children to put these skills into practice as they mark down how many of each character they find.

Nursery News 2nd February 2026

Monday, February 2, 2026

NURSERY NEWS

2nd February 2026 – Edition 398

Find out About

A Continuing Problems with our Phones and Internet.

B. Parent Consultations.

C. Remember to add younger siblings (brothers and sisters) to our contact list.

D. What are the children learning about this week?

 

A. Continuing Problems with our Phones and Internet.

We are still having ongoing problems with our phone and internet. Our telephone provider BT has confirmed that our telephone system is working correctly at their end. Our problems are not due to our telephone service.

Open Reach attended on Tuesday and Wednesday last week to check the external broadband cabling that connects us physically to the broadband network.

We are now returning back, to follow this up with our Broadband provider.

We are sorry for the inconvenience caused, and I would like to thank parents for their patience when trying to speak with us on the telephone.

 

B: Parent Consultations.

We aim to hold Parent Consultations every term. Big Nursery Consultations will be taking place during the week beginning 23rd  February 2026. Parent Consultations are not compulsory, but if you would like an appointment please arrange this with your child’s keyworker when they are outside before sessions begin. These consultations will be on the telephone, will last 5 minutes and be at the following times:

Mrs Patterson Monday 23rd  February between 3:15pm and 4:15pm

Miss Cashmore Tuesday 24th February between 3:15pm and 3:55pm

Miss Howe Thursday 26th February between 3:15pm and 3:45pm

Miss Skai Friday 27th February between 3:15pm and 4:15pm

 

C. Remember to add younger siblings (brothers and sisters) to our contact list.

You may add a child’s name to our contact list at any time from birth.

Currently, and moving forward, we will make offers to families at two points of entry, 2+ and 3+.

2+ intake is at the beginning of the term after a child turns 2.                                             We offer families a choice of 15 hours per week (part time) or 30 hours per week (full time)

3+ intake is at the beginning of the term after a child turns 3. For 3+ intake all families are offered a 15 hour part time space.

We are enrolling two different groups of children every term.

We would recommend putting your child’s name down on our contact list as early as possible to increase the possibility of them being offered a space.

In the past we would be able to give siblings priority over others on the wait list. But we cannot afford to leave empty spaces in a termly intake at age two, to wait for a sibling who might join at age three.

For our full admissions policy please look on our website www.willownursery.co.uk

 

D. What are the children learning about this week?

The theme this week is The Three Little Pigs

This week, the children will be listening to, and learning about the story of The Three Little Pigs. Children will be encouraged to take part in a variety of learning opportunities to retell the story in their own style.

There will be a variety of resources available for the children to use, which will help to build upon their attention and recall skills.

In the garden, the children will have the chance to explore the different houses of the three little pigs. Staff will help the children to set up a house made of straw, one made of sticks and another of bricks. They will have the opportunity to make pig or wolf hats to support their story telling.

As a school for our learning intention, we will be focusing on manipulating tools and equipment. there will be wheelbarrows, bricks and hard hats for the children to use as they build homes out of their chosen materials.

Our skill to focus on this week is riding a bike. Children will be encouraged to take turns and to practice riding the bicycles and tricycles using the pedals to move and handlebars to steer. We emphasise the importance of keeping our bikes on the track and not riding too fast to ensure the safety of all children in the playground.

 

 

 

 

 

Nursery News 26th January 2026

Monday, January 26, 2026

NURSERY NEWS

26th January 2026 – Edition 397

Find out About

A.Problems with our Phones and Internet.

B.Parent Consultations.

C. What are the children learning about this week?

D. Willow Lending Library.

 

A: Problems with our Phones and Internet.

Unfortunately, we are having some problems with our phones and our internet. Our phone calls are randomly cutting off mid call. We are very sorry if this has happened to you. Calls are cutting off on incoming and outgoing calls. If your call gets cut off we will try to ring you back, if we know who you are.

We buy into ICT support services, and our support technician is trying to resolve this. We are contacting our internet provider, and our telephone provider, where checks are being done and tests are being carried out, but we do not know what the problem is yet.

The staff are all finding this very frustrating, and I’m sure parents are too. I can only apologise to everyone and let you know that we are chasing this up daily to enable our services to be working again.

 

B: Parent Consultations.

We aim to hold Parent Consultations every term. Little Nursery Consultations will be taking place during the week beginning 9th February 2026. Parent Consultations are not compulsory, but if you would like an appointment please arrange this with your child’s keyworker when they are outside before sessions begin. These consultations will be on the telephone, will last 5 minutes and be at the following times:

Mrs Brinkley Monday 9th February between 4:30pm and 4:55pm

Miss Gaffney Tuesday 10th February between 3:15pm and 4:00pm

Miss Gaffney Wednesday 11th February between 3:15pm and 4:00pm

Miss Tyler Thursday 12th February between 3:15pm and 3:35pm

Miss Allen Friday 13th February between 3:00pm and 4:05pm

Details of Big Nursery Consultations will be in next weeks’ newsletter.

 

C. What are the children are learning about this week?

What are the children learning about this week?

The theme this week is The Three Billy Goats Gruff

This week we will be reading The Three Billy Goats Gruff in school and there will be lots of learning opportunities based on the book.

Children will be able to retell the story outside, there will be a bridge for the children to ‘trip trap’ across, while pretending to be a Billy Goat and they can take it in turns to be the angry troll, just like in the book. As the children play, they can include repeated refrains from the story such as ‘who’s that trip trapping over my bridge?’.

There will be a variety of small world scenes for the children to explore and become familiar with the story and its characters. As the children play, they can extend invitations for their friends to join them and take on different roles. We also have the story available in different formats, such as pictures on the magnetic board and also on the interactive screens in the classrooms.

The learning intention this week is for the children to understand the concept of heavy, light, long, short and more or less in meaningful contexts. This means we will explore differences in size, length, weight and capacity.

Staff will also support children with our 7C’s learning intention of the week, which is to safely use a wide range of tools. Children will be shown how to use scissors, sellotape dispensers etc. safely and effectively.

 

D. Willow Lending Library.

We have had a number of new families joining us this term, so we just wanted to remind parents that we operate a lending library of children’s books.

 

Willow Lending Library

Welcome to Willow outdoor lending library. We are open every day from 8.15-8.45am and from 3.00pm-3.30pm.

Please choose 1-2 books with your child and write the names of the books under your child’s name in their colour group folder before taking them home to read together.

You can change the books as frequently as you wish.

Please look after our books.

*Please ensure that you have left the library area at 8.45am prompt before children start to enter the school gates in the morning. THANKYOU J

 

Top Tips for Reading with your child

  • Let your child choose what they would like to read.
  • Make sure there are no distractions.
  • Sit close together. Encourage your child to hold the book and turn the pages too.
  • Look at the pictures. Talk about what can be seen on the page.
  • Ask questions and talk about the book. Give your child time to talk.
  • Have fun – there is no right or wrong way to share a story.

 

 

Nursery News 19th January 2026

Monday, January 19, 2026

NURSERY NEWS

19th January 2026 – Edition 396

Find out About

A: Progress so far…

B. What are the children learning about this week?

C. School Rules.

 

A. Progress so far…..

We have been back at school now for almost two weeks. Usually by this time, all enrolments for the Spring Term have happened, and we are well on the way to settling everyone. We do seem to have a number of the very youngest children off with various illnesses, so I cannot say that we are all settled in yet.

We are all really enjoying getting to know all our new pupils. We want the children to learn that all the adults here are friendly adults who are here to help them. We begin by smiling at the children and displaying positive body language, to make them feel welcome. We try to be interested in the children and what they are choosing to play with. We join them in their play and talk gently to them, encouraging children to begin to trust the staff.

These transitions are challenging for children. Before they start nursery, children are used to their family routines, where interactions and organisations are on a much smaller scale. Suddenly, in Nursery, children are surrounded with all these people they do not know, without their familiar toys and surroundings, the noise can be loud sometimes and their familiar grown ups are not around to help them!

Our new starters are looking for their familiar grown ups to come back and collect them. The first few days can be hard, because the children have not yet learnt that their carers will return. When a little time has passed they begin to understand the routine and learn that grown-ups do come back and collect them.

“Is my Mummy coming yet?”

We know parents can find it hard too when your child joins nursery for the first time. It is natural to miss your child and worry how they are doing. We are always happy to take a phone call, and go and find your child in the classrooms and update you about how they appear to be feeling. There is no ‘One size fits all’ solution to settling in children. Each family has individual needs and we do try to support our families individually.

Ultimately, we would like children to feel happy with good well-being when they are in nursery as this is when children become settled and receptive to learning.

 

B. What are the children are learning about this week?

The theme this week is Nursery Rhymes

The children will be learning lots of nursery rhymes this week and they will share their knowledge by making nursery rhyme pages. As the children work they will be taught the words and actions to the song they have chosen. Each page will be collected up and made into a very special book for the children to bring home. This activity will support the children with our learning intention, to recognise rhythm in spoken words, songs, poems and rhymes, increasing phonological and phonemic awareness. Staff will observe and support the children as they make their nursery rhyme pages, focussing on pencil grip and control when making marks.

Our 7C’s learning intention this week if for the children to be able to participate and feel confident in following nursery rules and routines. We have been reminding the children of the school rules and praising the children as they remember that the rules are to keep them safe and help them learn.

 

C. School rules:

We encourage our pupils to be independent children. We introduce 5 simple rules very early on, which we use with all the children. We use positive words for our rules, to remind children what they should be doing.

*Walking feet – We say this to remind children that they should walk carefully inside. We have a long interior corridor, that links our classrooms. It is so tempting for the children to run along the corridor. Other children may exit from a classroom into the corridor and that is when we see a ‘Bump!’. We suggest to children that there is more space outside, including a track. If you want to run, choose to go outside!

*Looking eyes –We remind children to use their ‘Looking eyes’ when we gather for a story time and look at one big book together. We encourage children to look at the pictures and at the adult who is teaching. We teach the children to look this way, to encourage paying attention as they get older.

*Listening ears– Sometimes we need children to listen carefully, for example at going home time, when each child must listen for their name to be called out when we try to match adults to children at the front gate.  We also use the term ‘Listening ears’ if we are encouraging children to pay attention to what is being taught.

*Little voices–  We use this rule to reduce the volume in a workspace. Sometimes at lunchtime the background noise of children chatting together can become quite loud. We remind children to use Little voices so the staff do not have to raise their voices over the children. Children that become excited when taking part in an activity can become loud. Asking for ‘Little voices’ can calm the group.

*Kind hands– Small children who have few words will often use their hands to shove a friend, to make a space to sit on the bench at register time. Some children take part in rough and tumble play at home with family members, but we have to teach them that at school this rough play is not appropriate. We talk about using ‘Kind hands’ as we do not want one child to hurt another.