Welcome to the Nursery Class
Take a tour around our indoor and outdoor learning environments...
Staff
Nursery Teacher (mornings), Early Years Lead & SENCO- Miss Milnes
Nursery Teacher (afternoons) - Mrs Kelly
Nursery Teaching Assistant (mornings)- Miss MacDonald
Nursery Teaching Assistant (afternoons)- Miss Wall
Our Learning Journey- Autumn Term 2022
Welcome
Welcome to our nursery page. At Whitehill, we work as a foundation unit, which means that we (Nursery) share our learning environment and classroom with our lovely Reception class. As teachers, we work collaboratively to plan and enhance all the areas of the classroom to provide exciting learning opportunities for all of our pupils. We are a small foundation unit of approximately 45 pupils. Many of our Nursery pupils are eligible for extra nursery hours and choose to claim their 30 hours with us. Other pupils are entitled to 15 funded nursery hours, we are flexible with these families and offer top up sessions should they wish.
Our Values
We are committed to creating an atmosphere of care, respect, learning and fun which radiates throughout our foundation stage. Learning through exploration and play is the main focus of our nursery day as we believe this is the best and most natural way for children to learn (please see our Nursery Timetable below). Play allows children to explore, investigate, recreate and test everything they know, as well as make sense of what is new. Children are encouraged to make use of our outdoor play area to extend their play and learning in natural environments.
Early Years CURRICULUM
Please download our termly curriculum documents here for more information about what we will are learning and to see examples of our work.
Early Years IMPORTANT INFORMATION
Please click on the links below to find out important information about the Early Years.
 Timetable |
 EYFS Profile |
 Welcome Leaflet |
Characteristics of Learning
Forest School
Useful LinksForest School Autumn Term- Exploring Natural Materials
PE Autumn Term
Working with Parents
Working in partnership with parents is key to our approach; we encourage parent involvement, beginning with our home visits and settling in sessions. Once your child attends our setting we update parents regularly using Tapestry and Class Dojo(online apps). Tapestry is a secure online Learning Journal to record photos, observations and comments, in line with the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum, to build up a record of your child's experiences during their time with us. You can find out more or log in, if you have an existing account, by following the link: https://tapestry.info/
We also invite parents into school regulary to a class assembly, to consolidate and share our learning.
Choice of Sessions
If you are entitled to 30 hours childcare we now are offering full time places and additional wrap around care if required. To find out if you are entitled to a 30 hour place please follow this link:
https://childcare-support.tax.service.gov.uk/moreinfopar/1/?returnURL=%2Fpar%2Fapp%2Fextendedentitlement
Alternatively, we off 15 hour places, this is inclusive of: Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. Parents are able to pay for top up sessions should they wish.
We'd love to invite you to meet our team and explore our nursery for yourself! Please contact us to arrange a visit.
Parent Reminders
Please remember that the morning session starts at 8.50am and registration closes at 9.00am. The afternoon session begins at 12.10pm and closes at 12.20pm. In circumstances where you arrive later than this you will be required to register your child at the school office. Being prompt for school allows children to settle better and engage in their morning tasks such as; finding coat pegs, self registration and fine motor activities.
The children have a choice of fruit and milk or water for their daily snack. We ask for a contribution of £1 a week towards this, this can be paid via the school Gateway app.
Your children will spend a considerable amount of time engaging in the continuous provision and may get messy please bare this in mind and send a change of spare clothes. We also ask that you send a pair of wellies to school with your child, as we are out in all weathers.
The Early Years Foundation Stage
The statutory framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage sets out the requirements of educational programmes for early learning and care. It gives all professionals a set of common principles and commitments to deliver quality early education and childcare experiences to all children from birth to 5. At Whitehill, we use 'Development Matters' to help us design an effective early years curriculum, whilst meeting the requirements of the statutory framework. Development matters is broken down into 7 areas of learning. These can be found below:
PSED - Personal, social, emotional development
CL - Communication and Language
PD - Physical development
LIT - Literacy
MATHS - Mathematics
UTW - Understanding the World
EAD - Expressive Arts and Design
You can find a copy of the development matters online at: http://www.foundationyears.org.uk/files/2012/03/Development-Matters-FINAL-PRINT-AMENDED.pdf
What to expect and when?
It is widely recognised the vital role that parents have in supporting their children's learning and development. Parents need to know what to expect in relation to their child's development through the different age bands of the EYFS.
What to expect, when? is a simple guide which takes parents through the expectations of each age band in the EYFS and how they can support their children's learning and development.
Maths Building Blocks Reading Building Blocks Writing Building Blocks
You can find a copy of what to expect and when online at: https://www.foundationyears.org.uk/files/2015/09/4Children_ParentsGuide_Sept_2015v4WEB1.pdf
Phonics-
In Nursery, phonics activities concentrate on developing children's speaking and listening skills which lays the foundations for the later phonics work. The emphasis of our phonics work is to get children attuned to the sounds around them and ready to begin developing oral blending and segmenting skills. In Nursery we plan phonics activities around:
- Environmental sounds
- Instrumental sounds
- Body Percussion
- Rhythm and rhyme
- Alliteration
- Voice sounds
- Oral Blending and segmenting.
In the summer term, we begin to introduce our pupils to letter sounds. As a school we follow Read Write Inc.
Literacy-
In Nursery our Literacy planning is centred around Tales Toolkit. We develop quality interactions and imagination though oral story telling. These lead to improvements in many areas of learning; communication and language, social skills, creativity, literacy and more.
At Whitehill, children are taught to decode, comprehend and read for pleasure through engaging texts and a variety of reading experiences as part of the Literacy lesson. As a school, we have adopted ‘Book Talk’ by Jane Considine. In Nursery, pupils are taught to use ‘The Reading Rainbow’ to guide their book talk.
Other Literacy activities may also include gross and fine motor activities all facilitate early mark making and writing processes (Squiggle While You Wiggle).
Maths-
As a school we use White Rose Maths. In Nursery, our numeracy approaches aim to develop number skills and improve young children’s knowledge and understanding of early mathematical concepts and language. Activities in this area might be structured, for example through programmes designed to develop children’s ‘number sense’ (their developing understanding of quantity and number), or more informal, for example, using mathematical games, songs, or pretend activities involving counting.
Educational Visits- Road Safety Week
