Nursery

Curriculum

Our Early Years Termly topics the form of Big Questions.

Miss Smith and Miss Nessa are our Teaching Assistants in the Nursery classroom. Miss Rebeca MacDougall, our Early Years Leader, teaches Nursery class every Wednesday morning.

In addition to our Parent Information pack, the following information may also be helpful as your child starts at St Matthew’s:

School Uniform: All the children must come to school wearing the correct school uniform. (Elasticated school uniform trousers or jogging bottoms are often a better choice for nursery children than trousers with the zip and a button as they encourage to develop independence) Please ensure that all uniform items are named (especially sweatshirts and cardigans) as this helps to return lost items to the right children. It is important that the children wear appropriate footwear – black comfortable school shoes with Velcro fastenings help with developing independence.
Water Bottles: Please can you send your child to Nursery with a labelled water bottle, which will be made accessible to them throughout the day.
Book Bags: These are an important part of school life as they help to bring home books, letters or art work that they children have made. The book bags need to be brought to school every day. Please make sure your child’s name is clearly labelled on their book bag. Books will be changed on Mondays.
Spare Clothes: Each child needs to have a set of spare clothes in a clearly labelled string draw bag, e.g. St Matthew’s PE bag, which will be kept on your child’s peg. Please note that our cupboard cannot fit bags of other styles due to a very limited space
Snack Time: Fruit and milk will be made available to the children every day. We will encourage children to try all of the fruits that are provided. If you haven’t yet told the school office about any medical or allergy information about your child, please do pass this on as soon as possible.
Tapestry: We use an online program called Tapestry to record your child’s learning journey through Early Years. Please see the attached letter with more information and a consent form that needs to be returned in hard copy to the school office so that your account can be set up.

We value parents’ contributions towards the children’s learning journey. If you would like to share some great learning from home, you can also upload pictures and videos onto your child’s Tapestry online journal. Some of these will be shared with the rest of the class.

Magic Moments/Weekend News will take place on Mondays. I am looking forward to encouraging all of the children to share any exciting news, achievements or things that they have made, with their peers. Your child might choose to share something exciting that happened at the weekend, something that they made at home or something that they have achieved (eg. first swimming lesson). Please feel free to send in photographs/objects to accompany their Magic Moment on Monday morning. This activity will develop skills of confident speaking, listening and asking questions.
A Box From Home: Our Literacy lessons on Wednesdays during Autumn term will be based around ‘A box from home’ talking activity. Each week four children will be asked to bring a box from home filled with objects that would tell us something about them. For example, it could be an object representing a hobby, a family picture, something that would tell us about their cultural background, a favourite book/toy, etc. The children will talk about why these objects are important to them and the rest of the class will learn to ask questions.
Safety: To ensure the safety of all pupils, the use of mobile phones and taking pictures of the children by parents is not permitted in our Early Years setting.
Medicines: Only prescribed medicines in the prescription packaging may be administered at school and all the relevant paperwork must be completed by the parent/carer prior to any medication being administered. General medication (such as Calpol, cough medicine, eye drops) cannot be administered by any member of staff.
Pre-loved items: If you would like to donate a preloved item in good condition to the Early Years, please speak to a member of staff first, as we have very limited space for resources. However, we always need small bits and bobs for creative work, e.g. buttons, milk and juice carton bottle tops. We would also appreciate pre-loved puzzles in good condition, dressing up clothes, baby clothes of ‘tiny baby’ size and trains.
Celebration Worship: Our whole school Celebration Worship assembly takes place every Friday at 2:50pm; all parents are welcome to attend. The black playground gates on St Ann’s Lane are opened at 2.45pm so that parents can join us for this special assembly in the school hall.

Finally, if you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to talk to me at school at the end of the day, or make an appointment by emailing the school office.

Mrs Farida Swift

Nursery Class Teacher