Here in our Greenpark nursery class the children are at the centre of all that we do and we understand our role as a crucial building block to your child’s education and schooling. Our aim to provide an exciting, nurturing environment with irresistible learning opportunities to help each child grow and develop is the driving force guiding our approach.

As a staff we are clear about how vitally important it is for your child to feel settled and comfortable within the nursery environment and to be able to establish trusting relationships with the adults caring for them.

We offer a calm and nurturing environment through our interactions with the children, using positive reinforcement and following the Thrive programme as part of our restorative approach, in line with the rest of our school.

The children are supported to learn our daily routines and expectations through the use of Tiger, our class mascot. Lots of time is spent helping the children learn to recognise, understand and name their feelings and emotions in order to be able to explain how they are feeling and to learn how to empathise with others.

Through careful and timely interventions and interactions, coaching and modelling, the children are supported in learning how to explore, investigate and play independently and how to play co-operatively and build friendships with one another. We focus on helping children develop the Characteristics of Effective Learning, such as resilience, independence and perseverance.

Our indoor and outdoor environments are carefully planned and set up as continuous provision, to which enhancements are added to link with children’s interests and needs as well as topics and themes that stem from predicted interests such as Christmas, bonfire night, etc. Within the continuous provision careful thought and attention are given to exploiting opportunities to develop hand-eye co-ordination and fine and gross motor skills in preparation for building writing skills.

Within the daily routine we have our ‘Good Morning’ and ‘Good Afternoon’ circles. These are opportunities to come together to greet one another and share how we are feeling, as well as spend focused time on early maths and phonics skills. For maths, the children participate in counting and recognizing numbers activities, helping our number wizard with his magic wand. For phonics, the children participate in a range of different phase 1 games and activities, developing their listening skills and learning to differentiate and pronounce different sounds.

Understanding the need to foster a love of books and reading, we share stories and poems together on a daily basis, as a whole group during circle time or in small groups or 1:1 during free choice independent play time. We also use our Singing Sack twice each day, enabling the children to learn a range of songs and traditional nursery rhymes, again supporting their early literacy development.

Throughout the year we hold regular parent cafes where parents have an opportunity to spend time with their child in nursery, finding out about their learning as well as ways in which to support this learning at home. For example, the children have taught their parents how to use and dance with ‘Flipper Flappers’, an activity that we do each day to build shoulder and arm strength as part of getting ready for writing. We have also had a bedtime story café, when everyone was very excited to return to nursery in their pyjamas, ready for stories, cookies and hot chocolate!

We are very happy to welcome visits to our nursery for prospective parents and children – please contact the school office to arrange this.