Nursery News 23rd February 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