Nursery News 6th May 2025

NURSERY NEWS

 Tuesday 6^th May 2025 – Edition 370

Find out About

A. Summer Term Challenges

B. Summer Term Opportunities

C. Holiday forms and pupil absence.

D. What are the children learning about this week?

E. We have had two cases of Chickenpox in school. Advice on symptoms…

A. Summer Term Challenges

Summer is our busiest term at Willow Nursery School. Our numbers increase each term from September around to July and the school steadily fills. We have had twelve new families joining us this term, bringing the total number of pupils using the school to 98 children.

This means that we have a lot of children to take in safely at the beginning of their session, matching them to the correct staff and room base. We also have to ensure children are matched to the correct carer at going home time.

So, to help us greatly, please be on time wherever possible. (We appreciate parents cannot be in two places at once if other siblings attend other schools.)

The staff collect their children in a particular order. Please, if you arrive a little late, be patient and a staff member will invite your child in when someone is available to take them to the correct classroom. If you are a Little Nursery family, and the Big Nursery children are being admitted, please wait in the Little Nursery queuing area until the Big Nursery children have gone in. If Little Nursery families arrive late, all the Little Nursery Staff are already very busy working in Little Nursery, settling in the children.

Please help us to keep the queues moving steadily.

Please leave adequate space at the front gate for families to drop off and move away from the front gate.

We are trying very hard to release children at the end of the session promptly.  These times of coming and going are called ‘transition times’, where we have to move children around the school. Transition times have to be carefully managed and it takes all the staff in school to manage these times safely. Some children are nervous of transition times, particularly new children. Some children become upset when it is time to go home.  It may take us a few weeks to find a successful routine to escort the children out as efficiently as possible.

Please ensure all lunchboxes and drink bottles are named. It is difficult to find a child’s drinks bottle quickly when bottles are not named.

B. Summer Term Opportunities

The Summer term is when the school can use the inside and outside areas to their full potential. We try to move many of the inside activities outside. As the term goes on we offer painting and craft activities outside, and provide lots of water play. Mrs Brinkley and Miss Skai have already created a big outdoor role play area, with lots of resources, which the children are using to develop their own role play games. This week a group of boys created a pizza making shop and were all very busy cleaning and washing up plates and pots. Sometimes a change in the environment can stimulate some exciting play.

C. Holiday forms and pupil absence.

We are at the point in the year when some families begin to take holidays. If you have a planned holiday during term time, please ask a member of staff for a holiday form. We ask that you fill in this very short form so that we can update attendance registers correctly.

Please can we also remind parents that if your child is absent for any other reason please telephone the school office and let us know. The school telephone does have an answering machine which is regularly monitored, so do please leave a message letting us know the reason for their absence and again we can update registers.

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

What are the children learning about this week?

This week the topic is planting. The children will be learning about the growth and change of people, animals and plants. Staff will explain that everything in nature grows and changes, they will use lots of hands on activities to show how this happens. Children will be offered the opportunity to do some of their own planting, they can then look after their plants and observe the transformations that occur from seed to plant. There will be planting inside and outside and it will be the children’s job to take care of all of the seedlings until they are fully grown.

The 7C’s learning intention this week is to develop attention and listening skills in a range of contexts. Staff will support the children to develop these skills by asking them to join in with shared reads, learning new songs and talking to the children about what they have been learning through the week.

We will also be focusing on ball skills in the garden, which will include football, basketball and target practice. The children will get to try their hand at bowling in room two and keeping records at how many pins they have managed to knock down. These activities are perfect for team building and supporting each other to try our best.

E. We have had two cases of Chickenpox in school. Advice on symptoms…

(From NHS Website)

Chickenpox

Chickenpox is a common infection that spreads easily and mostly affects children. It usually gets better on its own after 1 to 2 weeks without needing to see a GP, but can be serious in some people.

How chickenpox is spread

You can spread chickenpox to other people from 2 days before your spots appear until they have all formed scabs, which is usually 5 days after your spots appeared.

The spots start appearing around 1 to 3 weeks after you caught chickenpox.

You can catch chickenpox from:

• being in the same room as someone with it
• touching things that have fluid from the blisters on them
• someone who has shingles if you have not had chickenpox before (but you cannot catch shingles from someone who has chickenpox)

Symptoms of chickenpox

The main symptom of chickenpox is an itchy, spotty rash. It can be anywhere on the body.

Before or after the rash appears, you might also have:

• a high temperature
• aches and pains, and generally feel unwell
• loss of appetite
• Chickenpox happens in 3 stages, but new spots can appear while others are becoming blisters or forming a scab.

Stage 1: small spots appear

The spots can:

• be anywhere on the body, including inside the mouth and around the genitals, which can be painful
• spread or stay in a small area
• be red, pink, darker or the same colour as surrounding skin, depending on your skin tone
• be harder to see on brown and black skin

Stage 2: the spots become blisters

The spots fill with fluid and become blisters. The blisters are very itchy and may burst.

Stage 3: the blisters become scabs

The spots form a scab. Some scabs are flaky, while others leak fluid.

How you can treat chickenpox yourself

If you have chickenpox, you’ll need to stay off school, nursery or work until all the spots have formed a scab. This is usually 5 days after the spots first appeared.