Welcome to Nursery Class

Our class teacher is Mrs. Hilton, and our two teaching assistants are Miss. Jones and Miss. Mac.

In our nursery, we have space for 26 children, who maybe full-time or part-time doing morning or afternoon sessions.

In nursery, we believe –

The goal of early childhood education should be to activate the child’s own natural desire to learn.

-Maria Montessori

At St Stephen's, we understand that a child’s early years are one of the most important stages. This is where they will play and explore, actively learn, develop their creativity and critical thinking. It lays the foundations for a lifelong love of learning and fosters a positive attitude towards education.

We aim to provide every child with a broad and balanced curriculum of both adult-directed teaching and child-initiated purposeful play, rich in exciting learning opportunities to help develop happy, confident, self-motivated and resilient learners!

Our Curriculum

We follow the statutory Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) framework as well as the Development Matters non-statutory framework for children aged 0–5.  We will focus on the seven areas of development to help the children develop the necessary skills needed for starting in reception. These frameworks are a means of ensuring high standards of early education and care that will reassure parents that their child’s development is being fully supported. It underpins all future learning. It encourages positive attitudes and dispositions towards learning in the children and promotes learning through play.

Our Nursery Routine

Our school day begins at 9:00am, where the children are welcomed at the door into our class. We independently hang up our coats, put our bags away and self-register.

Our entry activity is the ‘Wiggle me into a Squiggle’ programme, where the children are building the gross motor skills they will need to begin to write.

Once we are registered, we use the visual timetable to familiarise ourselves with the routine for the day.

We will then have an English or maths carpet session, which lasts for approximately 15 minutes.

In English, we follow the ‘Pathways to Writing’ programme. Each half-term we use a different focus text to direct our lessons and subsequent continuous provision activities.

In maths, we follow the ‘Master the Curriculum’ programme. These lessons help to develop children’s early number sense and provide challenges to consolidate learning in continuous provision.

We then have child-initiated purposeful play both inside and outside the classroom. This is child-directed but can be facilitated and enhanced by our experienced pedagogues. There is also an adult-focused maths or English activity for the week which is supported by the teacher.

At 10:00am, we sit down together to eat our snack, and drink our milk, whilst chatting to our friends.

When we have finished, we will go into self-directed learning play both inside and outside the classroom. This could be mark-making, playing physical games or role-playing and is often shared with our reception friends. This is where we are developing friendships with other children and getting to know the reception staff to help with a smoother transition into reception.

We also have guided group reading sessions led by the class teacher in small groups, where the children will share the book they have had for the week, discuss and retell the story.

At 11:00am, we stop for our Essential Letters and Sounds phonics lesson, which can either be a whole-class carpet session or in small groups. In nursery, we start with phase 1 and move onto phase 2 in the summer term in preparation for reception.

Before we wash our hands for lunch, we have an opportunity to play phonics games, sing songs and dance.

We have our lunch together in the hall and are supported during this time by Mrs. Hilton and Miss. Jones.

On our return to the classroom, we take it in turns to brush our teeth in the bathroom.

At lunchtime, we play both inside and outside the classroom and are looked after by our teaching assistants.

In the afternoon, once we have registered, we have either an English or maths lesson. This can be whole-class or small group sessions in key groups.

On Wednesday afternoons, we have PE with Josh from REES Sports, in the hall, where we develop our gross motor skills and team building by playing ball games.

On Fridays, we have either an RE or Heart Smart lesson, followed by a craft activity and these sessions are led by Mrs. Kearns.

Following this, we will go into self-directed learning, both inside and outside the classroom.

At 14:15pm, we stop playing and begin to get ready for the end of the day by tidying up and then washing our hands and sitting on the carpet for a snack. At this time, we have a Word Aware – Concept Cat session, where we learn a different word every week to develop our vocabulary.

At the end of the day, we independently get our own coats and bags and then sit on the carpet ready for a story and songs before home time at 3:00pm.