Nursery

Welcome to our Nursery!

Our Class Teacher is Mrs Barbara Speer

Our Nursery Nurse is Mrs Clare Hale

Our Teaching Assistant is Mrs Lynette Walker

Welcome to the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), which is how the Government and Early Years professionals describe the time in your child's life between birth and age 5.

All 3 and 4 year olds are entitled to 15 hours per week free early education from the September following their third birthday.

At Gade Valley, our Nursery is led by an experienced, qualified teacher and as such, we pride ourselves on delivering a high quality education experience that helps to prepare children for school life.

We currently (2023/24) provide 15 hour morning and afternoon Nursery sessions 5 days per week during term times.   In addition, we are pleased to offer 30 hour funded and non-funded places during term times.

Nursery Session Times

• Morning Nursery 8.45 – 11.45 am

• Afternoon Nursery 11:45 am - 2:45 pm

• Pupils in receipt of 30 hours funding 8.45 am - 2.45 pm

Please ensure you drop off and collect your child on time from the Nursery Classroom.

Extended Provision is also available for an additional cost.

Lunch Club (15 hour places only) – 11:45am – 12:30pm  (Children will need to bring their own packed lunch)

After School Club (30 hour places only) – 2:45pm – 3:15pm

We have one intake per year beginning in September, with 30 places available.  We would love to show you around, please call or e-mail the school office to make an appointment.

If you have any questions about our Nursery facilities or the application process, please visit the admissions page, or call or e-mail the school office.

The Parents' Guide link below will help answer many of your questions and help you through your child's future learning and successes.

Half-Termly Curriculum Letters

Our Learning Journey 2023/24

Book of the week: Hairy Mclary and Friends

During their first full week in the Nursery, the children have had lots of fun making new friends and exploring many of the activities we have available both inside and in the garden.  They have been learning some of our daily songs and routines and had their first trip to the daily mile track where some of them were motivated to run round the track more than once.

Our Learning Journey in 2022 - 23

Book of the week: Starting School

We've had a great last week in the Nursery completing our busy finger activities with excitement.

We gave our vegetables lots of water to help them continue growing through the holidays and are looking forward to next year's nursery children digging them up and showing them in assembly.

The children enjoyed eating their ice lollies in the garden and dancing at our mini-disco.

We have had a wonderful year watching the children's confidence grow.  We will miss them all but look forward to hearing about their many achievements in the future.

Thank you for all your kind wishes, cards and gifts, we hope you all have a wonderful summer break.

Book of the week: The Lighthouse Keeper's Lunch

This week the children have enjoyed learning about the job of a lighthouse keeper.  During active learning, some of the children tried to make to a zipwire to send a basket of fruit from one side of the playground to the other.  They also used the gutting and pipes to move water to make a pond in the tuff tray.

Our busy finger activities included making bubble pictures, match quantities of shells to the correct number, catching a fish game and decorating sea creatures and fish using coloured buttons.

In our music session, the children used the shakers they had made to accompany the song 'The Grand Old Duke of York'.

Book of the week: Little Red Riding Hood

This week the children have been listening to our story of the week and learning about the importance of not talking to strangers.  

During busy fingers, the children have been developing their fine motor skills by using tweezers to pick up matchsticks and weaving baskets for Little Red Riding hood to carry her treats for Granny in.  They have been perfecting their pencil control by tracing the path to Granny's house using lots of different colours and sharing lots of traditional tales with their friends.  

In preparation for our Music session next week, the children each made and decorated their own shaker.  We are looking forward to some noisy music next week.

Thank you to everyone who came to open evening, it was lovely to see the children proudly showing you their classroom and their work.   

Book of the week: The Gingerbread Man

The children enjoyed listening to the story and joining in with the repeated refrains.  We learnt our song of the week: 5 Little Gingerbread Men, and had fun taking turns to be the Gingerbread Man who ran away.  During busy fingers, the children developed their fine motor skills, putting buttons on the pictures, making play-dough gingerbread men and practising their pencil control by colouring pictures.  We carried our a science experiment to see whether a gingerbread man would sink quickest in hot water or cold water.  Most of the time our predictions were correct.

Some of the afternoon children had a go at making their own gingerbread men using salt dough.

We all managed to catch lots of duck in our Hook-a-duck sponsored challenge, the children showed lots of perseverance and determination.

Finally, we were excited to see our butterflies emerge from their cocoons.  After observing them in our butterfly house, we watched them fly away across meadow to find some flowers.

Book of the week: The Large Family Sports Day

We have had lots of fun taking part in a variety of sports events this week.  Some of our favourite activities were jumping, throwing and the obstacle race.  During busy fingers, we created flags for our House Team and read some books about different sports.  We loved taking part in sports day and seeing our mummies, daddies and other family members cheering us on. 

On Monday, the children were surprised to see a new climbing frame in the garden and had a great time exploring the climbing wall and netting before sliding down the slide.

On Friday, we were excited to see that one of our caterpillars had emerged from their cocoon and as beautiful butterfly.  We hope to the rest of the butterflies next week and look forward to letting them go and watching them fly away.

Book of the week: The Very Hungry Caterpillar

The children were very excited to see some caterpillars arrive in the nursery this week.  We have been watching them grow and measuring them everyday until on Friday, they had all spun their cocoon's and were hanging from the lid of their little pot.  Over the next couple of weeks we will be waiting for them to emerge as butterflies.  Our 'Busy Finger' activities included making edible caterpillars using cucumber and tomato which tasted delicious, threading all the different food the hungry caterpillar ate onto a piece of string, painting symmetrical patterns on butterfly wings and creating a butterfly life cycle using different types of pasta.

Book of the week: What the Ladybird Heard

We have been enjoying the sunshine this week and making the most of all the activities in the garden.  After reading our book of the week, lots of the children decided to look for bugs.  We found spiders, ants, slug and worms but we didn’t see any ladybirds.

During busy fingers, the children used stencils to make bug pictures and matched numbers on ladybirds to the correct number of spots.  We used our scissor skills to cut out bug pictures and had our first go at programming the BeeBots.   In PE, we practised our running races.

Book of the week: Dear Zoo

The children loved reading our story this week and thinking about the animals they would like to have from the zoo.  They each wrote a letter to the zoo asking for their favourite animal.  During our music session, the children sang about all the animals included in the story, added a few of their own and making the animal noises.  

They also explore animal camouflage by using cotton buds as paint brushes to copy the patterns.  

Enterprise Week

Book of the week: Superworm

Continuing our theme of superheroes, this week the children learnt all about Superheroes who don’t wear a mask.  We discovered that being kind, caring and helping our friends makes us all superheroes.

For Enterprise Week, the children have been excited to have their pictures taken in our Photobooth choosing funny props to wear and making funny faces.  They were also keen to share their photo’s with the rest of the school in sharing assembly.

During busy fingers, the children made pasta worms by threading the tubes onto shoe laces, practised recognising and matching numbers to the correct quantity of worms and were challenged to make worms of different sizes using playdough.  

Book of the week: Supertato.

This week the children have really enjoyed being superheroes.  During busy fingers they created colourful pictures of superheroes, rescued vegetables that had been taped to the Tuff Tray and used tweezers to remove the evil peas from the jelly.  On Friday, the children completed a number hunt looking for Evil Peas showing the numbers 1 - 10 that had been hidden around the classroom.  In the afternoon, the children loved running around the track in their superhero costumes.

Book of the week: The Colourful Coronation

This week the children had lots of fun learning about the Coronation of King Charles III.  We learnt a special song for the celebration afternoon, made bunting to decorate the classroom and nature crowns using foliage from the woods.

Book of the Week: Duck in a Truck

The children were very excited to see the ducklings on Monday and each child held one of them in their hands.  They were very cute and soft.

After reading our book of the week, the children were motivated to find rhyming words in the story and learn our 'Silly Soup' song.  During busy fingers, they practised finding rhyming pairs and suggest other words to make a rhyming string.  They also used different shapes to make animal pictures, created pictures by painting with mud and used nets to catch the ducks in the water tray.

In PE, the children have been developing their hand/eye co-ordination using hockey sticks to move their ball around the floor.

Finally, Andrew Masters visited the afternoon children and told them a story from the bible and played his guitar.

Book of the week: The Ugly Duckling

The children have had lots of fun this week, sharing their news about the Easter break and comparing Beanstalk pictures to see who's plant has grown the tallest.  We have had lots of fun in the Nursery garden, enjoying the sunshine, planting our vegetable plants and seeds in our new growing area and seeing how many laps we could run during Track Time.

The children were excited to see the duck eggs arrive on Tuesday and have been visiting everyday to see how many have hatched and watch them grow.  After reading our story of the week, the children have been learning about what makes a good friend and how we can be kind to each other.

During busy fingers, the children made bird feeders which we hung in the woods for the birds and squirrels to share.  We also practised writing our names and colouring ducks ponds which we shared with the school during Friday assembly.

Book of the week: We're going on an Egg Hunt

This week, the children have enjoyed learning about Easter and completing lots of Easter themed activities and had great fun dancing at our little disco during PE.  They all took their beanstalks home to continue growing and we are excited to find out which one grows the tallest when we return to school after the Easter holidays. 

We hope you all have a wonderful Easter break.

Book of the week: The Train Ride

This week the children enjoyed listening to the story and indentifying rhyming words. During active learning, they decided to build their own trains both indoors and in the Nursery garden, using old cardboard boxes.  Lots of children used their drawing, writing and scissor skills to create wheels, tickets and flags for the train and then had lots of fun pretending to go to the seaside.  

In Busy Fingers, the children practised matching and naming 2D shapes, matching coloured keys, building train tracks and ordering the days of the week.  They also planted the beans they have been growing in bags, ready to take home next week and continue growing.  

Book of the week: I Love My Mummy

This week we have been thinking about their lovely mummies and all the wonderful things they do to help us. During busy fingers, the children wrote their name in their Mother's Day cards, created butterfly suncatchers to decorate their cards and planted a pretty flower.  

We learnt out song of the week about Mothers Day and shared it with the rest of the school during assembly.

In our group time, the children shared why they love their mummies so much.

We wish all our lovely mummies have a wonderful Mother's Day.

Book of the week: Wakey, Wakey!

This week the children have been thinking about spring and the animals that come out of hibernation. 

During 'busy fingers', they used their scissor skills to cut up wool to make nests and thread pasta onto string to make wiggly worms.   They also used tweezers to rescue bugs from the spiders web and have been working hard to write their names independently.   

During active learning, some of the children chose to paint daffodils after seeing lots of them start to bloom in the Nursery garden and had fun using them to learn our rhyme of the week, '5 Little Daffodils'.

World Book Week: The Smeds and the Smoos

What an exciting and busy week we've had.  Everyday, we have shared books and stories with a different class from year 6 to year 1.  The children loved seeing their brothers, sisters and friends.

In Busy Fingers, we completed lots of activities  relating to the book using our fine motor skills and developing our maths skills.  

On World Book Day, the children were proud to show their costumes to each other and the whole school, confidently walking around the hall during sharing assembly.  On Friday, we joined KS1 and Reception class to explore lots of outdoor activities including painting on the playground and making rockets. 

Finally during snack time, we all enjoyed some pink milk just like the Smeds. 

Book of the week: Jasper's Beanstalk

This week the children have been learning about growing plants, during busy fingers, they all planted a bean in a bag.  We stuck them on the windows and now we are waiting to see our beanstalks grow.

some of the children bought in seeds from home so we planted those as well:  Carrots, courgettes, tomatoes and brussel sprouts. 

On Shrove Tuesday, the children pretended to make lots of pancakes using play dough and tried flipping them in a pan.  In the afternoon, we went over to the big school to make some real pancakes.  They were delicious.

Book of the week: Oliver's Vegetable's

We have had so much fun this week learning about vegetables.  We used vegetables as our 'Busy Finger' theme, creating repeating patterns, weaving baskets and threading.  One of the children brought some carrot seeds in and we planted them in a pot to see how long they take to grow.  We practised our scissor skills, cutting along wobbly lines and the afternoon children prepared some carrots by peeling and chopping them before boiling and mashing them.  They were delicious.

In PE, the children worked together to keep some balls on top of the parachute and loved lifting the parachute up in the air and running underneath.  On Friday, we watched a video about making vegetable soup and then, during snack time, we all tasted some vegetable soup.  Most of the children loved it and had a second helping.

We hope you all have a lovely half term holiday.

Book of the week: Oliver's Fruit Salad

The Nursery children have enjoyed learning all about fruit this week.  We talked about where fruit came from and how some fruit only grows in hot countries.  During 'busy fingers' the children used fruit to print patterns and funny faces.  In snack time, the children chopped up lots of different fruits to make their own fruit salad, just like Oliver and they loved trying lots of fruit they had never tasted before.  Yummy!

Book of the week: The Chinese New Year

This week we have been learning about Chinese New Year, in PE we worked together to dance like a dragon.

Winnie the Pooh's Birthday

This week the children celebrated Winnie's birthday with a Teddy Bear's Picnic and made our own sandwiches.  The children started by deciding whether the were going to make a jam or honey sandwich.  After spreading the burring on their bread or cracker, they put on their favourite topping and folding the bread in half.  We joined Reception class in the dining room for our picnic and we were joined by Mr Barron.  When all the children had finished their sandwiches we sang Happy Birthday to Winnie the Pooh and blew out the candles on his cake.  In P.E. the children were challenged to keep their birthday balloons off the ground by tapping them their hands, feet and knees.  Some of the children were able to stick their balloon to their head.  The afternoon children also enjoyed running round the track with the Teddy Bear's they brought into Nursery.      

Book of the week: Happy New Year Spot!

This week the children have been sharing what their did at Christmas and drew pictures of their favourite present.   After reading our story of the week, the children thought about what new skill they would like to learn to do this year.  During 'busy fingers', the children practised writing their names and recognising the numbers of the new Year 2023.  

After watching the firework display on New Years eve, the children used chalk to create their own firework display on the Nursery playground. 

It's been a great start to the new term and the children have had lots of fun.

Book of the week: Sleepy Jesus

This week the children have been busy creating lots of Christmas decorations.  They enjoyed playing in the snow and carried out an experiment to see what happened to snow when we brought it inside the Nursery.  The children discovered that the snow melted inside but when they put some in the freezer it stayed frozen.

The children had a great time watching the KS1 Christmas performance and in our music session had lots of fun playing instruments to accompany their Christmas songs.

On Thursday the children showed their friends their Christmas jumpers and were excited when Father Christmas came to visit them with a bag full of presents.  We also had 'Buddy Reading' with year 1.  The afternoon children loved watching the Panto 'The Three Bears' and we shared our song of the week during Friday sharing assembly.

Book of the week: The Father Christmas

After lots of rehearsal and singing practise, the children joined Reception class for the Nativity Performance.  They showed great confidence when singing 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star' on the stage and enjoyed seeing all their parents and family members in the audience.  What a fantastic show!

During Busy Fingers, the children developed their fine motor skills using scissors to cut out Christmas pictures, practised writing their names in their Christmas cards, drew 2D shapes in shaving foam and shared Christmas stories with their friends.

Book of the week: The Snowman

This week the children have been excited to learn about snow.  After reading our story of the week, we talked about how the little boy felt at the end of the story when his snowman had melted and how snow is made from frozen water.

The children enjoyed sharing their Christmas decorations with the rest of the school during sharing assembly and were helped by pupils from Year 6 to hang their decorations on the school Christmas tree.

We also shared our special song from the EYFS performance,

In 'Busy Fingers', the children made fluffy snowmen pictures, added the correct number of buttons to a snowman to match the number shown and have been busy creating their Christmas cards.

Book of the Week: Whatever Next!

This week the children had lots of fun finding out about space.  After reading our story of the week, the children took turns to role-play the story both inside and outside, using big boxes and items from the Nursery.  

During 'Busy Fingers', they created moon pictures by using different materials to stamp patterns and explored reading in the dark tent with torches.  

In Maths, we worked in our groups to sort planets and rockets in order of size from the biggest to the smallest.  Some of the children could name the planets too.

During 'Active Learning', the children enjoyed dressing up as astronauts and pretending to use computers to work in space.  They also worked together to make a back pack out of junk modelling resources.

Outside, the children investigated whether different items would sink or float.  They first had to make a prediction before testing the items in the puddles in the mud pit.  

In P.E. the children have been learning to use bats to control the movement of their tennis ball.  It was very tricky to keep the ball near the bat and move it in different directions but they showed great perseverance and determination.

Book of the week: How do Dinosaurs go to School?

This week the children were surprised to find a dinosaur hiding in the Nursery.  They had great fun trying to reach him.

During 'Busy Fingers', they used their fine motor skills to make pictures using dinosaur footprints, colour in pictures of their favourite dinosaurs and practise their Maths skills by counting sets of dinosaurs and copying the numbers. 

During 'Active Learning', some of the children decided to make a hedgehog house in the nursery garden.  Mrs Walker fund an old box and the children carefully filled it with straw and leaves to make a comfy bed, then they placed it by the fence an covered it with sticks and logs to hide it from hungry foxes.  We haven't found a hedgehog living in it yet.

To everyone's delight, we went to the big school to watch Lucas Jet perform lots of circus skills from juggling to riding a unicycle.  In the afternoon, some of the children had a go at juggling themselves and walking along the tight-rope.  

After sharing assembly, the children did some buddy reading with the children from Year 3, choose and book and sat and listened to the older children read.

On Forest Friday, the children went on a number hunt in the woods.  Each children found a dinosaur footprint or dinosaur egg with a number on it and then we worked together to put them into a number line by counting one more.

Book of the week: Owl Babies

On Monday, the children shared their news about the fireworks they had seen over the weekend and the afternoon children created a big firework painting by splattering paint onto black paper.

After reading our book of the week,  the children have had lots of fun learning about nocturnal animals.  Each child decorated an owl mask to use as a prop in their play and during 'Active Learning', some of the children chose to draw, paint or colour in different owl pictures. 

In Maths, we have been learning to match numbers to quantity by sticking the correct number of feathers to match the number shown on each owl.  Our Cosmic Yoga session this week followed the story of Tallulah the Owl.  The children are becoming really good at listening carefully and following the instructions.   In PE, we have been learning to work with a partner to roll a big ball accurately when sitting, kneeling and standing.  

For Remembrance Day, the children each created a poppy picture using handprints and shared their hopes for the future by drawing a picture of something they like seeing in outside.   

All our wonderful work will be on display in the classroom and school hall during Celebration Evening next Wednesday, 16th November 5pm - 6pm.  

Book of the week: Don't Hog the Hedge

This week we have been thinking about animals who hibernate during the winter.  After reading our story, the children thought about what it would be like to sleep all winter.  In 'busy fingers', the children decorated their hedge hogs using leaves from the Nursery garden to make them look like they were hibernating under a big pile of leaves.  We enjoyed showing our hedgehogs and singing our song of the week 'Autumn Leaves are Falling Down', to the rest of the school during sharing assembly.  We were very excited to have our first PE session in the big school and use lots of climbing and balancing equipment.  The children were very good and taking off and putting on their own shoes and socks.

We have also made a start at creating some decorations for the school Christmas tree and worked really hard to design our own Christmas cards.

Book of the Week: Room on the Broom

With Halloween approaching, we have had lots of fun being witches and wizards this week.  During busy fingers, the children created scary pumpkin faces using lots of different shapes and big spiders using handprints.  We made 3D prints in play-dough using our bugs, caterpillars and spiders and wrapped mummies up in wool.  Our fine motor skills have really developing.

During active learning, the children enjoyed dressing up as witches and wizards and flying around the playground on broomsticks.  We created our own witches potion to turn someone into a frog adding lots of weird ingredients and stirring the pot carefully.  The children also created their own magic potions.  Finally, we each decorated a biscuit using bright coloured icing and added two big eyes to make a Halloween treat which we loved eating after snack time.

We have had a great first half-term and the children have really settled in well to the Nursery setting.  We hope you all have a wonderful break and we look forward to seeing all the children on Monday, 31st October.

Book of the week:  This is Our House

After reading our story of the week, the children talked about how the little boy in the story was not very friendly.  We discussed what a good friend is and how we can be good friends.  some of the things they suggested were: Using gentle hands, letting everybody play our games and using kind words.  During Active Learning, we made our own house out of a large cardboard box and took it in turns to play in the house.  

Our busy finger activities included recognising and matching patterns by finding pairs of socks, creating pictures using stensils, making marks with our fingers in shaving foam and screwing nuts onto bolts. In PE, the children have been trying to beat their personal bests by challenging themselves to run one more lap of the track.  

Book of the week: Stanley's Stick

After reading our the story about Stanley's stick, the children were challenged to find a stick of their own in the Nursery garden.  Once they had found a stick, they children decided what their stick would be.  Their ideas included fishing rods, binoculars, flags, dinosaurs and an aeroplane.  During group time, the children decorated their sticks and proudly showed them to their friends.

During their Music session with Mrs Hale, the children learnt the names of different instruments that make the same sound.  They used egg shakers, maracas and bells to confidently to accompany some familiar nursery rhymes.

In PE this week, the children had a go at some 'Cosmic Yoga',  They used their listening skills to follow the instructions and showed great perseverance trying to balance in different positions.

Our 'Busy Finger' activities this each morning included threading small beads onto pipe cleaners, stretching elastic bands to create a picture, making 2D shapes using lollysticks and blowing paint in different directions with a straw to make colourful patterns.

What a busy week!

Book of the week: Chicken Licken

This week we have been looking for signs of Autumn and noticing how the leaves on the trees are beginning to change colour and the acorns and conkers are falling.  We have been working hard each morning to sweep the acorns off the playground so that we can ride our bikes and scooters and run around without slipping.  We used our mark making skills to create some leaf rubbings of the fallen leaves.

During 'busy fingers', we used large spoons and ladles to scoop up the conkers we collected and sort them into different sized containers.  We making and recognising 2D shapes using our play dough and our pincer grip using tweezers to rescue bugs from the spiders webs.  Finally, we loved practising our scissor skills by making small snips in different coloured paper.

Book of the week: What Makes Me a ME? 

This week we have been talking about how we are all the same but different.  We noticed that we all have eyes, hairs, two arms and two legs but our eyes and hair are different colours and we are all different heights.

During 'Busy Fingers', we used tweezers to pick up match sticks, matched the correct number of bears to numerals to 10 and built tall towers using construction blocks.  We have also been learning to recognise our names and practise our pencil grip by copying the letters and colouring some autumn leaves.

In 'Child Initiated' worked hard to sweep all the acorns off the playground and collected lots of conkers to used in our learning next week.

As part of a whole school display, we drew pictures of Queen Elizabeth II wearing her golden crown.

Book of the week:  The Little Red Hen 

After reading our story of the week, the afternoon children had a go at making their own bread.  They weighed out the ingredients and took turns to mix them all together before kneading and shaping their loaf, then they took them home to bake.

This week all the children enjoyed their first P.E. session on the big playground.  They should great

motivation and perseverance by finding different ways to use their hoop.   Pushing, rolling, balancing, 

catching and hoola hooping.  

Our Learning Journey 2021 -2022

Book of the week:  The Gingerbread Man

This week we have had lots of fun reading and role-playing the story of the Gingerbread Man.  During 'Busy Fingers', the children enjoyed making their own gingerbread men using playdough and designing their own gingerbread men.  The Maths activity was to use a dice to draw different features on a gingerbread man depending on the number thrown.  We also carried out a science experiment to investigate whether cold water or hot water would make a gingerbread man soggy the quickest.  Each group predicted that the cold water would be fastest but we discovered that hot water makes a gingerbread man soggy the quickest.

During active learning, the children spent a lot of time creating an obstacle course using different pieces of equipment.  Each day they added more and more obstacles to make the course longer.   

Book of the week: The Lighthouse Keeper's Lunch 

After reading the story, the children had lots of fun during our seaside themed week.  Our busy finger activities included decorating sea creatures with buttons, blowing and printing bubble pictures, taking turns to catch fish with a magnet, matching objects to numerals and practising our pencil control.  

During PE, the children used the Trim Trail to develop their balancing skills. It's amazing to see how confident the children have become.  In PSED, after drawing around one of the children in their group, they worked together, sharing their ideas to name different parts of their body.  In Maths, the children thought about their favourite sandwich fillings and found out that Jam and Ham were the most popular.

Thank you to all the parents who were able to join us on Wednesday, the children were really excited to share a story with their Mummy's and Daddy's.