Welcome From Lydia
What a busy term the Summer term is! I don’t think as a team we have stopped!!
School reports have been written and hand delivered to 12 schools. Transitions of all ages to different rooms, new starters joining and being contacted to start with us in August and September. Additional Groups to encourage smaller groups of children – We now have again a Rising Preschool group who have their key person time in our entrance hall. I am sure you will join me in saying what a welcoming environment it is for us all to share.
We have welcomed Amelia who has joined us from our nursery in Filton as our Twos room leader.
The Baby room has had changes. Gemma is enjoying some experience with our older age groups as she decides if she wants to complete her next level in her childcare training.
We have welcomed Karenza, Rachel and Katie to our baby room team to work alongside Tom and Sean is new to the kitchen.
During August you will start to see some changes in some team members across the rooms. We do this every now and again for all our staff to gain new experiences but to also build on their strengths and to continue to support them to stretch their Personal Development in childcare.
As always, I cannot thank the amazing team for all their hard work and dedication.
School Leavers
I cannot believe we have yet again had this year’s Leavers party. Saying goodbye to our school leavers and families who we have built relationships with for quite a few years is always hard. I also find this time of year very rewarding. I like to look back and see how much your children have grown in height but also in confidence and what characters they leave us with.
Thank you to you all for choosing the Court House for your children to attend. We really do count it a privilege and an honour to be part of your children’s learning.
DATES FOR YOUR DIARY
- Monday 23rd September – McMillan Cake Sale
- Tuesday 1st October – Parents Evening – 6:30pm-8:00pm
- Monday 28th October – Whole Nursery Photos with concept – 9:30am-12:00pm
UPDATE FROM SAFFIA
We have had a busy summer! It’s been great to see the creativity and excitement at the Leavers’ parties. It’s always sad to say goodbye to children and families, but amazing to see them step into the next stage of their lives.
Leaving and Staying
At Mornington House, whilst celebrating the school leavers, we also celebrated staying, acknowledging the amazing news that on 1 August, both Sally King and Melissa Wickham will have worked for Bristol Childcare for 20 years! We are very proud to have had Sally and Melissa on our team for so many years. They both bring a huge depth of experience and creativity to Mornington House and we hope they will be with us for many more years. Thank you to both of them for their dedication and commitment.
A new framework
Ofsted have produced a new framework against which we will be inspected from September. Whilst nothing will change for you or your children, in the background we are doing a lot of work to prepare for this! We are always looking for new ways to support you and your children and this summer have developed our libraries of books for you to take home and share at home, we hope you are enjoying this. Reading together is one of the best ways to help your child learn and develop and we love books at Bristol Childcare. Another idea we are developing is a series of Core Books that we will be enjoying with all children at Bristol Childcare. Look out for baskets of these in the rooms from September.
If you like to do activities at home with your child, there are also age-appropriate ideas at this link:
https://hungrylittleminds.campaign.gov.uk/
Hungry Little Minds is a campaign set up by the Department for Education. Please let us know what you enjoy through ParentZone on your child’s Timeline so that we can continue to extend any learning at nursery. Please let us know what you enjoy through ParentZone on your child’s Timeline so that we can continue to extend any learning at nursery.
Environmental impact
We have also been auditing our environmental impact and have put together an environmental statement that you can read on our website under the About Us section. As a team we are looking at ways we can reduce our environmental impact, starting with simple things such as ensuring lights are turned off when not required and that we are recycling everything we can. Following on from the success of our bras upcycling, we are organising a collection of mascara wands which will be sent to a wildlife charity as they are perfect for using on small animals. There is a collection box in each nursery so please donate any used mascara wands that you have lying around at home! As always, our aim is to work in partnership with you to help provide the best care and education that we can for each child and each family. Please do get in touch with any suggestions.
BABY ROOM
June, we welcomed Rachel to the room who has settled into the nurser y well and has become an important part of our team, in July we welcomed Karenza who has also become an important par t of our team. If you have any questions about who your Childs key person is, please do not hesitate to ask.
We have been exploring our messy side this summer. Looking at different sensor y textures using our feet and hands, including making pictures using cling film and our feet!
We have enjoyed lots of outdoor play also practising our art and messy skills with painting outside and we also enjoyed emptying and filling containers. We will have some little Picassos yet!
For rainbow day we have been making art as colourful as the rainbow and we have been singing lots of songs and will be talking about people we love throughout July and August!
Some of our older children have been sleeping on our sleep mats within the room. They have taken to these well and seem to be settling well also. If you have any questions about this please feel free to ask.
RAINBOW DAY
I would just like to say a huge thank you to ever yone for the positive feedback we have received from r ainbow day! It is so hear t-warming! Celebrating love and who we are is impor tant for ever yone. So again, thank you to ever yone!
We have had a lovely day filled with colourful activities we have made r ainbows and hear ts and looked at all the different colours, the children all came dressed so brilliantly!
Thank you all!
PRE-SCHOOL
Mini Glasto
During the Glastonbury festival period we decided to recreate a ‘mini Glasto’ for the preschool children to experience.
We promoted this by making wristbands for entry, t-shirt painting, glitter station, refreshments station, yoga area, camping and glamping area, a main stage so the children could perform, and we even had our own port-a-loo!!
We were lucky enough to have the opportunity for Bristol radio to come and experience our festival too.
Did you see the clip online? Take a look at the BCC Facebook or Twitter pages to find it.
Leavers Party
This year our leavers party theme was mini beasts, chosen because the preschool children were interested and eager to learn more about this topic. Over the last few months we have been learning about all different mini beasts with lots of fun bug activities and learning songs about our favourite beasts.
At the party the children and staff were dressed as their favourite mini beasts. We enjoyed a lot of dancing and singing to our favourite songs and we played musical statues. Then it was time for our mini beast food, we had hot dogs, ladybird’s watermelon, caterpillar salad, worm mud pies and mini beast theme cupcakes made by Charlie’s mummy.
After our lovely mini beast feast it was time for the presentation. All the children sang one of our favourite song we have learnt and even some of the parents joined in. All the children received a special photograph keepsake book from the Court House to say good luck and enjoy your new adventure. We will miss you.
TWOS ROOM
I have recently joined the twos room team in May as the twos room leader. I moved over from the baby room at the Priory Day Nursery in Filton where I worked for three and a half years. Before moving here, I went travelling for three months going all around the world starting in Paris and ending in Australia. In total I visited 8 different countries. I have enjoying getting to know all the children and parents and I am looking forward to the adventures that being at the Court House will bring.
The twos have become increasing independent over the last few months; they have learnt to put their own coats and jackets on by flipping it over their heads, they have started to cut up their own fruit during snack using child friendly knives and self-serving during lunch time.
Recently we have started letting the children free flow between the garden and the room; this has been working well and it has given the children more choice on where they would like to play. The children all play together and join in with each others games.
In July the children showed an interest in the garden plants so we decided to teach the children how to do the gardening; they helped to dig up the weeds, plant tomato seeds and they have been helping to water them every day, especially in the sunny weather.
We are looking at having more natural play within the rooms and we are looking for some resources. If you have any of the following we would be grateful if you were able to donate them. We are looking for; old wellies for planting, photo frames, curtain hoops/ rings, anything that is metal for our metal basket and old catalogues/ magazines/ cards for cutting.
Newsletter – Late Summer – The Priory