Welcome
A very warm welcome awaits in the Bramley Vale Nursery classroom. The children are supported and nurtured by Mrs Foston – the class teacher and the very experienced Teaching Assistants – Mr Jones and Mrs Dutton.
In Nursery our aim – First and foremost – is focused on settling the children into a predictable routine where they feel safe and happy. We use a creative and structured approach to delivering a play based learning curriculum where our children learn and thrive.
Our children are at the centre of all that we do with particular emphasis on their communication skills, physical, social and emotional well-being, personal health and learning. We consider connections with family, communities, cultures and the natural world and how we can meet and respond to the needs of the child today and how we can lay strong foundations for their lives in the future.
Important reminders for parents
To facilitate the smooth running of your child’s learning in school and to maximise their potential we ask that you please ensure the following:
- School uniform should be worn every day. You may place orders on school app. or visit the main office
- Nursery children need to come to school wearing PE kit on each Tuesday.
- Reception children need to come to school wearing PE kit on each Monday and Tuesday.
- Snack money is 20p a day. Please ask your child to post monies in the yellow money box.
- Please ensure your child has a complete change of named clothes in school and named wellies!
- Name all your child’s belongings including: water bottles, shoes and clothes to avoid loss and disappointment.
- EYFS Library day is Thursday- we swap books weekly. Please ensure library books & reading diaries are in school on Thursdays, so we count up home reading for the Reading Olympics. Your child is working towards earning pins and prizes!
- Weather appropriate clothing is essential- a coat /hat , as we enjoy considerable time outdoors- no matter the weather!
We are always happy to discuss your child with you if you have any questions or concerns. We have an open door policy so do just come and see us! To also keep yourself updated, please check the school newsletter each week for upcoming events and the school blog on our website.
Useful Links
Our Learning Journey
Getting to know you
The beginning of the Autumn term has seen the arrival of many new families to our Bramley Vale School family. This has been a time for us to get to know one another and to begin to understand our place within the amazing family that is our school. The children have been building new friendships and have been understanding the rules and boundaries that are necessary for learning to happen. I am delighted to say that ALL of our children have taken to school life wonderfully and are remembering our class charter very well! They are using their listening ears, using their manners, showing kindness and sitting wonderfully on our carpet.
Maths in action
We have all been mastering numbers! The nursery children have been busy sorting, counting and singing lots of number rhymes. They are hearing and seeing numbers all around them and have loved joining in with the action songs. We are continuing to work on our sorting skills and have been looking at different ways that we could do this and are continuing our focus on spotting and making patterns of our own. The Reception children have been looking at the cardinal principle- how many there are in total and the true meaning of a number- that there are this many altogether. they have also been looking at patterns and found many ways to create their own including using potato stampers! Just like nursery they have been sorting objects too, but have been looking into the properties of the objects they sort such as size, colour, shape and how many they could share a group of objects.
Stickman Runs Again!
Our school’s CRAVE curriculum for the second Autumn term has lead us into Design and Technology and we have been very busy learning about materials- both man-made and natural. Our literary text – Stickman written by Julia Donaldson, is supporting our topic coverage and will take us to Christmas. With lots of repetition, the children will become very familiar with the text and its repeated refrains.
We have been looking at different materials and have been making our own choices about how we can use them. We have been junk modelling shoebox habitats and are learning all about and naming the animals that live in the Ocean, the British Woodland, the African Savannah and the Polar Regions. Lots of new skills are being developed to help us to be emerging designers such as holding scissors efficiently, using tools such as stencils, templates, hole punches, stampers and brushes. The children are also having a go at designing their own makes by either drawing them independently or describing what they would like to do. The children have also been learning about the weather and the seasons and the clothing we would wear at different times of the year.
Finally, the children brought all their new skills together, to create their stickmen- with clothes! They were given a design brief by the sticks themselves and set about planning their designs and then bringing their plans to life! The children did a wonderful job. The stick family should be very proud of their creations!
Little Star Nativity
The children were absolutely amazing in this years Nativity Performance. We could not be prouder of the children’s hard work and eagerness to perform for parents and family- with some family members making over a 400 mile round trip to see it!
Tiny Town Class Trip
The children enjoyed their annual visit to Tiny Town and also met Santa! With lots of fun to be had, resources to choose from and a cuddle from Santa Claus- who could ask for a better outing!
Paws, Claws and Whiskers!
For our Paws, Claws and Whiskers Topic this term links with our Geography CRAVE curriculum. We will learn mapping skills. We will ‘go for a walk’ in the local community and neighbourhood, talk about local features / places, interpret a range of geographical information, including using maps, globes and Google Earth. We will explore transport and life in Africa- both animals and people and will talk about differences and similarities. Our core topic book is: Ben and Gran and the whole wide, wonderful world written by Gillian Shields and is a wonderful text to support our in-class learning.
Through a variety of activities and PE we will be continuing to develop our gross and fine motor skills as nursery develop core strength and movement in readiness for mark making. Reception will continue their focus on letter formation as they learn their new sounds and blend them to make words.
Our Artistic inspiration this term comes from Pier Mondrian. His artist style of using gridded lines and distribution of blocks of primary colours will support the children’s understanding of shape, colour and layout on a page. They will have a go at replicating Mondrian’s works and will also experiment and make predictions with mixing primary colours and then secondary colours.
Bike-Ability
The Reception Children enjoyed three Bike-Abilty sessions in the hall. They built confidence with riding the balance bikes and gaining control of them using their feet and then the brakes. The children were very brave and fearless as they rode around the hall- sometimes at speed, but most importantly were able to listen to instructions and stop quickly when they needed to. They learnt how to use traffic lights and the meaning of the three colours.
Spotting Features around our school
The children enjoyed a walk around our school community and spotted features of our school along the way. These included our main hall, the pond and the head-teachers’ office. As they walked they created a ‘journey stick’ which helped them to remember and sequence the different features they saw when we returned back to class.
Talk For Writing- Little Red
This term the children have been learning to re-tell a story using a story map. They have been developing their oracy and fluency to tell a story independently using actions and words. Our story this term was the re-writing of the traditional tale- Little Red Riding Hood. Titled Little Red and written by Lynn Roberts, the children have loved retelling this story. They enjoyed tasting Ginger Beer which features in this story and surprising creates a wonderful and unexpected ending too. The children have loved innovating the story as a class by creating a different setting, character, problem and ending. They used their creative thinking to create their very own version to be proud of. As progression and challenge, the Reception children were tasked with Inventing their own story using the new ideas and vocabulary and using their new phonics knowledge to write too.
A walk around our local community
With the children wrapped up warm in hats, gloves and thick coats we embarked on a journey around our local neighbourhood- Bramley Vale Village. As we walked the children were tasked with spotting numbers and all things orange! We also used our listening ears to see what we could hear when we turned our voices off. We created a Journey Stick as we walked and stopped at local landmarks and features. We stopped at the school field, heard birds twittering and cheeping in the trees, touched a frozen puddle, saw the local bus stop and the village landmark- The Winding Wheels, took a short-cut to the local park and had a fabulous play at the park with our friends!
