Welcome to William Bellamy Primary School Nursery

Virtual Tour of William Bellamy Primary School Nursery

If your child is due to join our Nursery in September 2021, please take the time to show them the Nursery so that they are able to get familiar with their new environment. We are looking forward to welcoming our new families soon. 

Nursery 2021-2022

Overview of Learning in Nursery

Below is an overview of the learning that is going to be taught in Nursery this academic year. The coverage of planned provision will also include the interests of children and planned provision to support the gaps that have been identified. 

Development Matters is a non-statutory curriculum guidance. It looks at checkpoints for children from birth to 5 years old. 

Click the document below to see what your child will be learning about this half term.

Our first moments at William Bellamy Primary School Nursery

The children transitioned into William Bellamy Primary School Nursery by attending 'Stay and Play' sessions with their parents and then began to slowly come in, starting with an hour per day. It was crucial that during this transition period, the children felt safe and secure at William Bellamy Primary School Nursery. It was important that this transition period was planned well to enable all children to settle. Take a look at all of the fun, engaging and stimulating activities that the Nursery children undertook during their first moments here at William Bellamy. 

Woodwork Training

During the transition period, each child was introduced and trained at the woodwork bench. They learnt how to correctly hold a hammer. A member of staff modelled to the children how to hold the nail with one hand and how to hammer in the nail. All children successfully passed their training. 

All About Me

The topic 'All About Me' enabled pupils to develop relationships with their key worker and begin to make and secure relationships with others. Parents bought in photographs of themselves and these were displayed in the role play area. This sparked conversations with the children and they enjoyed talking about themselves and their family. The pupils began to transfer this knowledge into their group and they were able to identify features of themselves and recognise similarities and differences between themselves and others. 

Early Years Foundation Stage 

- Make connections between the features of their family and other families. 

-Notice differences between people. 

- Begin to make sense of their own life-story.

- Talk about members of their own immediate family. 

Through the topic ‘All About Me’ the children will be talking about their friends and their family. They will be looking at similarities and differences between themselves and others and what makes them unique. The children will be reading the text 'Happy in our Skin'. 

Self-Portraits 

Whilst completing their self-portraits, the planned provision included a variety of opportunities for pupils to strengthen and develop their expressive art and design skills. The focus of the activity planned to allow pupils to:

- Explore different materials, using all their senses to investigate them. Manipulate and play with different materials.

Our self-portraits

The Little Red Hen

The aim of using this core text focused on pupils being able to make sensible predictions, retell the story focusing on the beginning, middle and end, focus on the Early Concepts of print particuarly the difference between picture and print and providing pupils with a first hand experience of bread making. 

In the provision, the children were given a range of different opportunities to engage in activities that were linked to 'The Little Red Hen'. The children focused on learning new vocabulary and were able to apply this when sequencing the story and retelling this.

The children were provided with an opportunity to taste different breads and comment on these. They voted for their favourite bread and answered how and why questions related to these.

Each child was provided with an opportunity to make a bread roll. They had to follow a recipe. This immersive experience sparked a conversation into different changes and what the bread dough felt like. 

"It so sticky" - Indi 

"When we put it in the oven it went hard like a roll!" - Lilah 

Sophia used a range of different materials to make a portrait of the hen explaining "This is the hen. She got 2 eyes like me and a beak!"

Early Years Foundation Stage 

- Explore how things work.

- Talk about the differences between materials and changes they notice.

- Explore and talk about different forces they can feel.

Mathematical Explorations

The indoor and outdoor environment incorporates a range of opportunities for pupils to develop their mathematical understanding and concepts of different skills. Take a look at which skills pupils have been developing. 

Pattern

Children were exposed to patterns in a range of contexts. They were challenged to match patterned socks on a washing line and to use informal language to describe these. 

"The sock spotty! Lots of spots" - Frankie 

"The stripy sock. It blue, white, blue" - Scarlett

Children were then exploring different animals with patterns. They were applying their knowledge of language to these. 

"The zebra is black, white, black white" - Ella

"The giraffee" - matching the picture of the giraffe print - Yacoub 

Early Years Foundation Stage 

- To explore pattern and using informal language to describe these e.g. spotty/stripey.

- To continue a 2 part pattern using language such as; over and over and repeats.

Our favourite number songs

The importance of Nursery Rhymes

-It helps to support children's listening and attention skills. 

-It helps children to tune into different sounds. 

-Supports children's social skills

-The foundation for children's reading and writing.

Mr Ahmed sat with two children. They were enjoying singing '5 Little Monkeys' and '1,2,3,4,5 once I caught a fish alive'.

Helicopter Stories

The impact on incorporating Helicopter Stories into the Early Years Foundation Stage. 

• An inclusive, whole-class approach which values every child’s contribution;
• Facilitates high levels of engagement;
• Creates confidence and self-assurance;
• Supports the development of speaking skills as children express and share their ideas;
• Helps to develop accurate, active listening skills and understanding;
• Supports co-operative and collaborative and creative learning;
• Develops positive relationships within a shared storytelling experience;
• Allows children to explore early literacy and the power of words as they see their stories come to life, and develop their ability to use and adapt language to communicate;
• Offers children a bridge into the world of creative writing as they begin to see the links between the oral stories they compose and the words on a page.

Every Monday two children from each group are chosen to tell an adult in Nursery their Helicopter Story. At the end of each session, these are read by the adult and the children select the character that they want to be and then other children are selected to join their story. Below are some examples of the Helicopter Stories that the children have composed and photographs of the children acting these out. 

Phonics - Phase 1

Below is the phonics progression throughout Nursery. It is important that we follow and use this progression throughout the year to enable your child to tune into different sounds enabling them to apply this knowledge both into their reading and writing. 

Phase 1 phonics focuses on developing children's listening, attention and speaking skills, laying the foundation for phase 2. During Phase 1, there is an emphasis on providing opportunities for children to tune into different sounds and at the end of the year practice this skill through oral segmenting and blending. Phase 1 is divided into 7 aspects:

1. Environmental Sounds

2. Instrumental Sounds

3. Body Percussion

4. Rhythm and Rhyme

5. Alliteration 

6. Voice Sounds 

7. Oral Segmenting and Blending 

How to support your child with their phonological awareness?

. When you are out walking with your child talk to them about the different sounds that they can hear e.g. Police siren/helicopter.

. Animal Bingo Cards – matching animal noises to the animal. You could use this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd6wZHUDCUg

. Clapping the syllables in your child’s name e.g. Daniel is 2 syllables. You could also clap the syllables in other objects or other family members names.

. Responding to music – fast/slow movements.

. Follow and copying a beat. For example 

"Copy, copy, copy what I do... if I tap my head you can do it too"

Environmental Sounds

Instrumental Sounds

Body Percussion

Rhythm and Rhyme

Voice Sounds

Oral segmenting and blending

People who help us

At the beginning of the topic, it was important that we gathered knowledge on the children's starting points. Each day they were asked 'What they knew' about different occupations and what they would like to find out. This information was crucial to support practitioners in their planning and delivery lessons that support children's knowledge. 

Police Officers

Doctors

Vets

Firefighters

Owl Babies

LOST Posters