Nursery
Welcome to our Nursery
Our Early Years team would like to welcome all new parents/carers and children.
Nursery Lead Teacher
Mrs N Awan
EYFS Teaching Assistants
Miss S Parker
Miss C Walsham
Welcome to all our friends in Nursery 
Nursery session times
Morning Nursery 8.45 - 11.45am
Afternoon Nursery 12.15 - 3.15pm
Children who stay all day 8.45am - 3.15pm
EYFS Lunch is 11.45am-12.45pm.
Nursery children can bring a packed lunch from home or order a hot school lunch. Please see our Early Years Information section on this website or contact the school office for more information.
Extra sessions are £15 per session or you may be eligible for funding for up to 30 hours - please enquire at the school office.
When you come to school, please remember to bring:
- your smile
- a named bottle of water that can be taken home to be cleaned and refilled every day
- your coat (on colder days)
- a packed lunch if you choose to have one
Our week at Nursery usually includes...
'talk times' where we explore key themes and topic information (direct teaching) to support and develop our listening, understanding, learning and speaking
exploring our continuous provision both indoors and outdoors, including a range of context-based, multisensory, vibrant and engaging activities (child initiated, independent learning)
getting creative with a range of mark making and craft activities using lots of different resources
'finger gym' and PE sessions in the hall or outdoors using a range of equipment to develop our strength, balance and ability
story, rhyme, music & movement sessions using props and resources to support our imaginative play and communication skills
and lots of interactive exploring with friends in Nursery and Reception!
Please feel free to email any experiences/photos you have with your child to office@dedworthgreenfirst.com.
If you have any queries, concerns or if you are not receiving emails please call the school office and let us know.
Throughout the year, we explore different themes using information and resources to enable us to deliver information that is engaging and exciting. Children learn about the world around us and in the Early Years, cover themes such as Friendships, Changing Seasons, Fairytales, A World of Animals and Journeys (transport, different climates, etc.)
We use key, classic children’s stories that link to these topics to enrich language experience and also to create a context for the topic based learning that we offer.
Role play areas are fun but focussed, offering opportunities for imaginative role play and for purposeful writing, counting and exploring.
EYFS themes 2023-24
| Autumn 1 | Autumn 2 | Spring 1 | Spring 2 | Summer 1 | Summer 2 |
Main Focus (Theme) | Friendships all about me, friendships, family, people who help us
noticing seasonal changes as we enter Autumn | Light and Dark (Autumn to Winter) changes in natural world, hibernation, seasons, etc. + sources of light, shiny things, festivals of light, Christmas | Fairytales exploring stories and traditional tales
noticing seasonal changes as we enter Spring | Growing things farm to fork Where does our food come from? How does it grow? What could we grow? | A World of Animals Farms- finding out about farm animals - what food can we get from chickens, cows etc.? + Finding out about lots of different animals from different climates around the world
| Carnival exploring light, shape, colour and texture through the expressive arts |
Maths - We will develop our thinking about numbers and shapes as we explore activities and experiences linked to counting, matching, recognising numbers, sorting, early addition, pattern, and language linked to size, weight and measuring.
Nursery: Autumn Term | Spring Term | Summer Term |
Reciting numbers to 5 and then 10 – use fingers to count Counting objects to 3 then 5 – say one number for each object as you count Recognising groups of 3 (fast recognition, subitising) |
Positional language – over, under etc. Use symbols and marks to represent numbers Exploring patterns and arrangements of shapes
|
2D shape - recognising and sorting, selecting appropriate shapes to build and connect Talk about patterns around them, create simple repeating patterns Number recognition – to 5 and then 10
|
Maths is included in various forms in all our role play areas and also as children explore other resources such as construction toys.
Phonics -
Children in the EYFS are introduced to the letters of the alphabet and the sounds they make using the 'Little Wandle' phonics programme, as we look at the shapes of letters and begin developing awareness of how to recognise and then write them. We also use some simple 'cued articulation' signs to support their multisensory learning of new speech sounds.
These inputs are taught directly and then supported with many activities in and around the learning spaces. In Nursery, we develop our listening and speaking skills and the ability to differentiate between, describe and identify sounds. In Reception, we focus on specific letters, oral blending and segmentation and then on to blending and segmenting with letters. Those who are ready to move on will be introduced to reading two syllable words and simple captions.
Reading -
We link lots of our learning to key stories which help to develop ideas linked to the themes we are exploring.
Early reading skills focus on how children can listen attentively, showing they understand the meaning of the text and how they recall and retell parts of the story in their own words.
Once children have settled into their daily routines in Reception, we will start to send home simple books to share and retell together - some of these books will be without words as we encourage your child to use the vocabulary they already have to describe what they can see in the pictures, other books may have a few simple, repeated words that children can begin to decode using their developing phonic knowledge.
We also use puppets and story props (such as costumes, character blocks and objects from the story) to support your child's imaginative play as they recall and extend the language they have heard.
For some other ideas, please look up Phonics Play and Little Wandle videos on YouTube for your children to play and watch whilst learning.