Nursery class
'Excellence Everyday'
'Learn, Live, Laugh and Love Ashurst'
Learn to be inspiring and make a difference to this world, we know how amazing you are,
Live with understanding and compassion for others, knowing we are all different and special in a community where equality stands tall,
Laugh and listen to the enjoyment of learning and excitement of everyone celebrating their achievements,
Love Ashurst, our special school and the hub of supportive staff, parents and children who aim high to be the best they can be.
Nursery - Important Information
About Nursery
Staff Team: Mrs J. O'Brien, Mrs. L Goldsack, Mrs Wilkinson and Miss Li
In Nursery we are a caring, happy and friendly team. Children are at the heart of all that we do and we are committed to ensuring that all of our children have the best possible start to their learning journey and life. We recognise that every child, is an individual. This underpins the way we plan our curriculum and develop the children’s learning environment. We provide exciting and challenging learning opportunities for every level of interest—from the most active “outdoor” learner to those who like to work for hours on their own special project. We work in partnership with parents to enable our children to learn in a fun and exciting way through play.
Ashurst has a 26 place morning nursery for children with an admission each September, January and April. Places are available for children the term following their 3rd birthday.
Applications for a place are managed by the admissions section of the LA and forms can be collected from our main school office.
This is our Nursery class. We love playing inside and outside following our Nursery Vision.
General Information
Start and Finish Times
Nursery starts at 8:45am and finish at 11:45am
Children are dropped off on the right hand side of school, around to the back of school. Here there is a black fence. Nursery gate will be labelled clearly. Please wait at the black gate, where a member of staff will greet the children, and open the gate for them to come into nursery.
PE Lessons
Our PE lessons will take place on a Thursday . Please send your child into school on wearing their PE kit on this day (they will remain on this throughout the morning).
The uniform is:
Black jogging bottoms with the logo or black sports leggings
White PE tops
Black zip hoody tops
Summer PE kit
Children will wear the usual red shorts and the white PE top
What do we learn?
There are 7 areas of learning in the Early Years Foundation Stage, outlined within the EYFS Early Adopter Framework. We deliver the curriculum through planned, purposeful play that is based upon the individual interests and learning needs of each individual child. Every child in our class is at a different stage and we respect each child an an individual. We treat each child as an individual according to their needs. We understand that every child learns differently and we will always adapt our teaching to help everyone learn. We encourage learning with friends and sharing our learning ideas to help each other learn even more on our way to be independent learners. We take pride in all we do and are proud of each other too.
Literacy
It is crucial for children to develop a life-long love of reading. Reading consists of two dimensions: language comprehension and word reading. Language comprehension (necessary for both reading and writing) starts from birth. It only develops when adults talk with children about the world around them and the books (stories and non-fiction) they read with them, and enjoy rhymes, poems and songs together. Skilled word reading, taught later, involves both the speedy working out of the pronunciation of unfamiliar printed words (decoding) and the speedy recognition of familiar printed words. Writing involves transcription (spelling and handwriting) and composition (articulating ideas and structuring them in speech, before writing).
We enjoy mark making so much and we are always busy developing our writing skills.
Mathematics
Developing a strong grounding in number is essential so that all children develop the necessary building blocks to excel mathematically. Children should be able to count confidently, develop a deep understanding of the numbers to 10, the relationships between them and the patterns within those numbers. By providing frequent and varied opportunities to build and apply this understanding - such as using manipulatives, including small pebbles and ten-frames for organising counting - children will develop a secure base of knowledge and vocabulary from which mastery of mathematics is built. The curriculum includes rich opportunities for children to develop their spatial reasoning skills across all areas of mathematics. It is important that children develop positive attitudes and interests in mathematics, look for patterns and relationships, spot connections, ‘have a go’, talk to adults and peers about what they notice and not be afraid to make mistakes.
We are amazing at counting. We are learning to count to 3 in order. We enjoy number blocks to help us learn about numbers.
Communication and Language
The development of children’s spoken language underpins all seven areas of learning and development. Children’s back-and-forth interactions from an early age form the foundations for language and cognitive development. The number and quality of the conversations they have with adults and peers throughout the day in a language-rich environment is crucial. By commenting on what children are interested in or doing, and echoing back what they say with new vocabulary added, practitioners will build children’s language effectively. Reading frequently to children, and engaging them actively in stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems, and then providing them with extensive opportunities to use and embed new words in a range of contexts, we give children the opportunity to thrive. Through conversation, storytelling and role play, where children share their ideas with support and modelling from their teacher, and sensitive questioning that invites them to elaborate, children become comfortable using a rich range of vocabulary and language structures.
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
Children’s personal, social and emotional development (PSED) is crucial for children to lead healthy and happy lives, and is fundamental to their cognitive development. Underpinning their personal development are the important attachments that shape their social world. Strong, warm and supportive relationships with adults enable children to learn how to understand their own feelings and those of others. Children are supported to manage emotions, develop a positive sense of self, set themselves simple goals, have confidence in their own abilities, to persist and wait for what they want and direct attention as necessary. Through adult modelling and guidance, they will learn how to look after their bodies, including healthy eating, and manage personal needs independently. Through supported interaction with other children, they learn how to make good friendships, co-operate and resolve conflicts peaceably. These attributes will provide a secure platform from which children achieve at school and in later life.
Physical Development
Physical activity is vital in children’s all-round development, enabling them to pursue happy, healthy and active lives. Gross and fine motor experiences develop incrementally throughout early childhood, starting with sensory explorations and the development of a child’s strength, co-ordination and positional awareness through tummy time, crawling and play movement with both objects and adults. By creating games and providing opportunities for play both indoors and outdoors, we support children to develop their core strength, stability, balance, spatial awareness, co-ordination and agility. Gross motor skills provide the foundation for developing healthy bodies and social and emotional well-being. Fine motor control and precision helps with hand-eye co-ordination which is later linked to early literacy. Repeated and varied opportunities to explore and play with small world activities, puzzles, arts and crafts and the practise of using small tools, with feedback and support from adults, allow children to develop proficiency, control and confidence.
Understanding the World
Understanding the world involves guiding children to make sense of their physical world and their community. The frequency and range of children’s personal experiences increases their knowledge and sense of the world around them – from visiting parks, libraries and museums to meeting important members of society, such as police officers, nurses and firefighters. In addition, listening to a broad selection of stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems will foster their understanding of our culturally, socially, technologically and ecologically diverse world. As well as building important knowledge, this extends their familiarity with words that support understanding across domains. Enriching and widening children’s vocabulary will supports reading comprehension.
We have loved exploring seasonal changes together.
Expressive Arts and Design
The development of children’s artistic and cultural awareness supports their imagination and creativity. Children have regular opportunities to engage with the arts, enabling them to explore and play with a wide range of media and materials. The quality and variety of what children see, hear and participate in is crucial for developing their understanding, self-expression, vocabulary and ability to communicate through the arts. The frequency, repetition and depth of their experiences are fundamental to their progress in interpreting and appreciating what they hear, respond to and observe.
We have been learning all about our world and environment. We use Martha Maps it out to inspire us to make our own maps and we created our own house too.
Ashleigh Bear
Ashleigh Bear is our class bear. Every weekend Ashleigh Bear goes home with one of our nursery friends. Ashleigh Bear loves the adventures they have. We celebrate this every week in class where the children tell us all the exciting things they have done with Ashleigh Bear. Ashleigh Bear watches in class all week looking for super sharing, good learning behaviour and for excellent listeners to go home with.
Nursery Long Term Plan 2024-2025
Nursery Topic Webs
Throughout the year in nursery we have 3 overarching themes that ensure a broad a balanced approach to early learning. The topics are:
- Magical Colours
- Ee- igh-ee-igh oh! and
- Aspiring adventures.
Each term a new topic web will be added outlining the specific learning we will be focussing upon during Nursery sessions.
Book recommendations for Nursery
We work hard to develop a love of reading at Ashurst, with reading at the heart of our curriculum. We use books to ignite curiosity and to gain an understanding of the world. In Nursery, we take every opportunity to read to the children. We are delighted to share some fantastic book recommendations for Nursery children. Please follow the link below:
'The Reader Teacher' - Visit this site to view 100 'must reads' for NURSERY