Here at Thornhill we have a wonderful nursery provision where we take children from 2 years of age.
We offer the 15 and 30 hours care and accept the Government funded 30 hours scheme and Childcare Choices.
Our EYFS provision has a large outdoor area, which they get to enjoy all to themselves and we love being outside, whatever the weather! We also enjoy going out and about in the wider school and we even attend assemblies!
Most of the children’s time in Nursery is spent engaging in child-led learning, where the children have access to all areas of provision, we have a large space which can be separated as 2 classrooms or one large learning space. Our children are able to follow their own interests. The adults support the children’s development by joining them in their play. We all love to have lots of fun.
We have half-termly topics linked to the seasons and celebrations throughout the year. We have time daily where we all come together to learn specific skills and to introduce new enhancements linked to our topics. We will sometimes have an adult-led activity following on from these times, which the children can choose to access if they wish. We also love to welcome visitors to Nursery, linked to the things we are learning!
The children are provided with free milk and fruit and we come together for snack time each day, which is a chance to have a chat as a group. Occasionally, we will have a special snack linked to our learning, like pancakes or hot chocolate! We also use this time to teach maths skills, such as counting, comparing, and number recognition.
Once the children have settled into Nursery, we introduce daily phonics sessions, following the Read Write Inc. Phonics Scheme. There is a strong emphasis in Nursery on Phase One phonics, which teaches the children to listen carefully and distinguish between different sounds in order to prepare them for reading. We play lots of fun and practical games and activities to support this.
The children who stay with us for the full day are able to choose a school dinner from our delicious menu!
In Nursery we use Tapestry to record observations of the children and keep parents informed of their children’s journey in school. Parents are also able to upload observations of any “wow” moments their children experience at home, which allows all of the adults involved with the children to keep up-to-date and informed on their progress.
