Our Early Years Team (Nursery and Reception) consists of Lauren, Nicola and Hazel. To learn more about them please see our Meet The Staff page.
Nursery Long Term Overview 2024-2025
What we are learning in Nursery this term
Welcome to Nursery!
In Nursery, we provide lots of opportunities for children to develop their confidence, language and social skills. We spend time exploring both indoors and outdoors (regardless of the weather) to help us develop our learning.
Our topic this term is: Our Super World?
We will be listening to and sharing stories and information about different jobs and people who help us. We will be looking at lots of different ‘real life superheroes’ and what they do in their job to help and look after, us, our pets and our environment. We will be looking at a range of jobs including people who help us in school (teaching staff, lunch staff, office staff, cleaners, caretaker, crossing patrol), doctors/nurses and paramedics, fire-fighters, police and postal workers.
Alongside this we will also be thinking about the time of year and using out senses to explore the world around us and talk about the seasonal changes. In addition to this we will be learning about celebrations such as: Valentine’s Day and Chinese New Year and looking at the artist David Hockney.
Promoting confidence, self-help skills and independence: Children will continue to be supported and encouraged to take off their own coat and hang it up on their peg when they arrive and to become increasingly independent as they get dressed and undressed for outdoor play. This will include taking off and putting on: coats, socks, shoes, waterproof clothing and wellies. Staff will model what to do and how to do it and talk through what they need to do. Children will be given lots of time, support and encouragement to do these tasks.
Literacy: Children will continue to listen to stories and rhymes, one to one and in a small or large group. They will listen to a range of stories and share non-fiction books with a focus on ‘real life Superheroes’ such as doctors, nurses, teacher, police and fire fighters. They will learn facts and real information about how these people help us, what they wear, what they do as part of their job etc.
Writing: Children will continue to be encouraged to experiment with mark making tools (for example: pens, pencils, crayons and chalks) on both a large and small scale.
Adults will model ‘writing’ as they play alongside the children and will be talking about what they have written (giving meaning to their marks.) Children will be encouraged to talk about what they have drawn/written and to begin to give meaning to their own marks for example, telling an adult that their marks say “I am a Police officer.”
Adults will be encouraging and supporting children to hold their pencil using the correct grip (between their thumb and 2 fingers-tripod grip) by modelling how to do it.
Children will be encouraged to make marks on their pictures that represent their name. Some children will be writing their name (or part of their name) and will be encouraged to do so on their pictures/drawings.
Phonics: Children will listen to a range of rhymes and songs to help to develop their phonological (sound) awareness. This is so that they can begin to: spot and suggest rhymes and odd ones out e.g. cat, hat, frog. They will also continue to develop their listening skills through games and during carpet sessions and will be encouraged to listen to others in different situations, (1:1, small group and whole class.) They will begin to hear the initial (beginning) sound in their name and count or clap syllables (parts) in word. For example, Dentist has 2 syllable/parts (den-tist) or hospital is split up into 3 syllables/parts (hos-pi-tal.) We will also do this with our names e.g., Nicola has 3 parts (Ni, co, la.)
They will continue to practise the nursery rhymes that have been learnt so far so that they can say them in full and independently.
Nursery rhymes we have learnt are:
The Grand Old Duke of York
Incey Wincey Spider
Hey Diddle, Diddle
Hickory Dickory Dock
Humpty Dumpty
They will begin/continue to hear and recognise the initial sound in their name.
Communication and Language: Children will be encouraged to use words to tell others what they are doing when they come to join them in their play. They will be encouraged to use longer sentences when communicating and to use a wider range of vocabulary when speaking (learning new words from books, rhymes and topics.)
They will continue to play memory games and listening and attention games, such as Kim’s game and Simon says.
Mathematics: Children will continue to listen to and be encouraged to join in with lots of number songs and rhymes, such as, 5 little Firefighters.
They will begin/continue to practise counts objects by pointing to each one and saying a number name, for example, counting the objects in a doctor’s bag. They will begin to learn and understand that the last number reached when counting tells them how many there are in total. When asked, “How many?” they will be able to tell an adult the total (without having to recount them.) This is known as the ‘cardinal principle.’
They will be given opportunities to take or give 1, 2 or 3 objects from a larger group. For example, taking 1, 2 or 3 coins to pay for snack or counting the people a firefighter has rescued.
They will be given daily opportunities to recite number names in order (rote count), for example, when counting the children in Nursery that day or when counting each spoonful of flour used during a baking activity.
Children will also practise representing amounts using fingers. For example, showing how many children are absent that day using their fingers or how many letters the postal worker has to deliver.
They will also be encouraged to think about the size objects, for example comparing the height/length of different ladders that belong to the Firefighters.
PSED: As part of our personal, social and emotional development we will be following the SCARF (Safety, Caring, Achievement, Resilience and Friendship) topic- Keeping Myself Safe. This includes learning about: Keeping their body safe, safe secrets and touches and people who help to keep them safe.
Children will also continue to learn the rules and expectations of Nursery and continue to understand the need for sharing and taking turns with others, sometimes with support from adults.
Children will continue to be encouraged to play with others and develop friendships. They will be supported to begin to listen to the ideas of other children when playing.
They will continue to explore different emotions and the feelings: happy, sad and angry (through play and stories.)
They will begin to know that their actions and the way they speak to others can upset or hurt their feelings.
They will begin to learn how to cope and resolve problems. Adults will support them to do this by suggesting things they could say to resolve the problem and reminding them to tell others what has upset them. Adults will also suggest what could be done to solve the problem.
They will continue to know that their needs cannot always be met immediately and that they need to wait if an adult is busy. Adults will support this by reminding children to wait for a short while until they can help and by giving lots of praise when they do so.
They will begin to learn how to be more resilient. Adults will support this by giving lots of encouragement to try new things and by using lots of praise when they have a try.
Physical Development: As part of our physical development children will continue to be given daily opportunities to explore and use our outdoor environment.
They will continue to develop large-muscle movements (gross motor skills) by making large movements (shapes, lines etc) in the air using streamers and squares of materials and by climbing up apparatus, outdoors.
They will continue to develop manipulation, control and fine motor skills (during free play) by holding tools and using scissors and playdough and through regular dough disco.
They will continue to move in a range of ways (during free play) such as: running, jumping, crawling, rolling, walking.
They will continue to have opportunities to use one handed tools, such as, scissors and paintbrushes. They will continue to be encouraged and supported to hold and use these correctly and safely. They will continue to explore different materials and tools. These will include messy materials, such as, porridge, shaving foam, gloop, playdough and mud, scissors, tweezers and mark-making tools.
They will be encouraged to hold pens and pencils (correctly) to begin/continue to write some or all of their name.
Things to remember:
-to bring your child’s water bottle every day and take it home when you pick them up so that it can be washed and refilled with WATER for the next day.
-to promote and support your child’s independence by having VELCRO shoes ONLY. Shoes with laces, trainers and lace up boots (even those that also have a zip) are too difficult for Nursery children to manage.
– to promote self-help skills by encouraging them to take off their shoes and socks themselves and to put them back on again. Support and give them lots of time to do this.
-support and encourage your child to put on their coat or clothing on themselves.
-to pay your £1 a week school fund donation.
-to donate a box of tissues every half term.
-to bring your child’s red school book bag to school EVERY Monday. It will stay in school so that it can be filled with your child’s pictures throughout the week. Your child will bring it home on a Friday to be emptied and then returned to school on the Monday.
-develop your child’s health and self-care skills by establishing toileting and handwashing routines. Encourage them to pull up their clothes after toileting. Talk about the importance of washing their hands using soap and warm water and do so regularly.
-regularly sing the Nursery rhymes and number rhymes with your child, until they are familiar with them and can sing the of by heart (independently.)
-to regularly check your child’s Tapestry account to see what they have been up to, make a comment on the observation and send observations in from home.
-to speak to a member of Nursery staff if you have any concerns, would like to discuss your child’s progress or would like to share any news from home.
-to CLEARLY LABEL ALL OF YOUR CHILD’S BELONGINGS including wellies, coats, shoes on all of their clothing.
-not to bring any toys to school.
-send non urgent messages to us on Tapestry.
We greatly appreciate your support. If you have any questions or want to find out any further information about our Nursery, then please do not hesitate to speak to us or send a Tapestry message.
We will be happy to help you!
Useful Websites for Parents and Carers:
A Parents guide to EYFS
CBeebies – Alpha Blocks
CBeebies Get Squiggling
Crick Web Early Years Games and Activities
Dough disco
ICT Games
Number Formation Rhymes that we use in school
Teach your monster to read
Top Marks Maths Games
Phoneme pop! A fun interactive game to support letter recognition
Phonics Games
Have a look to see what we have been up to lately in Nursery…
Applying to join our Nursery
You can use the following form to apply for a place Nursery application form
You might find this document useful to find out more about the process: Nursery admissions process
