Nursery

At St Columba's Catholic Primary our large Early Years Department is made up of three stages – Eden (our 2 yr old provision) the Nursery Class (3-4 years) and the Reception Class (4-5 years). We are very proud of our purpose built unit that provide a thorough and carefully designed pre-school education.

As in the main school the first and abiding priority is the education and welfare of each individual child. The curriculum is carefully planned, covering all areas of the development of each child.

The Early Years staff work closely as a team, making sure that all aspects of the child’s development is carefully monitored and a smooth transition into main stream education is ensured. The Early Years department follow the progressive and carefully planned Foundation Stage Curriculum.

Our EYFS Leader is Mrs Eagleton and our Nursery teachers are Mrs Marcinczak and Ms Breen and our teaching assistants are Mrs Wood, Miss Briggs, Miss Link and Miss Fisher (maternity leave). Miss Burton supports in both Eden and Nursery.

On behalf of the Early Years team, we would like to welcome you to Nursery. We are so glad you have chosen to become part of the St. Columba's Family.

Our Early Years aims to create an environment, which will meet the needs of each individual child, so that they can continue to build on their existing knowledge and experiences that you, as parents have already taught them. At St. Columba's, we will help the children to achieve their full potential, developing their thinking, their knowledge, skills and attitudes to prepare them for life in our ever- changing world.

We aim to create a warm, happy, secure and inviting learning environment. This will help the children to feel comfortable, confident, and respectful of themselves and others, regardless of gender, race or culture. We want the children to have fun and to be happy, learn to become more independent – to think and do things for themselves by learning to make choices and to share and co-operate. We believe our environment will deliver effective learning where children will develop essential life-long skills, enthused and inspired to become autonomous and intuitive learners.

NURSERY HOURS

Morning Session Commences at 8.30 am
Morning Session Ends at 11.30 am

Afternoon Session Commences at 12.15 pm
Afternoon Session Ends at 3.15 pm

Children must be collected no later than 11.30 am and 3.15pm respectively.

During each session children are provided with a healthy snack from apples and carrots to pears and bananas and are provided with free milk to access independently throughout the session. When children stay for the full day they do have the option of bringing a packed lunch and joining lunch club for a small additional fee.

The EYFS Leader and a member of nursery staff will make a home visit in order to meet the children in familiar surroundings before the child starts in our EYFS provision.

A Typical Day in Nursery

We like to have a warm, friendly and lively classroom environment which promotes exciting and enthusiastic independent learners where both the outdoor and indoor activities give the children their best chance of accessing the full foundation stage curriculum and allow them to reach their full potential. We aim to build children who are confident, thoughtful and independent, which is an essential part of each child's learning journey. 

Whether it is a morning, afternoon or a full day session, children have the opportunity to explore all areas of the classroom freely, as learning through play and socialising with their peers supports their learning. Our areas include a home corner/role play area, exploration table, phonics table, literacy and maths, small world, construction, reading corner, fine motor, pencil control and a creative area. Children have access to a range of malleable materials; water, sand, play dough, ice, sand, foam, pasta and paint.

We also have access to a huge outdoor area where children are encouraged to use our physical equipment (bikes/scooters/cars) and balancing equipment. We take our learning outdoors whatever the weather and we encourage appropriate clothing come rain or shine!  We think outdoor learning is fun!  Our teachers plan provision carefully to cater for our learning needs!

We enjoy celebrating our faith in God through songs, prayers and collective worship. We carry out a morning prayer, before and after dinner prayer and an evening prayer. We carry out small collective worship sessions daily which are supported by exciting RE sessions. We recognise that all of our our children are unique, individual and special and we will allow every opportunity for our Nursery children to showcase their many talents.

Tapestry

In Nursery, Tapestry is used to 'capture' and celebrate our children's learning. Tapestry is an easy-to-use online learning journal which helps school and parents/carers to record, track and celebrate children's progress in early years education.

Log on to see your child's profile - photos, videos and written comments and don't forget to add your own - we love to see what our children are doing at home too! 

Please download the Tapestry app.  Fill in the Tapestry agreement and give it to Mrs Eagleton, our EYFS Lead and we will quickly get you set up with an account so that you can access your child's learning journey and contribute from home.

If you would like to meet our nursery team and have a look around our unit please arrange a visit by contacting our office staff by either telephone or email.