Welcome to Nursery's Class Page.

We provide full day child care for 2 - 4 year olds 7.30 a.m. - 5.30 p.m. Monday - Friday during term time. We offer 15 or 30 funded hours depending on eligibility with the option to top-up sessions at £4.95 an hour. Children can start with us the term after they turn 2 years old. 

Mrs Charlotte McConnell is the Early Years Leader. She leads an experienced and skilled team; is on the Senior Leadership team and a Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead. Mrs Karen Mogg is the Nursery Manager, Inclusion Coordinator (INCCO) and also Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead. Miss Amelia Downward, Miss Lindsey Allen, Mrs Julie Chapman, and Miss Joanne MacDonald are Nursery's fantastic Early Years Practitioners. Miss Madison Dyer is Nursery's Apprentice.

Our highly qualified and experienced team is led by our Early Years Leaders and the Nursery Manager who is a Level 7 Early Years Teacher and who is closely supported by a passionate and professional team of skilled team of Early Year Practitioners.

Every member of our Nursery team has completed Safeguarding training. Team members are also Makaton and Behaviour Therapy trained, Paediatric First Aid trained, Team Teach and Food Hygiene certificated. 

* Extended Provision Open 7.30 a.m. - 5.30 p.m.*

Nursery offers an extended provision which includes a Early Years Breakfast Club and After School Club for 2-5 year olds from 7.30 a.m. -5.30 p.m. every day!

Our Early Years After School provision takes place in Nursery outstanding purpose-built indoor and outdoor facilities and is run by Nursery team members. With the children’s personal, social and emotional well-being of paramount importance to us at all times, by running our extended provision in Nursery, with Nursery staff members ensures consistency. The children are familiar with their safe, stimulating environment and are also cared for by adults that they know well and whom they have secure attachments with. 

Phase one phonics starts in Nursery.  This supports children in developing speaking and listening skills and helps them become attuned to the surrounding sounds.  It is through building a firm foundation in phase one that children move confidently and competently onto developing oral blending and segmenting skills. 

To find out more about our Nursery, please click on the link below or continue to scroll down to see what we have been up to in our weekly updated Learning Journey.

If you are interested in booking a space for your child, please contact Karen Mogg, the Nursery Manager by telephone 01934 426901, or email nursery@stgeorges.bwmat.org . 

We look forward to hearing from you and welcoming you and your child into our Nursery family.

Our Learning Journey 2023-24 

Nursery's Family Trip to Court Farm

For our last week of term, our focus book has been 'The Busy Farm' and everyone has been very excited about taking a trip to a working farm and having a real-life experience of what we have been reading about in our story.

As part of our end of year celebrations we enjoyed spending the afternoon at Court Farm with our Nursery families. On arrival, we all enjoyed a community picnic together, before climbing into the tractor's trailer and taking a tractor ride around the farmer's field. Everyone enjoyed bumping along on the big orange tractor's trailer, spotting some of the animals grazing in the fields, listening to the environmental sounds and taking in the views. 

During our time at the farm, we also enjoyed exploring the working farm, talking to Farmer Ed, looking for, finding and ticking off different animals on our Farm Spotter Sheet, playing on the wooden play equipment, bouncing on the trampolines and driving the mini tractors and safari jeeps.

We learnt the names of the different animals, discovered the animals' different care needs, developed our compassion for the animals and understanding of the importance of caring for our natural environment. During our farm explorations, we found out how different animals smell, the sounds they make and the way they look and feel, as well as made connections with nature. 

Our farm trip was a wonderful way to finish our academic year in Nursery. Have a wonderful summer break. We wish our Nursery leavers all the very best as they continue their journey into Reception and look forward to welcoming back the children staying with us for another year on the week commencing Monday 9th September. 

                                    

Our Story Session with Book Start

Today we welcomed Kimmy from Book Start for a story session at Forest School. We were also fortunate to be joined by some of our parents/carers.

We started our session by singing some familiar songs and then listened as Kimmy read a variety of stories, some we knew and others were new to us. The children demonstrated super listening skills and showed great enjoyment as they joined in with different actions and repeated refrains. At the end of the story session, Kimmy very kindly gifted each of the children a brand-new copy of the story ‘How to catch a star’ which has come home with your child today, as well as a copy of ‘Colours with a Ladybird’ for us to enjoy at Nursery.

After thanking and saying goodbye to Kimmy, our parents/carers stayed with us to go on a nature scavenger hunt and mini-beast hunt around Forest school. Lots of observations were made about the different mini-beasts which were spotted and the natural objects which were collected on the children’s scavenger hunt colour wheel. We finished our session by sitting down and enjoying healthy fruit snacks and a drink. 

                               

Nursery's Trip to the Theatre

Nursery loved taking their first trip to the theatre today to watch a live performance of Rod Campbell's Dear Zoo. This was a great opportunity to introduce the children to live theatre and to watch one of our key storybooks, come to life on the stage! The children were entranced by the show, which was full of puppetry, songs and animals from the zoo, and showed great enjoyment when joining in with songs and actions. 

At the end of the show, each child received a Nursery Dear Zoo bag containing some colouring, animal cards, a letter template, special memorable ticket and some after the show discussion points linked to the story to continue the children's Dear Zoo interest at home. 

                                                           

Our Learning Journey 2022-23

Baking bread

"Who will help me to bake the bread?” asked the Little Red Hen.

“We will” said the children.

“Who will help me to eat the bread?” asked the Little Red Hen.

“We will!” said the children.

Through bringing elements of the traditional story to life, the children have been strengthening their fine and gross motor skills, developing their listening and communication skills and deepening their knowledge and understanding of the main events, the character‘s feelings as well as the importance of working together.

Once our bread was cooked and cooled, we enjoyed spreading butter on top and tasting it as part of our afternoon snack.

Well done Nursery! You were very keen to become actively involved in the whole bread making process and demonstrated super focus and determination.

Autumnal Apple Crumble

After one of our parents kindly donated ripe apples from their family farm, we have been enjoying learning how to make autumnal apple crumble this week.

The children have demonstrated super listening skills when following instructions, patience when waiting their turn and cooperation when sharing the cooking utensils.

Using a visual recipe, the children were able to lead their cooking experience, practice their counting skills and measure out the ingredients independently.

Once our crumble had cooled, further rich language was modelled, and mathematical language explored when portioning out the crumble equally. As we ate together, we talked about where the apples had come from and other healthy food choices which we can make.

Well done, Nursery! Your autumnal apple crumble smelt divine and tasted delicious.

Developing a love of books

We have been developing a love of books through our focus stories and ‘Somebody Swallowed Stanley’ has quickly become a popular story with the children since the start of this term.

The sensitively written story has highlighted environmental issues and provoked discussions about plastic pollution, caring for our animals and planet as well as the importance of reusing and recycling our plastic waste.

Following our storytelling sessions, the children in their key families have made environmental pledges, introduced eco-bricks to our lunch tables and created their own recyclable Stanley kites which everyone enjoyed flying around the school field.

Some facts about plastics

• 18 billion pounds of plastic waste flows into the oceans every year from coastal regions.

• Plastic impacts entire food chains – sea, soil, plants, and creatures. Scientists predict that every seabird and every turtle on this planet have plastic in their stomachs.

• Reducing, reusing, recycling, and picking up plastic makes a life-or-death difference to ocean life.

• Our actions have global effects as currents transport plastics across continents. There is even evidence of plastic pollution on the North Pole.

A recording of one of our Stanley story-telling sessions has been uploaded to Tapestry for you to enjoy with your child at home.

European Day of Languages

Bonjour! Today is European Day of Languages and we have been developing our cultural awareness and learning all things French.

Our day started with us enjoying a French breakfast together where we tasted pains au chocolates and croissants and found out the names of other French food.

Throughout the day, we have worked together to build representations of the Eiffel Tower, created snail pictures in the style of French artist Henri Matisse, painted French flags and learnt the rhythm and words to the song Frère Jacques.

As one of our children also celebrated their birthday today, we found out how to sing Happy birthday and count to four in French too! Bien fait Nursery!

Starting our new academic year in Nursery 

Since the beginning of term, the children have been busy bees exploring their nurturing environments, developing relationships and engaging in open-ended, purposeful playful experiences.

We have enjoyed making daily visits to our Forest School provision, strengthening our gross motor skills on the wooden fort and expressing ourselves creatively through our music, movement and art.

We could not be prouder of how well the children have transitioned and settled into our setting either for the first time or following the summer break and we look forward to working together with our children, families and local community this academic year.