Step Inside Nursery
Step inside our Nursery class to discover the happy, caring and inviting atmosphere we provide for our pupils as they take their first steps in education.
Culture
We promote a shared culture by providing opportunities for the children to learn about different lifestyles and beliefs through story, music, art and role play.
Throughout the year, the home corner becomes a number of spaces. These include:
- A West African marketplace where the children could buy chin chin biscuits and fruits;
- A sushi bar where the girls and boys could use chopsticks;
- A dining room for a turkey dinner to celebrate Thanksgiving/Christmas.
Art
Our Nursery children have access to a large indoor creative area at all times. There are a wide range of resources readily available such as paint, glue, collage materials, boxes, paper, card, crayons, scissors and tape.
The girls and boys have lots of opportunities to experiment and have fun whilst building their confidence to access the area independently and to express their own ideas. Adult input allows skills such as colour mixing, cutting, tearing and scrunching to be taught.
Outside, children paint with mud, take part in ‘big art’ tasks and use natural materials and brushes to create their own ‘masterpiece’.
Outside Learning
We know that learning outside has an enormous impact on children, boosting their confidence, communication, social play and problem-solving skills.
The opportunities we provide outside enable the children to play imaginatively, practise what they have been taught and be daring in their play. For example, number is practised as scoops of mud are counted out to make a ‘leaf lasagne’ or ‘mud pie’, shades of a colour are talked about when looking at flower petals, stories are re-told or made-up when the dress-up box is discovered and confidence is built after jumping off the hill for the first time!
Our wild garden provides the children with a wide variety of natural resources to collect, identify, sort, measure and count – the day we collected one hundred fir cones and found the longest stick we had ever seen was talked about by the children for a long time!
In the garden, the children have grown daffodils and pumpkins and we plan to develop this further. Insect hotels and log pile houses encourage lots of bug hunting and, if the children are very quiet, they may even see or hear some of the fairies that have built their very own house in the garden.
Animals
Animals of all kinds are usually fascinating for young children. We have our very own ‘dinosaur den’ in Nursery and through songs such as ‘Old MacDonald’, ‘Insy Winsy Spider’ and ‘Down in the Jungle’, the children can learn all about animals that live around the world and in our seas and oceans.
Broader Experiences
The pupils perform in an Early Years Foundation Stage Nativity each Christmas. This takes place in the Main Hall.
They children also take part in fun and engaging activities for initiatives such as World Book Day, Black History Month and European Day of Languages.