About Nursery

Opening Times: Monday to Friday 7:45am - 6:00pm, 50 weeks a year.

Closing for a period over Christmas and also a week during the Summer.

Closed on all Bank holidays.

Our Philosophy

At Verwood First Nursery we strongly believe children are born with an amazing potential and a wide range of abilities. Therefore, we believe that it is our role as practitioners to both inspire and engage the children in a love of learning for life. We aim to stimulate and develop the children’s inquisitive minds, encourage friendships, develop motor skills, provide challenges and establish boundaries.

Our role is to work in partnership with parents and carers to provide the building blocks to help reach your child’s full potential during their time with us.

Children will have many opportunities to learn through play during the day at Nursery. We will ensure that learning will be fun, engaging, and we will challenge and support all children wherever their starting point.

As Early Years practitioners and a strong and committed team we will endeavour to provide high quality interactions in order to develop and deepen the children’s learning opportunities. We will deliver our curriculum through a balance of adult led and child-initiated activities based on the new EYFS Curriculum Framework and the children’s interests. We will use in the moment planning which again is based on children’s particular interests.

Environment

Our Nursery has two main rooms which are home to our Hedgehogs and Squirrels. The hedgehog group is our school ready children, where the room allows children to explore all aspects of the EYFS curriculum through the range of provision provided. The areas are well resourced and contribute towards our enabling environments where children learn through play. The squirrel group is our younger children. The room is a language rich environment where children can experiment with messy play, role play and age appropriate adult led activities.

Squirrels 2 – 3 years

The children play in a language rich environment with a team of staff that are dedicated and understand this crucial stage in early development. Lots of outdoor play in our safe fenced garden encourages children to run, jump and climb. Indoors, children experiment with messy play, role play and age appropriate adult led activities. All these ingredients mixed together provide an environment to keep these little minds busy and to encourage a love of learning and discovery.

Hedgehogs 3 – 4 years

This is our school ready group of children, as they will leave Nursery at the end of the year. This room resembles a classroom with several table and chairs and particularly zoned areas for example Writing Area, Reading Corner and Numeracy Station etc. The children have free flow play within this space and the areas are resourced to provide continuous provision for them to be successful in their learning and exploration. Dedicated practitioners prepare the children for their next adventure at ‘big’ school. The children will follow the ULS (Unlocking Letters and Sounds) Nursery programme and will be encouraged to develop literacy and numeracy each day through independent play or adult led focussed activities.

Both Hedgehogs and Squirrels benefit from a large safe outdoor area including a playground and a sensory garden as well a playhouse and mud kitchen, sand and water play where they can engage in lots of fun, adventures and play. As we are part of the main school we are able to use the excellent facilities. These include the woodland area, small adventure playground, the field, the outdoor classroom as well as the hall and the library.

We manage all transitions very carefully whether a new starter or moving into a different group. We take care that each child is given time to adapt to their new environment, firstly consulting with parents and carers and deciding what is best for each individual child and their needs.

Communication

We work in partnership with parents and carers to provide the building blocks to help reach every child's individual potential. We use Class Dojo to show key learning and share messages with parents. Parent’s also use this as a quick and effective tool to communicate messages they wish to share and any exciting things they’ve been getting up to at home. Nursery also has a designated nursery email and telephone number which can be used for urgent calls/child wellbeing. Once your child is enrolled you will be set up with a ParentMail account which will be the paramount source of communication for Nursery and the whole school.

We regularly talk with our parents on the door and ensure they know we have an open door policy. We are always available to talk to you at the start and end of the day, where it may be decided an appointment or phone call should be arranged, where appropriate. In line with school we have parent consultations during the Autumn and Spring Term and then during the Summer Term a written report is given to parents.