Goldstone Crescent
Dunstable
Beds
LU5 4QU
Phone: 01582 662600
Email: office@willownursery.co.uk
Latest News
Nursery News 24th February 2025
NURSERY NEWS
24th February 2025 – Edition 362
Find out About
A. An Apology, regarding Parent Consultations week beginning 10th February 2025.
B. Parent Consultations. A reminder….
C. An Open School Event: For Big Nursery Red Group Parents: Basic Skills.
D. What are the children learning about this week?
E. Phonics program starts this week!
A. An Apology, regarding Parent Consultations week beginning 10th February 2025.
I made a mistake in my last newsletter, I wrote that it was Big Nursery Consultations, then listed the Little Nursery Staff dates and times. I know this caused some Big Nursery parents to think that they had missed their consultation. I am very sorry for the mix up I caused. Big Nursery Consultations are this week, please see below.
B: Parent Consultations. A reminder…
Big Nursery Consultations will be taking place during this week, week beginning 24th February 2025. These consultations will be on the telephone, will last 5 minutes and be at the following times:
Miss Skai Monday 24th February between 3:15pm and 3:55pm
Mrs Patterson Monday 24th February between 3:15pm and 3:50pm
Miss Howe Thursday 27th February between 3:15pm and 4:10pm
Miss Cashmore Thursday 27th February between 3:15pm and 4:20pm
C. An Open School Event: For Big Nursery Red Group Parents: Basic Skills.
Miss Skai teaches Big Nursery Red 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 Red group parents in to observe a 30 minute reading/writing activity on Wednesday 12th March. A further invitation letter will follow to Red Group parents so that we can match up time slots, so parents can join their child’s small group. Green Group had their Basic Skills groups in the Autumn Term 2024, Yellow Group have Basic skills in the Summer Term 2025. Eventually all parents will be invited to observe Basic skills sessions when their child is being taught.
D. What are the children learning about this week?
The theme this week is Police and Fire.
This week the children will learn all about fire fighters and police officers. The staff will teach the children how important these people are and how these people help us.
To follow up on their learning, the children will have lots of fun role play activities to take part in. There will be a fire station and a police station set up in different areas for the children to investigate, there will also be a police van to support their play. Lots of relevant vocabulary will be used during play to support the children’s learning. For the younger children, there will be opportunities for the children to explore the theme in simpler ways, including; dressing up, completing puzzles and creating art work.
Weather permitting, staff are hoping to be able to show our children about the importance of fire safety and what we should do in the event of a fire. This will be done by staff creating a safe space to set a small controlled fire. Staff will ensure that there is a restricted area to set up a small fire and they will use this to discuss how fires are created and safely put out. Staff will emphasise the importance of staying at a safe distance from the fire, they will also explain that if ever we see a fire, we should call the fire brigade for help. This will take place in a well organised environment and safety is of the upmost importance to us, if we feel that this event may become unsafe, we will decide to cancel this activity. There are many other activities happening throughout the school to teach the children about the roles of the fire and police services.
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 10th February 2025
NURSERY NEWS
10th February 2025 – Edition 361
Find out About
A. Parent Consultations. A reminder…
B. An Evening Event, For Big Nursery Children: Bedtime Stories Thursday 6th March 2025 at 5pm
C. February Half Term Holiday dates
D. What are the children learning about this week?
A: Parent Consultations. A reminder…..
Big Nursery Consultations will be taking place during this week, week beginning 10th February 2025. These consultations will be on the telephone, will last 5 minutes and be at the following times:
Mrs Cashmore Monday 10th February between 3:15pm and 3:35pm
Mrs Brinkley Monday 10th February between 3:15pm and 3:50pm
Miss Gaffney Tuesday 11th February between 3:15pm and 4:30pm
Miss Tyler Tuesday 11th February between 3:15pm and 4:05pm
B. 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 Green Red and Yellow group, those who will leave Willow in July 2025.)
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.
C. February Half Term Holiday dates
We are approaching our February Half Term Holiday. The school will be closed from Monday 17th February 2025 to Friday 21st February 2025
D. What are the children are learning about this week?
The theme this week is Chicken Licken
This week the children will be learning the story of Chicken Licken and his friends, and how they go on an adventure to tell the King that the sky is falling. The children will have the story read to them throughout the week and they will be encouraged to retell it in different ways.
Children will have the opportunity to make hats based on their favourite character from the story, play the ‘Lucky Ducky’ game and use the magnetic story board to sequence story. Children will be learning the names of all the characters and staff will point out that the names all have rhymes in them, they will work on learning other words that rhyme, including nonsense words.
There will be lots of conversation starters in each room to promote the children’s language skills, staff will encourage the children to think about the characters from the story and whether they are kind and trustworthy, or sneaky and not to be trusted.
Nursery News 3rd February 2025
NURSERY NEWS
3rd February 2025 – Edition 360
Find out About
A.Parent Consultations.
B.Remember to add younger siblings (brothers and sisters) to our contact list.
C. What are the children are learning about this week?
A: Parent Consultations.
We aim to hold Parent Consultations every term. Big Nursery Consultations will be taking place during the week beginning 24th February 2025. 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:
Miss Skai Monday 24th February between 3:15pm and 3:55pm
Mrs Patterson Monday 24th February between 3:15pm and 3:50pm
Miss Howe Thursday 27th February between 3:15pm and 4:10pm
Miss Cashmore Thursday 27th February between 3:15pm and 4:20pm
B. 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. In light of the new 30 hours funding for working families (from the age of 9 months), we have looked closely at our admissions policy.
In the past, most families chose to take maybe one or two sessions in our two year old class. In most cases we were able to offer spaces to all those children who wanted one.
The financial changes that have been implemented by the Government means demand has grown for our nursery. We have been working towards enrolment and attendance patterns that work for families.
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. 3+ intake is at the beginning of the term after a child turns 3. This means we are enrolling two different groups of children every term.
Many of our families are working families. Almost everyone who attends Little Nursery at the moment are from working funded families. Individual children are filling 15 or 30 hours per week. Less children are filling more spaces.
So, we ask that if you have younger children, get them on to our contact list as soon as possible. In every termly intake, we work down the contact list and make offers to families. So, for example, the current 2+ intake we have been working on for April 2025:
We had 5 full time spaces to offer. So this could be 5 children attending for 30 hours, or 10 children attending for 15 hours, or a mixture of both so we could accommodate somewhere between 5 and 10 children. We had 11 children on our contact list of the age to be considered for one of these spaces. We start with the first person on our contact list who has been on the list the longest. This parent added their child’s name at the age of 4 months! This parent chose how many hours they wanted, and accepted the place. We then work down the list. Sometimes choices of attendance pattern become limited the further you are down the contact list. Child number 11 on the list had their name added one week ago. They were offered a space and accepted it.
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
C. What are the children are 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 then be encouraged to get involved in the variety of learning opportunities on offer to retell the story in their own style.
There will be a variety of resources available for the children to use for retelling the story and this will help to build the children’s recall. Outside, the children will have the chance to explore the different houses of the Three Little Pigs. Staff will set up a house made of straw, one made of sticks and another made of bricks. The children will be asked if they would like to make a Pig or Wolf hat in Room 2. Once constructed, they can be worn in the ‘Three Little Pigs’ role play area in the garden, to represent their chosen character.
As a School, we will be focussing 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. The smaller children will focus on this by creating textured artwork relating to the story. They will use forks for painting, bricks for stamping and pencils for mark making. All of these tools will improve the children’s ability to manipulate tools and materials, using fine and gross motor skills.
The skill we will be working towards this week is ‘Riding a Bike’. The children will learn how to take it in turns riding the two and three wheeler bikes. They will learn how to wait patiently for their turn, but also, that eventually they will have to give up their bike to a friend, to enable everyone to have a turn. This is a very practical way that children learn to be fair, to take turns and share. We outline the importance of riding our bikes on the roadway, and remind children not to ride too fast as they need to look out for the safety of other children. It is important that we learn how to ride safely to minimise accidents whilst playing.
NURSERY NEWS 27th January 2025
NURSERY NEWS
27th January 2025 – Edition 359
Find out About
A. Parent Consultations.
B. Mrs McGrath is now on Maternity Leave.
C. What are the children are learning about this week?
D Willow Lending Library.
A: Parent Consultations.
We aim to hold Parent Consultations every term. Little Nursery Consultations will be taking place during the week beginning 10th February 2025. 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 Cashmore Monday 10th February between 3:15pm and 3:35pm
Mrs Brinkley Monday 10th February between 3:15pm and 3:50pm
Miss Gaffney Tuesday 11th February between 3:15pm and 4:30pm
Miss Tyler Tuesday 11th February between 3:15pm and 4:05pm
Details of Big Nursery Consultations will be in next weeks’ newsletter.
B.Mrs McGrath is now on Maternity Leave.
Mrs McGrath is now on Maternity Leave. She has just a few weeks before baby is due.
We are very lucky to have Miss Allen on our staff, who currently works part time. She will be increasing her hours, to enable her to step in and look after Mrs McGrath’s Little Nursery Yellow Group children.
So whilst Miss Allen is not new to us, she will be a new Keyworker for some parents to get to know. Mrs McGrath plans to return in November.
C. What are the children are learning about this week?
The theme this week is The Three Billy Goats Gruff
The children will have the story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff read to them in school and there will be lots of learning and activities based on the book.
Children will be able to act out and retell the story. There will be a wobbly bridge outside for the children to ‘trip trap’ across, pretending to be a Billy goat and they can take it in turns to be the angry troll. They can act out each character’s role and use repeated refrains such as ‘who’s that trip trapping over my bridge?’
There will be small world scenes set up for the children to get to know the story and the characters, they can use their imagination to extend their play and invite others to join them. For the children that want to explore the story in different forms, we have activities on the screen and also a magnetic board.
This week, the children will also be learning how to use tools safely and beginning to understand the concept of size, mass and capacity. They will work towards finding out which items are heavier/lighter, longer/shorter and more/ less. There are many ways to explore these concepts and we will have resources in each area to support this.
On Wednesday 29th January, it is Chinese New Year. We will be teaching the children about Chinese New Year and that this is the year of the snake. We have a very big Chinese dragon costume that the children can use to dress up in and dance around the playground.
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 – 20th January 2025
NURSERY NEWS
20th January 2025 – Edition 358
Find out About
A: Request for Box Modelling Materials
B. What are the children are learning about this week?
C, Local Community Wellness Group.
A: Request for Box Modelling Materials.
We are running very short of recycled materials for our box modelling area. We would be very grateful for recycled materials that the children can use to create models. Children love boxes, but not too big please. The biggest boxes we can store are cereal boxes. Tiny boxes are useful, or unusual shapes. Plastic bottle tops make good buttons and wheels. Yogurt pots, butter tubs and other plastic containers are interesting to glue together, but please ensure they are clean. Toilet roll tubes become superhero cuffs, covered in foil. Egg boxes are great places to glue coloured tissue.
B. What are the children are learning about this week?
The theme this week is Nursery Rhymes
We will be looking at learning lots of nursery rhymes this week throughout the whole school. The children in Little Nursery will have access to lots of song sacks and finger puppets. They will get to choose which rhyme or song that they would like to sing.
The older children will be given the option to create a nursery rhyme book, there will be different nursery rhyme pages for them to make in each room and the children can choose which pages they want to add to their books. All pages will be organised and made into a lovely keepsake for the children to take home.
We will have resources such as magnetic boards, puzzles and the screen to support the children with learning new and different rhymes. As we sing and learn, we will also discuss the rhythm of the words we are using. Staff will model how to tap out rhythms as we sing, children will then be encouraged try and do this themselves.
We will be giving lots of reminders about the school rules this week, we will explain to the children that it is important to follow these rules as they help to keep us safe.
School rules:
*Walking feet
*Looking eyes
*Listening ears
*Little voices
*Kind hands
C. Local Community Wellness Group.
Last week we included a flyer for Balance and Breathe, a Wellness group run by Shelley, one of the parents of a child in little Nursery. Shelley says that the taster session was a very successful event. This week we have included a flyer for the main class.
Shelley says:
“Use code TASTE for a discount when booking on Monday 20th Balance & Breathe class”
