Nursery

Welcome to Nursery’s class page. Below you will find information relating to Nursery life.

Nursery Class Teacher: Miss Bell

Nursery Learning Support Assistant: Miss McDonald & Miss Sankey

Welcome to St Mary and St Thomas Church of England Primary School! We currently offer 15 hour and 30 hour sessions at our nursery. An all-day session is 9am-3pm, while a morning session is 9am-12pm and an afternoon session is 12pm-3pm. There is flexibility of how you use these hours subject to availability. If you have any queries about available hours and days at our nursery, please do call or email the school office directly, who will be able to assist you. We pride ourselves on offering children a safe, happy, nurturing and developmentally enriching environment they can thrive in. We recognise how unique each child is and support their interests through provision alongside enhancements of key topics throughout the year to bring children's passions and interests to life.

Nursery follow the statutory Early Years Foundation Stage as part of our curriculum. Within this are the 7 areas of learning which compromises of 3 Prime Areas and 4 Specific Areas as outlined below. The curriculum is taught through teacher led whole class carpet sessions, small group activities and enhancements of learning through indoor and outdoor provision the children access during choose time.

Prime areas

• Personal, social and emotional development
• Communication and Language Development
• Physical Development

Specific areas

• Literacy
• Mathematics
• Knowledge and Understanding of the World
• Expressive Arts and Design

Life at St Mary and St Thomas Nursery

Topics

Each half term, nursery will explore a broad topic through high quality texts and enriched experiences activities, to broaden their knowledge and understanding and make links within their learning. Each topic has an overview in the form of a knowledge organiser which includes what the children will be learning, key vocabulary, key texts and further opportunities to develop their learning.

Home learning activities

Half-termly home learning grids will be added to your child's homework diary each half term. These are activities based on the 7 areas of learning. Written/drawn evidence can be done in the homework diary or evidence can be added to Tapestry. Homework will be collected in on Wednesday and send back out on Friday.

Reading

Reading is important to us at St Mary and St Thomas and we want to provide pupils with a love for reading and an enriched reading diet from the start. Each week, children have to opportunity to look at books from the lending library and choose one to take home for their adult to read with them. Lending library books are to be returned with homework by Wednesday with any comments in the homework book about their thoughts and experience of the book. In Spring term, nursery pupils will begin to receive wordless books to read to you. In Summer term, children will begin Read Write Inc phonics programme.

Book bags

Please ensure your child has a named book bag to pop their homework diary and lending library book in. On some weeks, there may send be additional home learning activities for your child. Book bags and homework will be given out on Friday and are to be returned the following Wednesday.

Nursery rhymes

Each school term, new nursery rhymes will sent home to learn and practise at home. We believe it is important for children to learn nursery rhymes off by heart because it is instrumental in developing their early language, literacy, and numeracy skills. You can support this at home by asking children to perform the nursery rhymes. In November we take part in National Nursery Rhyme Week. In the Spring term we like to invites families in to join us in celebrating their achievements and to perform the nursery rhymes.

Rosie the Rhyming Rabbit

Every week, a child will take Rosie the Rhyming Rabbit home. They are encouraged to sing all the nursery rhymes they know with Rosie and take her along on their journey at home with rhyming being the primary focus. A book will be in Rosi's bag for you to add pictures and text about your child's rhyming journey with Rosie.

Tapestry

We use this app to stay connected with parents through regaular updates and information and send wow moments home that children have experienced at nursery. Please make sure your notifications are switched on and do check it daily for updates and send in any home learning, wow moments or experiences from because we love to celebrate this in class.