Goldstone Crescent
Dunstable
Beds
LU5 4QU
Phone: 01582 662600
Email: office@willownursery.co.uk
Latest News
Nursery News 15.3.2021
NURSERY NEWS
15th March 2021 – Edition 219
Find out About:
A. The MMR (Measles Mumps and Rubella) vaccine.
B. Our Caretaker is retiring!
C. Our video room tours.
D: What the children are learning about this week
A: The MMR (Measles Mumps and Rubella) vaccine.
Are your family up to date with the MMR vaccine?
Most of us know that measles can make children very poorly, but did you know that measles can also lead to life threatening complications if you are not vaccinated. Central Bedfordshire Council, in collaboration with Public Health, are encouraging parents and carers to find out if their family are fully protected against measles. It’s difficult to know which services are available during the current pandemic, but parents can be confident that the MMR vaccination is not affected by Covid. If a child is due to have their vaccination, or has missed one, they are available through your GP.
How many doses of the vaccination do children need to be fully protected?
The MMR vaccine is given in two doses, the first dose of the vaccine is at 1 year of age with the second being given at 3 years and four months. If you’re older children have missed their second, don’t panic! They can be vaccinated and protected. Get in touch with your GP to find out how.
Missed a vaccination?
If a child has missed a vaccination, don’t worry, you can contact your GP to arrange a new appointment during the Covid pandemic. A catch-up vaccine is also available.
For further information on the MMR vaccine, get in touch with your local GP or visit the NHS website.
B. Our Caretaker is retiring!
Mr Wilbourne, our caretaker is retiring at Easter. We are looking for a new Caretaker. We are advertising the position on the ‘Academy for Central Bedfordshire’ Jobs website, where local schools advertise current job vacancies. So, please spread the word to family and friends, as we need to find someone able to keep our school clean and safe.
The application pack is available on our school website.
School Caretaker/Cleaner/Handy Person
Job Title: School Caretaker/Cleaner/Handy Person
School Name: Willow Nursery School
Location: Goldstone Crescent, Dunstable, LU5 4QU
Salary Range: NJC level 2, scale 4-6 £9.81-£10.21 per hour term time
position pays between 45.2 weeks per year to 46.4 weeks per year dependent on number of
years of service within the local authority.
Hours: 20 hours per week split shift. 4 Hours per day, term time only
(to include unlocking the school by 7.30am and locking the school in the evening)
Suggested hours 6am-7.30am, 3.30pm-6pm (can be negotiated)
Contract Type: Permanent. To begin as soon as possible!
Closing Date: Wed 24th March 2021
Interview Date: Week beg Tue 6th April 2021
We are looking for a hardworking, flexible, self-motivated person to be our school
caretaker/cleaner/handy person due to the retirement of our current caretaker.
Main Purpose of role:
· To carry out general maintenance and minor repairs
· To clean the school daily
· To unlock and secure the school on a daily basis
· To carry out regular tests for water temperature and fire alarm systems
· To be the main key holder
We are a dedicated and committed team of early year’s specialists who are passionate about what we
do. We aim to give our children the very best care and education in a positive, clean, fun environment. If
you take pride in your work and you want to be part of something ‘Outstanding’, then please apply.
This school is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and
expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. The successful candidate will have to meet
the requirements of the Person Specification in order to be offered the post. DBS Disclosure at
Enhanced Level and a qualification check are required for this post
How to apply:
For further details and an application pack, please visit the school website at: www.willownursery.co.uk, and click on school information – vacancies. We will accept electronic or paper applications. Electronic applications to be sent to the email address below. Paper copies to be sent to Willow Nursery School, Goldstone Crescent, Dunstable, Beds, LU5 4QU. Or contact: Name: Trina Evans Tel: 01582 662600 Email: office@willownursery.co.uk
C. Our video room tours.
An update:
There are now two video tours on our website. To find them, go to www.willownursery.co.uk.
Click on the ‘School Information Tab’
Then click on ‘About’
Video Tour Room 1
A room used by the Main Nursery Children (All the children that will leave us in July 2021) All Main Nursery children head here first thing in the morning to hang up their coats. They then have their register taken with their Keyworker. Yellow Group have their register time here with Miss Howe. Main Nursery children are then able to have free flow play inside and outside for most of the day. Main Nursery Children use the space in Room 1, Room 2, Room 5 and Outside.
Video Tour Room 3
A room used by the 3+ age group of children who joined us in January 2021, and the 3+ group who will join us in April 2021. These children are those who are entiltled to the universal 15 hours of funded education, who will leave us in July 2022.
This is the room where Blue and Orange group head to first thing in the morning to hang up their coats. They have their register taken here with their Keyworker.
There is a smaller room which links Room 3 to Catkins class, so we call this room ‘The Link’. The Link is used by both Catkins Class and Blue and Orange groups. It is a messy play area, where water play and art activities take place. The Link is included in the Video Tour Room 3.
Blue and Orange group use the space in Room 3, the Link and Outside.
Next Video Tour:
To begin with, I am trying to produce one Video Tour for each age group, so my next will be for Catkins Class.
I will then go back and complete Room 2, Room 5 and Outside, in coming weeks.
D: What the children are learning about this week
It is so nice to have most of the children in now, since the wider reopening of schools. I will try to give information every week about the themes children will be particularly learning about. We make a plan for the whole year, looking at themes in a particular order, so the children’s experiences build on prior knowledge.
Main Nursery have covered learning all about themselves, their family and people who help us. We now spend quite a few weeks looking at favourite Fairy Tales to stimulate their learning. In the last few weeks we have covered ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’, ‘The Gingerbread Man’ and this week we will be moving onto the ‘Three Little Pigs’. The texts in these stories are very repetitive, and they help children to grow in confidence when beginning to read. They may not be able to read words, but, from memory, they would be able to join in with the repeated refrains in the story, that would go along with the illustrations. In this way, children begin to feel that they are reading the book. With each book we look at connected themes. With the Three little Pigs we look at the theme of building, and the use of materials. We look at the power of the wind, which is quite timely with all this windy weather we have been having. The children chose to explore making kites at the end of last week. So we had lots of kite flying in the garden, with strings and kites getting tangled together. We had crying when kites blew off strings. We had lots of discussion about how we could repair the kites and to think of strategies to improve them.
Blue Group and Catkins, will be having a hospital role play area. We have a small bed, bandages, medical tools, a light box with real x rays to look at and lots of resources to stimulate talking, reading and writing. Adults will join the children in role play. Adults will model being a doctor, nurse, patient and receptionist. They will encourage children to try out different roles. Adults will use correct language for the medical tools for the children to hear whilst they are playing. Adults will model how to create story scenarios within the role play.
We will be reading Dr Maisy- A Maisy Mouse story book. It is a very basic story that introduces medical characters. Children will represent x-ray images, making cotton bud collages on black paper to represent bones. This should begin a discussion about their skeleton.
Nursery News 8th March 2021
NURSERY NEWS
8th March 2021 – Edition 218
Find out About:
A: The Wider Reopening of Schools.
B. Jolly phonics
C. Video Tours.
A: The Wider Reopening of Schools.
Today we see the wider reopening of schools. We knew that many of our pupils who have been at home for the past 9 weeks were likely to return when our local Primary Schools re-opened. We are very pleased to see that most children have returned. The children are very aware of who has been missing from their colour groups and it is lovely to see the children welcoming their friends back enthusiastically. They settle down to play together really quickly.
We have had two blue group children start today who were due to start in January, and we are very pleased to meet them. As I am writing this, they are busy exploring their play space, one is playing in the water tray and the other has ventured out into the garden.
It is very pleasing to hear the children’s voices, all busy creating play with each other.
It will be busier outside school now. Please do your best to be on time and we can keep our systems running smoothly.
Be kind to each other and help to keep all our children safe.
There will be additional cars passing our school now that the Vale Academy and Hadrian Academy are fully opened. Please take care.
B:Jolly phonics
For those children that have just returned:
We began teaching the children one phonic sound per week from the 1st February. So far we have taught the sounds s,a,t and i. Please click on the attachment sent with this newsletter to access the Jolly Phonics sound sheets for the sounds s,a,t,i.
We sent out detailed information regarding our phonics program in the Nursery News Edition 214 1st February. This is still accessible on our website.
C. Video Tours
Government advice is that parents should drop children at the school gate. Whilst this system is operating well I am aware that the number of parents who have not seen inside our school is growing with each new intake of children. In pre-Covid times I would personally show parents around our school, and answer any questions
parents may have. In this way I was able to meet most families before enrolment, and I was able to find out what was important for each family, and what they wanted for their child during their time at Willow.
The government recommends that we keep parents in touch with what is going on in school by electronic means. As a school we have always protected our pupils by choosing not to publish images of our pupils on our website.
I have decided to try and make some slide show/ video room tours to show the interior of the school. I have produced a video tour of Room 1, a room used by the Main Nursery children.
My aim is to produce a video tour of each teaching area at Willow and publish them on our website, and / or add them to our newsletter.
Whilst I have the skills to produce these slide shows etc, as a staff we are not very ‘Tech-y’ so please bear with us. We hope to get our first room tour on our website today, if not we will have to get some help from our ICT Technical support service that we buy into, so there could be some delay.
If I can get this system working I hope to show regular slideshows of all the work going on in school. So fingers crossed….
Nursery News 1st March 2021
NURSERY NEWS
1st March 2021 – Edition 217
Find out About:
A: Dunstable Locality Children’s Centre
A: Dunstable Locality Children’s Centre.
It is difficult, as a parent, to make connections with other parents at the moment due to the pandemic. We know traditional Parent and Baby Groups are not operating as they normally would. Often having a chat with other parents can help parents feel less isolated.
The Central Bedfordshire Council organises services for children and families at their children’s centres.
Dunstable has two Children’s Centres:
1. Westfield road, Dunstable LU6 1DW Telephone: 0300 300 8106
2. Oakwood Avenue, Dunstable LU5 4AS Telephone 0300 300 8104
The Children’s Centres usually run lots of face to face sessions, but during the pandemic they have moved to offering online sessions.
The Children’s Centre co-ordinator has asked us to share the Children’s Centre Virtual Timetable with all our parents.
(Please see the attached PDF document for the full timetable.)
Here are some of the sessions that the Children’s Centre are running virtually which are suited for preschool aged children:
Chattertots – For support in speech and language.
SEND coffee morning- A support group for parents with children with additional needs to get support and advice from our Children’s Centre SEND professionals.
Bookstart Story and Rhyme – Is a 3 week course for families to attend and will receive a free Bookstart pack once the course is completed.
Time for Two’s- A 5 week course for two year olds which supports their development. They will receive an activity pack, delivered each week to use in the session.
Parent Puzzle- A parenting course for families to attend.
Also there are other sessions that parents may find helpful, an Antenatal support group, a 3x 1 hour post natal course, or just a weekly coffee morning session on a Friday.
If you are interested in ‘virtually’ attending any of these sessions, give the centres a call, or look on Facebook: Dunstable Locality Children’s Centre
For the timetable, please click here
Nursery News 22.2.21
NURSERY NEWS
22nd February 2021 – Edition 216
Find out About:
A: Planning for Summer Term.
B. Parent Consultations: (Reminder)
C. Job vacancy: Level 3 Early Years Practitioner
A: Planning for Summer Term.
We are pleased to note that the Prime Minister will be making an announcement today, Monday 22nd February regarding his roadmap to end lockdown. Older children will be returning to primary/secondary schools, and we realise that some of our pupils who have been at home up to this point will begin to return over coming weeks. Whilst we are fully open for everyone, we would appreciate knowing what your plans are if you are considering returning your child to Willow. Please just give us a call/ send an email if you have decided on a return date for your child.
Children who have been at home for a while will need to re-settle to Nursery life when they return.
We still have a number of children who should have started in January, who are only just beginning to attend, or are still choosing to be at home.
Our settling in period has become prolonged across the entire term.
We will be inducting a new group of children ‘Orange Group’ who become entitled to 15 or 30 hours of funded education from the beginning of the Summer Term. We have 7 Orange Group already here in Catkins Class and 8 new pupils will join them from our waiting list.
Some Main Nursery Parents have asked for additional sessions for their child during the Summer Term. This will not be possible. At the moment, as a staff, we are still too vulnerable to being asked to self isolate. This puts a strain on our capacity. I would not want to overfill the school then make us at risk of closing due to not having enough staff to maintain staff to pupil ratio’s.
In Catkins Class, for our youngest 2 year olds, we feel unable to offer additional sessions to our children who already attend, as we still have a number of very young two year olds who need to settle in. We will however, in a few weeks’ time begin looking at a Catkins timetable for September, so we will be able to forward plan booking spaces for September. I just need to recruit a new member of the Catkins team, before being able to proceed with this. (See attached advert.)
B. Parent Consultations: (Reminder)
Reminder: Consultations for all the 3+ children will take place this week, between 3.00-5.00pm.
Yellow Group, Speaking with Miss Howe. Monday 22nd February 2021.
Green Group, Speaking with Mrs Patterson. Tuesday 23rd February 2021.
Blue Group, Speaking with Miss Gaffney Wednesday 24th February 2021,
Red Group, Speaking with Miss Skai Thursday 25th February 2021.
Appointments have been pre-arranged. Staff will call you at the appropriate time.
If Covid impacts upon these arrangements in any way, we will reschedule the appointments for the same time and day, but a week later.
C Job Vacancy: Level 3 Early Years Practitioner.
Job Vacancy- Willow Nursery School
Job Title: Level 3 Early Years Practitioner
School Name: Willow Nursery School
Location: Goldstone Crescent, Dunstable, LU5 4QU
Salary Range: NJC levels 5-6 £10.01 per hour
Hours: 8.30am – 3pm Wed-Fri, term time only.
Contract Type: Maternity Cover Fixed Term from April 2021 – end March 2022
Closing Date: Fri 5th March 2021
Interview Date: Week beg 15th March 2021
We are looking for a qualified level 3 early year’s practitioner to join our team looking after our youngest children in our two-year-old class.
Main Purpose of role:
· To become a key worker for a small number of two year olds.
· To observe children in their play and plan the next steps for their learning, taking into account the early year’s foundation stage curriculum.
· To work as part of a small team to maintain a child friendly and safe environment.
· To keep detailed records of children’s development.
· To liaise with parents.
· To carry out all aspects of children’s care.
We are a dedicated and committed team of early year’s specialists who are passionate about what we do. We aim to give our children the very best care and education in a positive, fun environment. If you want to be part of something ‘Outstanding’, then please apply. This school is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. The successful candidate will have to meet the requirements of the Person Specification in order to be offered the post. DBS Disclosure at Enhanced Level and a qualification check are required for this post
How to apply:
For further details and an application pack, please visit the school website at: www.willownursery.co.uk, and click on school information – vacancies. We will accept electronic or paper applications. Electronic applications to be sent to the email address below. Paper copies to be sent to Willow Nursery School, Goldstone Crescent, Dunstable, Beds, LU5 4QU. Or contact: Name: Trina Evans Tel: 01582 662600 Email: office@willownursery.co.uk
Nursery News 8th February 2021
NURSERY NEWS
8th February 2021 – Edition 215
Find out About:
A: .Staffing updates.
B. Parent Consultations: (Reminder)
C. February Half Term Holiday.
D. Creative Play
E Box Modelling
A: Staffing Updates
Miss Howe will be absent from school from Wednesday 3rd February to Wednesday 10th February. Her daughter’s bubble at school has closed. Miss Howe has to be at home to look after her.
B. Parent Consultations: (Reminder)
Reminder: Catkins Consultations for two year olds are scheduled to take place on Friday 12th February between 1:00pm and 2:30pm. Appointments have been pre-arranged. Staff will call you at the appropriate time.
C. February Half Term Holiday.
Half Term Holiday is fast approaching. The school will be closed from Monday 15th February to Friday 19th February. The best place to find School holiday dates for our school and other schools in Central Bedfordshire is on the Central Bedfordshire Council website. Type ‘Central Beds Academic Calendar’ into your search engine, and it will take you to the following pages:
https://www.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk/info/3/schools_and_education/529/school_term_and_holiday_dates_in_central_bedfordshire
D. Creative Play
At Willow, we engage in lots of Creative play with the children. Lots of play can be considered Creative play, from role play, to dance and movement activities, arts and crafts, music and messy play. We can continue with most activities during the pandemic, but some activities have to be avoided to reduce the potential spread of the virus. One type of play that has been affected is malleable play, using playdough, clay, and other malleable materials. It is not possible to use these materials during any kind of infectious outbreak, the idea being that children could be kneading and poking their germs into the playdough, and then these germs could then be passed on to other children who share the playdough.
We usually have playdough available every day in our normal working conditions, but for the past year we have not been able to provide it. We feel this is a great loss to the children. So much so, that Mrs Patterson has decided to teach the children about playdough this week. Mrs Patterson has made a big batch of ‘home made’ playdough. She has decided to work with small groups of children, no more than 8 at a time, to learn about playdough. Each child will be provided with their own individual portion of playdough. They will have their own workspace at a table, and their own tools. Children will be made very aware that they must not touch each others playdough.
(I have just been in to the room that they are working in. They are so engaged in what they are doing. There were some ‘cakes’ being made. Others were decorating their dough with jewels. Some were investigating how to shape their dough using tools and cutters.)
Children will then bring home their dough. Mrs Patterson will attach our playdough recipe to the bag, so you can have a go at making it at home too, if you’d like to try.
Main Nursery children will be having an opportunity to take part in these playdough workshops at some time during this week.
Malleable play is so important for children’s mathematical development. They become aware of size, shape, weight and how these can change. By manipulating the dough, they find out a small ball of dough, can be rolled into a very long thin sausage, or can be squashed to make a flat, round plate shape. This learning is best done hands on in an investigational way. Children learn about quantity, filling a 12 hole bun tin with blobs of playdough, sharing and adjusting the amount of dough into portions, in order to make 12. Children strengthen their finger muscles by manipulating dough, helping to make hands ready to hold a pencil, ready to write. Slamming a lump of dough down hard onto a table, or hammering the dough with a wooden mallet is great for stress relief! Using tools to shape the dough encourage children’s fine motor control. Playing with playdough covers all areas of the curriculum!#
E Box Modelling
Another area of creative play which the children really enjoy is box modelling. This is something the children in Main Nursery can explore every day. We have a box modelling area that is full of resources for the children to join together using glue and sellotape to make 3D creations. We rely on parents to bring in recyclable materials from home for the children to be able to build. I was wondering if parents would be able to collect some materials at home, to bring in to school for us to use in our box modelling area. We will quarantine all materials provided before giving them to the children to use.
Things we can use:
Empty boxes- Generally Cereal boxes or smaller, Toothpaste boxes and small boxes intrigue the children.
Empty toilet roll tubes.
Washed empty yogurt pots, bottle tops, foil cake cases, margarine tubs.
