Our Nursery

Welcome to Bishy Barney Bees!

Our nursery is run by Mr Scott (Nursery Teacher) and Mrs Gregory (Nursery Nurse). By having highly-trained teaching staff who work closely with the team in Reception, we ensure each child’s transition into the main school is as smooth as possible.

We offer a range of sessions for 3 to 4-year-olds from 8.30am to 3.15pm, Monday to Friday.

As well as being Bishy Barney Bees, we are also known as Hedgehogs class.

Our Nursery ethos

We aim to ensure that we are providing an appropriate and high-quality experience for our youngest pupils. We set out to provide learning opportunities which are imaginative and offer direct teaching, balanced with opportunities for children to choose activities for themselves. Research shows that early opportunities for children to learn in such an environment can have long term educational and personal benefits.

Our Nursery curriculum

Our curriculum is based on the ‘Development Matters’ 2020 non-statutory guidance, and supports each child’s progress in the following:

Communication and language
Physical development
Personal, social and emotional development
Literacy
Mathematics
Understanding the world
Expressive arts and design

A Day in Our Class

Nursery begins with self-registration where children find their own name then practise writing their name, followed by book choosing and reading with friends on the carpet.

We then sing our welcome song as a group, before focus time linked to maths. This will involve a number song, then some games which help develop the skills for early numeracy, whether it be counting, grouping, or understanding some basic concepts linked to shapes and measure.

Children choose their learning via continuous provision indoors and outdoors, before we enjoy group phonics learning. Using actions, songs and games, we support children with firstly tuning into the sounds around them, and then understanding how words break down into their individual sounds (known as ‘segmenting’) before ‘blending’ them back together. We progress to learning some of the early single sounds, which helps support their readiness for the transition into Reception.

Each session we enjoy milk and snack time together, encouraging conversation to develop speech and language skills. Our sessions end with a story linked to our topic or current interests of children within the group, and our goodbye song.

Working with Parents and Carers

We understand the critical role parents and carers play in children’s education, and appreciate the trust involved in leaving your child in our care. We aim to keep parents fully informed of how their child is developing and progressing at nursery, while offering support and advice on how their learning can be furthered at home. We do this through the following:

Key person system: all staff within the nursery will work closely with each child in class, but to enhance this we make sure every child in Hedgehogs class has a key person. Their role is to help ensure that every child’s care is tailored to meet their individual needs, to help the child become familiar with the setting, offer a settled relationship for the child and build a relationship with their parents/carers.
Google Classroom: we provide updates on what children have been doing each week and observations of each child’s development through our Google Classroom.
Weekly updates: we share a summary of the areas of learning which have been covered in class each week through Google Classroom, along with ideas of how parents could link to this learning through activities at home.
Parents evenings: taking place each term, they allow for parents to talk in-depth with the nursery team about a child’s development, helping both parties raise any comments or concerns they may have.
Stay and play sessions: we have held stay and play sessions in class, which are a lovely way for parents to get a sense of what a nursery day is like for their child!