Nursery

LOVE           LEARN           GROW

We want our children to love coming to school every day and to begin to build that love of learning that they can then take on with them through their future learning journey.

We also want to use this time with them to identify what it is they love and are passionate about and really build on that as this is what makes them wonderfully unique and themselves.

We believe every opportunity is a learning opportunity even if we don’t realise it. We want to provide the children with a range of opportunities and experiences to learn from.

We will enable their learning with books, continuous modelling, planned activities, WOW moments, visitors as well as observing what area or subject it is they enjoy and bringing their learning to them in the moment.

We believe all children have the ability to grow and progress according to their own unique ability and interests.

Alongside developing skills in Art, Maths, Mark making, Music etc we particularly want to use the time we share with our children in Nursery to help grow their confidence, mindset, social skills. Understanding and acceptance of one another so that they leave us believing in themselves and others 

Welcome to Nursery 

Also known as

 Ladybird Class

Nursery Team

Mrs Bonham and Mrs Maycock - Class Teachers

Miss Modd - Nursery Nurse

Welcome Parents / Carers to the nursery at St Mary's Wavendon

We would like to say a very big hello and welcome to all our nursery children and families, whether you are continuing or just starting your journey with us.

This is a very special time in your child’s life and we are truly honoured to be part of it. We will do our very best to make your little one’s first experience of St Mary's a magical and exciting one!

Key Person Groups

Statutory guidance from the government states that each child must be assigned a key person. The key person ensures that that the child’s learning and care is tailored to meet their individual needs.

Although all adults within our environment will work with your child, this is the person who will responsible for your child whilst at nursery, helping them to understand and take part in the activities on offer and supporting your child in focussed group work.

Parents as Partners

From birth, children are continually learning. They develop and learn in a variety of ways and you as parents are their first and most enduring educators. Close working between teachers and parents is therefore vital to help your child settle in and progress within the school. So that we can plan the most effective and meaningful activities for your child, it would be helpful if you could share your child’s experiences out of school with us. This can be anything from football training, horse riding or a swimming lesson to baking a cake or creating a wonderful piece of art! These will be shared during key worker group time. To share these experience, you can use the Tapestry app that adults in the setting use to share the children's WOW moments in Nursery. We really feel this will have a positive impact on the experiences we provide within the school setting and greatly look forward to hearing all about the hobbies, interests, experiences and achievements that you share outside school.

If you have any further questions on sharing your child's experience, please do ask our Nursery staff

Tapestry and Home challenges

This year we will be using Tapestry to record your child's learning journey, particularly what we call WOW moments, which is something your child was finding tricky, but has overcome and how they achieved this. 

We will also be setting home learning challenges. These will be linked to aspects of your child's learning in Nursery. These are NOT compulsory. We will send these out via Tapestry and ask that parents upload their child completing the challenge via Tapestry also. These will then be shared during key working group time.

Forest School

All Nursery children are given the opportunity to experience St Mary's wonderful Forest School. 

Forest School is all about educating children in the natural environment and teaching them practical outside skills and understanding the risk, without removing the risk.

Whilst at Forest School, children are encouraged to notice the natural world around them, to learn to respect each other and their environment.

Forest School is an inclusive area and we encourage all children to enjoy it and take part. Lessons can easily be adapted to meet different needs, both to help support and to encourage their inquisitive minds.

Currently Nursery Forest School Sessions are Monday morning and afternoon.

Please see photographs of our children exploring at forest school further down the page.

Benefits of taking children outside include -

It builds confidence 

It promotes creativity and imagination

It teaches responsibilities 

It provides different stimulation

It gets children moving

It gets children thinking 

It reduces stress and fatigue (Really important for our little humans)

Our Curriculum

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) applies to children from birth to the end of the reception year, and is based upon four principles:

•  A Unique Child
•  Positive Relationships
•  Enabling Environments with teaching and support from adults
•  Learning and Development

Aims

• To motivate and engage our pupils through practical activity, enquiry, recording and purposeful play;
• To follow and promote our Christian ethos and school values;
• To nurture our pupils in an atmosphere of care and of feeling valued
• To set high expectations and attainable challenges
• To value the support of parents
• To promote the confidence and self esteem of our children
• Equip our children with the skills necessary to work individually and co-operatively
• To work within or beyond the Early Learning Goals by the end of the Foundation Stage
• To protect the physical and psychological well being of all children
• To implement the seven areas of learning

Areas of Learning

There are 7 areas covered in the EYFS curriculum. These are -

• Personal, Social and Emotional Development (Self-regulation, Managing self and Building relationships)
• Communication and Language (Listening, Attention and Understanding, Speaking) 
• Literacy Comprehension, Word Reading, Writing)
• Maths (Number, Numerical Patterns)
• Understanding the World (Past and present, People, Culture and Communities, The natural world);
• Physical Development (PD- Gross motor skills, Fine motor skills)
• Expressive Arts and Design( Creating with Materials, Being imaginative)

Although each half term we have an overarching topic, which will be taught through books and memorable moments, our play based curriculum springs from the interests and needs of our children derived from the observations we make each day. We look for ‘teachable moments’ in the midst of their fun and intervene purposefully to direct learning.

At St Mary’s Primary School we use Development Matters which is a non-statutory curriculum guidance for the EYFS, which is available to support providers in their delivery of the EYFS learning and development requirements. Using development matters, we have created our own curriculum, centred around children’s interests and goals that we would like the children to achieve by the time they leave us at the end of their Reception year. Our Christian values underpin all of our learning within the EYFS and a fundamental to what we do at school and our curriculum reflects this.

Spring Term 

Welcome back Ladybirds, we have enjoyed seeing you and hearing about all your adventures over the Christmas break. This half term our focus book is 'We're going on a lion hunt' please see the link on Tapestry to a recording of the story. We have also sent a link to the song we have enjoyed singing this week. 

Please remember to check your Tapestry account weekly as we are using this to communicate with parents. On Tapestry we will post links to the books and songs we are learning and follow up activities that you can do at home to support your child's learning at Nursery.  

Autumn Term Week 2

Well done Ladybirds, you have had a fantastic first week in school. You have been very busy exploring the Nursery classroom and making friends. We are very proud of you. Please check Tapestry regularly as we will post pictures of our learning at Nursery and activities that you can do at home.

A Bit Lost

This half term we are reading the book A Bit Lost by Chris Haughton. You can watch Mrs Bonham reading this story on Tapestry. Sharing this book at home and talking to your child about what happens in the story will help support you child at school. 

Week 3

Well done Ladybirds, you have all had a great week. We have enjoyed watching you Learn and Explore our Nursery making new friends and working together. Next week our question is 'Why is my Body Great?' We will be reading the book From Head to Toe by Eric Carle and activities to support this learning have been posted on Tapestry.

Week 4 25th - 29th September

Well done Ladybirds we have had another great week. You have enjoyed learning the song 5 speckled frogs and are able to name lots of different body parts. Next week we will be learning a new number song and will reading a book all about families, have a look on Tapestry for more information.

Week 5 2nd-6th October

Well done Ladybirds Class, we have had such a busy week. We wrote our very own class book using speech bubbles to talk about what is happening in 'A Bit Lost', We made some owls, describing them using the new words that we have been taught and we have been sorting and counting objects in our maths sessions. 

Next week we will be thinking about our homes, we will be reading 'The Three Little Pigs' and will be thinking about what we like doing at home with our families. In maths our song will be 5 Little Ducks.

Remember to look on Tapestry for links to the song and to see one of your teachers reading the story- who will it be this week?!

Week 6 9th - 13th October

This week we have had great fun building homes and talking about our homes. We used the small bricks with different materials to build walls. We have enjoyed retelling our story The Three Little Pigs, joining in with the repeated phrases. Great work Ladybirds.

Week 7 16th - 20th October

This week we are reading the Colour monster story to help us to identify different emotions that we might be feeling. We will be learning the song 5 Little Men in a flying saucer. A link to the song and story has been posted on Tapestry.

Week 8 October 30th - November 3rd

Welcome back Ladybird Class. We have enjoyed exploring the colours and natural resources that we see at Autumn to make our own art. Next week we will be continuing our work on Festivals and Colours, we will be learning about fireworks so you might like to look outside at bedtime to see if you can see any fireworks in the sky.

Week 9 6th - 10th November

This week we are talking about the fireworks that we have been seeing. We are continuing to retell the story of the Gingerbread man in our own words.

Week 10 13th - 17th November

This week we are learning about Diwali, we are going to find out different ways that this Festival is celebrated. We are going to look at the speech bubbles in our Gingerbread man story and think about what the animals might be saying. In our maths sessions we are learning all about number one, to support this work at home you could watch Numberblocks on Cbeebies.

Week 11 20th - 24th November

This week we are learning all about nocturnal animals, we will be finding out what animals are nocturnal and what features help them to find food to eat at night time. We will be learning about number two and will be counting objects. In our Literacy session we will find out about what the cheeky Gingerbread man has been up to when we are not in the classroom!

We are enjoying learning about Christmas and the different ways that it is celebrated. We have been working hard to learn our Christmas songs and we can't wait to share them with our families and friends.