St. Margaret's-at-Cliffe Nursery & After School Club.

Nursery Life

We open at 8.45am and encourage the parents to bring their children to the nursery to settle them for the session. Children are encouraged to self register by putting their name up on the 'Who is here today?' board

We take a formal register once all the children have arrived; we headcount the children continually throughout the day.

There is a mix of adult led and child initiated activities on offer during the morning and afternoon sessions.

If the weather is good then the children are free to move in and out of the nursery as they wish. When the weather is bad we try to go outside at least once a session, using wellies and raincoats if required.

At 10am we offer the children a snack; a choice of fruits and vegetables, savoury crackers, and milk or water to drink. We call it ‘cafe time’. The children are encouraged to help get the table and chairs ready for this, and take it in turns to help prepare the fruit. They are free to visit the cafe when they are ready and help themselves to the fruit available, they are encouraged to clear away their plate and cup afterwards and help with the washing up if they wish to.

At 11.30am the children help to tidy up the nursery and garden and sit down for a 15 minute story time before washing their hands and going into the lunch room.

After lunch the children come back into the nursery room to take part in a mix of adult lead and child initiated activities.

At 1.30 we again operate a ‘cafe’ where children can independently access fruit and water when they are hungry or thirsty. We tidy up and then sit down for a quick story at 2.50pm before home time.

 

Curriculum

From September 2008 the nursery will be following the new Early Years Foundation Stage – the EYFS

This is a package of guidelines provided by the government to ensure that all children from birth to five years old receive good quality care.

The EYFS is based on principles of inclusion which means that early years providers oppose discrimination and prejudice and welcome all families and children. They provide care and education for a wide range of children in environments that enable children to feel safe and supported and which extend their learning and development.

Throughout the EYFS stress is placed upon understanding each child and their family as unique, with different needs and concerns. Children’s development is presented under six overlapping phases. This overlap is intended to emphasise the fact that there can be big differences between the development of children of similar ages. At the same time age can be a cue, when taken with all other factors, to indicate that development may be atypical and that a child may need extra support.

Learning and development in the EYFS is divided into six areas of learning and development:

Personal, social and emotional development.

Communication language and literacy

Problem Solving, Reasoning and Numeracy

Knowledge and understanding of the world

Physical development

Creative development

 

The daily, weekly, termly and yearly planning revolves around ensuring all the children get access to a broad and balanced curriculum involving all of these six areas.

 
Activities

Our aim at St Margaret’s Nursery is to provide a stimulating environment for children where both play and learning are part of every day. A varied selection of activities is provided throughout the day using both the indoor and outdoor environment to help each child learn and understand skills, which will help them fit into the world physically, intellectually, emotionally and socially.

Consideration is taken to ensure that provision is made for children's special needs and abilities.

 

Messy Play:
A large variety of different mediums is made available to the children. These provide different tactile and imaginative experiences, and will encourage expressive language.

 

Sand and Water:
These are always available. They provide opportunities to experience scientific and mathematical concepts as well as encouraging social and language development.

 

Creative Activities:
Activities such as painting, sticking, chalking and box modelling are regularly available. Additional games such as ring games, lotto and snap encourage conversation and the learning of social skills - turn taking, sharing, winning and losing.

 

Imaginative Play:
A St Margaret’s we recognise the importance of imaginative play to children and aim to provide rich opportunities to widen the imagination. These include dolls and accessories, road maps and cars, trains, dressing up clothes and a home corner. Various different play settings are used usually tied in with a current topic. There is also a selection of construction toys that encourage good hand eye coordination, counting, sorting etc.

 

Physical Play:
Bikes, tricycles, balls, hoops, climbing apparatus are always available outdoors. If the weather is bad we still try to go out once a session, and provide appropriate indoor physical play.

 

Books:
A variety of books are available for children to look at and read, both under supervision and alone. Children are read to each day. Parents are also encouraged to take home a book each day to read to their child.

 

Outings:
Because of the location of our nursery we aim to be involved with the village as much as possible. This allows the children the opportunity to connect with the local environment and help to feel part of a community. We try to take the children out to visit the local library, church, or market at least once a month.

 

We base our activities around a termly theme — this usually is chosen by looking at the children’s interests as well as tying in with the reception class in the school. Typical themes include - “All About Me”, “People Who Help Us”, And “MiniBeasts”. Staff take it in turns to plan activities around the children’s needs and interests—a copy of the weekly plans is always on display.

 

First Days

There is no universal way to ensure a child’s first days at nursery go well, but we will try to make their beginning a positive one. We are open to your feelings on settling your child in and are happy to accommodate your wishes. If you feel your child will benefit from a slow period of introduction with you staying for a while, please let us know. Please ask to read our Settling in policy.

 

What to bring

Children generally need change of clothes, school PE bags are available for this use; please ask if you would like one, and a warm outdoor coat.

If your child is staying for lunch they can either bring a packed lunch—we suggest sandwiches, fruit, cheese, savoury biscuits etc., or can order a school dinner from the kitchen for £2.00.  We have a healthy eating policy at nursery and discourage parents from providing lots of sweets and crisps for lunch. All other food and drink is provided for the children.

We offer school book bags for £3, we use these to allow the children to take home a reading book each day, please let us know if you would like one.

You can also buy a nursery t-shirt for your child for £6, please ask if you would like one.