May 2023 at Atworth!
Summer is coming!
Summer is on its way! We have been loving the sun here at Atworth and have had a very busy May!
Pre-school have been out and about in the local community. They took a trip to Shockerwick House care home to meet the residents and sing them some songs. They shared their favourite story books and took a little hamper of goodies for the staff and residents to enjoy! Our little ones particularly enjoyed saying hello to the cat!
Green fingers!
We have been getting our little planting patch in the forest garden ready for the spring! Pre-school have worked really hard with Nat and Charlotte to replenish our crops! They have planted their seeds that they bought at Whitehall and are making sure to water them every day to help them grow. They chose climbing French beans, potatoes, carrots, courgettes, strawberries, raspberries and cucamelon!
Thank you!
We’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone who came to our garden party for the King’s Coronation – what a huge success! It seemed like everyone was having a lovely time and the little ones really enjoyed themselves. We hope you loved this as much as we did. Here are a few pictures from the day!
The big ride!
A lot of you were asking about Ella’s bike ride to Amsterdam so we thought we’d give you a little run down and post the donation link one final time for any last minute donations. On the first day from Kent to Dunkirk you may have heard that Ella flew over her handle bars and in to a fairly large puddle during a hailstorm! Lucky not too much damage was done and Ella was back on the bike for a windy cycle from Dunkirk to Bruges. After a restful evening, day three from Bruges to Rotterdam was a very tricky 100 mile day. After 12 hours on the saddle the whole team made it to Rotterdam ahead of their final stint! The team arrived in Amsterdam on a very busy Kings day where they were greeted with huge applause and some beautiful tulips.
Thank you all so much for your interest and support during Ella’s cycle, please find the donation page one last time below.
Click here to donate and make a difference
WE NEED YOUR HELP!
As many of you know we are an accredited curiosity approach setting, meaning we try to reflect the home environment in our resources and what we offer, following a very child-led approach to learning. In order to aid us with this we are asking if you have any old pots/pans/kitchen utensils that you could donate! Please do not bring in anything new, but if you have anything sitting in a cupboard going spare, we would love to give it a new home.
If you happen to have any old trousers/pants that need a new home also, we would be more than happy to pop these in our spare clothes.
Updates and reminders
Our lovely Ellie in toddlers will be finishing with us at the end of the month to start her maternity leave before she welcomes her little boy in June! We wish her all the best and cannot wait to meet her new arrival!
Please can we ask that now the weather is warming up that we have a named sun cream, sun hat and a named water bottle for your little one to keep on site.
You may have seen a new face around Atworth recently! We hope by now you have all met Abbie and Imogen who work across our toddler and pre-school rooms and are completing their qualifications! We have now also welcomed Gemma to our toddler team, who many of you may already know as a parent! We are thrilled to have Gemma back on board who worked at our Broadwood site a few years ago, make sure you say hello!
We have had a few cases of chicken pox throughout the nursery recently, mainly in our Toddler room, but also a few in our Pre-School room, so please keep an eye on your little ones for any signs/symptoms! If you would like more guidance on this, please just as one of the team.
Don’t forget - your concept pictures need to be returned by Tuesday 30th May!
If you are a PRE-SCHOOLER keep reading..
As the end of nursery and the start of school looms closer we are asking that if your little one is making the leap this year that you bring them in a ‘pe kit’ for nursery. This is simply just a change of clothes for them to do some sport activities in – whatever is comfy! As we start to prepare your little ones for school and promote their independence, just a few times a week we will be changing in to our pe kits and heading outside for some sports and games! If you have any questions on this, please ask the pre-school team.
You should have now received an e-mail inviting your little one on their leavers trip, if you could respond as soon as possible so we can check our numbers for this that would be great! If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.
And finally, our graduation date is Saturday 5th August! We will reveal the details of this closer to the time, but we can confirm it will be between 10.30 and 12.30 here at the Atworth site. All pre-school leavers should have also received an email on this, and we will be asking for your RSPV’s!
April 2023 at Atworth
Welcome back!
We hope you all enjoyed your Easter break and are enjoying the sunshine! The time has come to round up a n o t h e r month! We have had lots going on this month with lots more to come!
Forest school
We have been very lucky to have Nat our forest school leader with us this month! Nat has been busy exploring new things with all of our little ones and taking them to exciting places! Everyone has been busy toasting apples on a stick over the fire, some of which with the addition of cinnamon which was a big hit!
Pre-school have been practicing their skills using the bow saw. They took turns to chop some pieces of wood for our loose parts. They were very careful and demonstrated great control!
Some of our little ones took a trip to Whitehall! They were very strong pushing the trolley and brought back lots of lovely plants for our new sensory garden. They took a list and looked really carefully for the plants we needed to make our gardens look beautiful!
Out and about!
We are really enjoying the sunny weather over at Atworth! We have taken a few trips to the park to have a little picnic and explore the swings!
The babies have particularly enjoyed getting out in to the garden to explore painting with handmade paintbrushes and mud, mixing colours with water and practicing their gross motor skills using the climbing equipment!
Arts and crafts..
All of our rooms enjoyed making their Easter crafts, from Easter biscuits to chicks from card! They haven’t let their creative spark end there as they have continued exploring all sorts of new materials and approaches. Pre-school have been pressing objects in to clay to see what patterns they can make and have been making dens in the garden with Holly. Babies have been exploring their senses rolling cars through paint and squeezing shaving foam!
Final reminders
Now that the weather is warming up and we are planning on spending more time outdoors we do ask that you please provide your child with a named suncream that can remain at nursery and a named sunhat. We also ask that you bring in a water bottle that your child can take to the garden with them.
Upcoming dates..
We have rescheduled our Holi Festival festivities for Wednesday 3rd May. We already have lots of your permissions for this, but the teams will be double checking with you if your child attends on this day that you're happy for them to participate!
On Friday 5th May we will be hosting a garden party in celebration of the Kings Coronation. You should have had your invite for this so please RSPV! Please note that if your child does not attend on this day and you are planning for them to attend, a parent/carer will need to remain with them.
Concept are coming back for another visit on Wednesday 10th May. All children in on this day will have their photos taken, however if your child does not attend on a Wednesday and you'd like to bring them in to have their pictures taken then we do have limited slots available, so just pop us an e-mail to get booked in.
We are planning our next parents evening! For BABIES and TODDLERS this will be on Monday 15th May and for PRE-SCHOOL this will be on Tuesday 16th May. Your child's room will have a booking sheet for you to sign up for this if you wish.
Ella is off! Ella has been busy cycling her way to Amsterdam in the aid of SFC, a charity who support families in the local area. If you wish to show your support and are able, follow the link to donate and spread a little kindness!
https://localgiving.org/fundraising/fourcountriesfourdays/
March 2022 at Atworth
Spring is here!
We have had so many exciting events this month to round off the winter, from World Book Day to Wild Club! Let’s have a little look back at what we’ve been up to….
We loved seeing all your costumes for World Book Day and got stuck in with lots of activities! Babies were exploring Handa’s Surprise and tried lots of new fruits including passionfruit and pomegranate. Toddlers sat down and explored their favourite stories, whilst pre-school worked together to create a beautiful bear hunt picture! We had a little competition between ourselves here at Atworth to see who could be the best dressed, and our admin Kathryn (also known as little red riding hood) took home the prize!
We celebrated our lovely team of ladies on international women’s day by giving them all a positive affirmation attached to a flower and setting them the challenge of a quiz all about us! If you would like to show your appreciation, feel free to drop them a snappy superstar.. the link is below!
Nominate your superstar!
You all did a GREAT job with your red outfits for Red Nose Day! We had plenty of dance parties across the nursery and got stuck in with some messy red activities! Babies explored moon stand, squeezing it together and then watching it crumble! Toddlers made some red playdough and some red shaving foam for their messy play, and pre-school once again showed off their baking skills, making cupcakes with a little cherry for a red nose!
The 13th to 17th was nutrition and hydration week. We have sampled lots of fruits and spoken about what is good for us and what is bad for us. It is no secret that we pride ourselves on our healthy eating here at Snapdragons so we thought we would take this opportunity to share some of our recipes with you. Let us know if you try these at home!
Stir-fried pork noodles
Chicken and vegetable soup
Veggie packed Spanish rice
We hope all our mums enjoyed their goodies for Mother's Day and their bacon sandwiches if you were lucky enough to get one! Your little ones certainly enjoyed making everything for you. Babies were busy making a little keepsake card for their mummies with their teeny tiny handprint! Toddlers prepared some yummy biscuits along with a herbal tea to treat their mummies to a bit of relaxation time! And pre-school got their hands mucky making some wild seed bombs and a little cream tea!
We got stuck into a bit of teeth cleaning on world oral health day last Monday. All of your little ones did an AMAZING job at brushing their teeth with their friends! They even got to keep the toothbrush! We hope they have carried this on at home! Here’s a fun song that pre-school used to inspire their little ones!
Finally, we had our wild club which looked like an enormous success, we would like to say a huge thank you to our forest school leaders Tim and Nat for hosting this. We saw lots of muddy fingers! If you attended, we hope you had a lovely time.
Spotlight on..
As well as all of these amazing activities we’ve had going on with our events throughout the month, the rooms have also been busy in their day to day! Babies have been exploring lots of mark making both indoors and outdoors. They have been doing large scale painting with kitchen utensils, chalking and mark making in sand!
Toddlers have l o v e d their messy play this month! They have coloured shaving foam, splashed in water and had a go at making their own playdough!
Pre-school have been very patient when practicing their turn taking by playing group games, they have been sharing puzzle pieces and concentrating on learning the rules of their different games!
Snow day!
We were lucky enough to see just a little bit of snow this month before we waved goodbye to winter! Your little ones absolutely loved exploring this in the garden, so we wanted to share some snaps with you!
Dates for your diaries
To round up another lovely month, please note the dates below that you may want to make a note of!
Friday 31st March - end of term for our term time only children
Friday 7th April - Nursery closed for Easter bank holiday
Monday 10th April - Nursery closed for Easter bank holiday
Friday 21st April - visit to care home for our pre-schoolers
Monday 24th-Friday 28th April - Ella on annual leave cycling to Amsterdam!
If you would like to sponsor Ella for her 250 mile ride from England to Amsterdam, you can read all about it and do so here - keep an eye out on your weekend travels to see if you can spot her training with the team!
Sponsor Ella's big cycle!
February 2023 at Atworth
Goodbye and hello..
Goodbye to February and hello to Abbie and Imogen! Before we have a look back at the month we just wanted to pop a spotlight on Abbie who has joined our toddler team on a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon, and Imogen our student who has joined our preschool team on a Thursday and Friday!
What have we been up to?
We celebrated children’s mental health week across the nursery. This years focus was on connections and relationships, and how this is so important for a positive mindset! We focused on how we could connect ourselves to the local community, and took part in lots of mindful activities such as yoga. As you may have seen in a recent e-mail, we are still popping together our hamper to take to the care home so please keep the donations coming in.
We also celebrated valentine’s day by getting stuck in with lots of arts and crafts. Hopefully, you enjoyed a card or a biscuit from your little valentine! Pre-school made heart cookies, babies explored playdough and clay, and the toddlers worked really hard on their cards for their mummies and daddies.
Pancake day was a big hit! A huge shout out to our lovely chef Mel who cooked pancakes for the whole nursery! Our little ones had a choice of toppings from strawberries and blueberries to lemon and lime!
This month the babies have absolutely loved exploring natural resources in their messy play and have created some wonderful pictures. They have done painting with corks and logs to make different patterns, explored puffy paint and playdough!
Pre-school have had a go at hapa zome with Holly! Holly is currently training in forest school and has been using her skills to bring some exciting new activities in to pre-school! Hapa zome is an ancient Japanese art form based on leaf printing!
Heads up! Events incoming!
We wanted to give you a bit of a heads up for next month as we are planning to be very busy!
Thursday 2nd March is WORLD BOOK DAY. We have lots of book tokens so please ask your rooms for one of these and come dressed in your favourite book character! Please remember this doesn’t need to be something new, something handmade, reused or recycled would be great! We’ll be keeping an eye on what our staff are dressing as so let us know who you think is the best dressed!
Wednesday 8th March is international women’s day and Holi festival of colour. We will be empowering our wonderful team of women here for the hard work and commitment they give every day. Just like last year we will be throwing powder paint to celebrate Holi festival. If this is something you would NOT like your child to participate in, please please let us know. Here are some pictures of lasts year’s festivities!
Friday 17th March is Red Nose Day – more information on this to come!
Sunday 19th March is Mother’s Day, we will be planning lots of lovely activities for this and a few surprises for our mummies so keep your eyes peeled for this too!
13th-19th March is nutrition and hydration week where we will be popping the spotlight on our healthy menus and exploring healthy foods learning about why they are good for us. We will be sharing some lovely recipes with you too!
and finally Monday 20th March is world oral health day so we will be planning lots of things to focus on keeping our teeth clean and healthy!
Reminders reminders..
- Please remember that nursery drop off is after 8am and pick up is before 6pm.
- If your child is unwell and you can keep them at home please do so, our policy still stands that if they require Calpol they should remain at home. We have had a case of chicken pox in our baby room this week so keep an eye out for any spots!
- Please bring your child with a water bottle to nursery each day and remember to take this home at the end of your session
- We would love you all to send in some family pictures for us to keep in the rooms, you can e-mail these to atworth@snapdragonsnursery.com
- don’t forget to nominate your snappy superstar and tell them how amazing they are!
https://www.snapdragonsnursery.com/superstar
And finally..
One final note to say that Ella will be on annual leave from 6th to 10th March. Not quite the time to cycle to Amsterdam yet but skiing in Austria this time! The senior team will be on hand to answer any queries during Ella’s absence. Don’t forget if you want to sponsor Ella’s ride from London to Amsterdam in aid of SFC you can do so here, all donations are greatly appreciated.
Ella's four countries in four days | Localgiving
January at Atworth
Hello 2023! The team had a very restful Christmas break and have been busy as ever this month! We have had loads going on from making feeders for national bird day to celebrating Australia day with sausages! Here’s a little look back at our month and some key dates for your diaries.
Events events events …
This month we have celebrated national bird day, Chinese New Year, burns night and Australia day! Pre-school even celebrated children’s inventors’ day and pre-school health and fitness day.
For national bird day we made bird feeders and popped out into the garden really quietly to see what birds we could find. Toddlers have been exploring the binoculars in their room looking at their environments super close and far away!
Chinese New Year brought an array of activities to Atworth, pre-school made spring rolls, toddlers made their own rocking rabbits for the year of the hare, and babies have been diving into Chinese culture and colours!
Burns night brought haggis for lunch which was a hit with most, but not with all! And plenty of activities using tartan patterns and Scottish flags.
For Australia day the children were able to explore Australian culture with some lamington cakes, cork decorated hats, and sausages cooked over the fire!
Take a look below at pre-schools amazing creations for their inventors’ day, and some of the sporting activities they got up to.
Babies spotlight
Babies have been getting creative! They have been exploring all things messy from pencils to crayons to moon sand! They have been exploring texture by squeezing and practicing their fine motor skills learning how to hold pencils and pens to make marks. We definitely have some little artists in the making!
Toddlers spotlight
The weather didn’t deter the toddlers! They have been busy getting outdoors and enjoying the gloomy weather! They have been putting their skills to the test with balance bikes, scooters and hula hoops! A firm favourite for the toddlers recently is football and seeing how many balls they can kick around the garden!
Pre-school spotlight
Pre-school have been focusing on The Tiger who Came to Tea, they have shared picnics in the role play area with a tiger, painted their own tiger pictures and made some tiger-coloured gloop! Pre-school have also been giving Mel a helping hand in the kitchen, making baby pizzas with muffins and kneading dough to make bread!
Ella’s big cycle…
We thought we’d better let you know that from the 24th-28th of April I will be on annual leave making my way to Amsterdam.. on two wheels! I have teamed up with the charity Sporting Family Change to take on the challenge of cycling across four countries in four days. We will start in London and cross through Dunkirk, Bruges and Rotterdam before arriving in Amsterdam, covering a different country each day. Snapdragons are very kindly sponsoring the ride and are behind me every step of the way. I am absolutely no cyclist so this will be a huge challenge, but for a great purpose and a great cause. There is LOADS more to come on this soon which will be e-mailed out to you, but in the meantime, if you wanted to sponsor me in the hopes I make it to Amsterdam, please follow the link below.
Ella's four countries in four days | Localgiving
Reminders and dates for your diaries
To round things up we just wanted to pop a reminder out that during this time of year we really appreciate having labelled woolly hats and gloves and where possible, and a waterproof suit for your little ones. We do try to explore the outdoors in all weathers so these few things really make it a lot more inviting! We do have a few spares – but just not quite enough to cater for all! Please also remember to bring your little one in with a named water bottle, and a pair of slippers for their room!
Also a reminder that you can follow the link below to nominate your ‘snappy superstar’ these really boost the team’s morale and pop a huge smile on their face. We are celebrating ‘time to talk’ day with our staff this week, making sure we make time to talk about what’s on our minds, and they have all received a little pick-me-up gift too!
https://www.snapdragonsnursery.com/superstar
Upcoming dates
- Children’s mental health week 6th-12th February
- Valentine’s day - 14th February
- Term ends for term time only children - Friday 10th February
- Next term begins for term time only children - Monday 20th February
- World oral health day - 20th March
- Nutrition and hydration week - 13th-19th March
November and December 2022 at Atworth!
Another year done!
We have had a very busy two months so we thought we’d pop November and December in to one winter Newsletter! Just a reminder that the nursery closes on Friday 23rd December and re-opens on Tuesday 3rd January.
A HUGE thank you to everyone who came to our smores evening with our lovely forest school leaders, we hope you loved it as much as we did! Our forest school champs Tim and Nat have been working their magic with your little ones making all sorts of crafts and exploring all sorts of wonderful places!
I’m sure you will all join me in saying a massive congratulations to the pre-school team for their nativity ‘a miracle in town’. All of the children did AMAZING and looked wonderful! If you are a pre-school parent and would like a copy of the nativity video please pop your £5 in to the office!
All of the rooms have been busy getting festive and making lots of goodies to bring home, so we hope you enjoy these when they arrive! Take a little look at the rooms below!
Babies
Babies have been loving the festive season, dressing up and exploring all things Christmas! Unfortunately Santa was unable to visit this year but he sent his elf with some presents which they loved opening! They have also been getting stuck in collecting leaves to make wreaths, and getting messy with paints creating decorations.
Toddlers
Toddlers have been exploring their creative side this winter, making colourful playdough and seeing what shapes and patterns they can make. The toddlers have also loved singing along to some festive tunes with their musical instruments and took a trip outside to explore the snow - which some enjoyed more than others!
Pre-school
Pre-school have been busy as ever! They have had a cheeky elf visit their room over the festive period who has set them challenges each day, one of which was to make mince pies which they did amazing with! They have been busy making natural Christmas decorations and wreaths, and even ventured outside in to the thick fog and for a story by the campfire!
That’s all from us this year! Just a quick reminder that as the cold weather has now set in we would really appreciate each child to come to nursery with a named hat, thick coat and gloves.
As ever, please do nominate your snappy superstar to give them a little bit of Christmas cheer. We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Snappies Superstar — Snapdragons Nursery
October at Atworth
Hello October! What have we been up to?
We would like to say a big hello to all of the new families that have joined us over the past few months, we have loved getting to know you all and hope you’re as excited as we are to begin your Snapdragons adventure. The rooms have been busy again this month exploring all things Autumn!
Babies
Babies have been exploring their love of messy play! They have ventured outside in the rain to cook up some mud pies, and snuggled up in the summer house for a Brown Bear story. The babies have also helped to make lots of moon dough and playdough which they have really enjoyed exploring!
Toddlers
Toddlers have been thinking about bonfire night. They have been learning how to create their very own firework pictures using natural resources. They have also been reading Room on the Broom and talking about potions!
Pre-school
Pre-school have been busy as ever painting, baking and exploring! They have been getting crafty practicing their scissor control to make collages, and painting pumpkins! Pre-school are always keen to lend our chef a helping hand and have been making bread and cakes for the nursery to enjoy. They have also been mixing up some magic potions in the garden with herbs and spices!
A HUGE HUGE HUGE THANK YOU
A huge thank you to everyone who supported and donated to our wear it pink event! We have raised over £600 so far and are still collecting our last few donations! We are absolutely over the moon and hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did, you may have even got to take away a raffle prize! We are still finding a date for our sponsored toddle so will confirm this with you as soon as we know.
Another big thank you to all of those who attended our parents evening – it was a lovely event and the team loved chatting to you about what your little ones have been getting up to. If you missed parents evening but would like a little update from your keyworker, please do let us know!
Upcoming events
Our fun isn’t over for the year yet! Take a look below for a few more key dates to have in your diaries!
- Wednesday 2nd November: Concept Photography
If your child already attends on Wednesday 2nd November there is no need to book a slot, however if your child does not attend on this day and you would like them to have their photo taken please let us know so we can book them in!
- Spooks and Smores evening: Wednesday 23rd November 4.00pm-6.00pm
We will be sending an e-mail about this event shortly so keep your eyes peeled!
- Pre-school nativity: 29th November at 10am
Pre-school parents save the date!! More information to follow soon
- Last day of term for term time only children: 16th December
- Christmas closure: 23rd December
- Return to Nursery: 3rd January
To round things off we’d like to give a warm welcome to our new apprentice, Chantelle, who you may have seen hiding in the toddler room! Chantelle is completing her level 3 qualification with us here at Atworth. Chantelle likes to spend time with her family and friends and enjoys horse riding in her spare time.
Looking for something to do over the half term? Take a look at the link below!!
Pumpkins aren't just for carving — Snapdragons Nursery
September 2022 at Atworth
Another month done! Where has the time gone!?
This month we have had the pleasure of having our forest school leader, Natalie, with us. Not only has she been busy carving away at piles of wood to make our gardens beautifully curious, but she has also treated the children to a few surprises! Pre-school put on their wellies and took a trip to Westonbirt Arboretum where they had a little hunt for the Gruffalo. Unfortunately, he was a bit too quick and got away before they could catch him! Toddlers visited Bath City Farm where they met some animals and took a stroll through some long wavy grass.
As well as this all of the children have been getting stuck in with day to day forest school activities such as painting with berries, apple picking and even cutting some wood! You may have been lucky enough to take some of these apples home!
What have we all been up to?
Babies have been exploring their love of the outdoors this month. They got really stuck in to the berry bashing and using them to create beautiful pictures.. some may say the pictures tasted quite nice too! They have been rolling apples down gutters full of paint and using the outdoors to work on their motor skills, we may have seen a few babies take a few of their first steps!
Toddlers have been delving in to the gingerbread man which they chose as their book of the month. They have been busy reading, acting out and exploring the story in all different ways! They especially loved the sensory play using sand and cutters to make their very own gingerbread shapes. They practiced sharing, and taking turns.
Pre-school have also been busy exploring their book of the month, they chose the very hungry caterpillar! They know the story so well they have almost run out of activities! They have cut their own fruit very carefully to make their own fruit kebabs for snack, they have indulged in cherry pie, made a caterpillar post box and fed him the correct amount of each fruit AND painted their own butterfly pictures using symmetry printing. Gosh they have been busy!
Your Snapdragons kit list!
As the winter months are now fast approaching, we thought we’d pop a little reminder about things we find super handy to have in your little one’s nursery bag. We also find it super handy if they are named, too!
- Lots of spare clothes
- Wellies
- Slippers
- Water bottle
- Hat
- Raincoat/waterproofs
- Nappy cream
Thank you!
A reminder of some dates for your diaries…
Many of you have already seen the e-mail that was recently sent out but we thought we’d just remind you of the important dates coming up, there might even be a few new ones sneaking in there!
- Tuesday 18th October: Babies and Toddlers parents evening. Please talk to the room teams to book a slot.
- Friday 21st October: Pre-school parents evening. Please talk to the team to book a slot.
- Friday 21st October: Wear it pink. We will be having a day of wonderfully pink celebrations in the name of raising awareness for breast cancer research and support. Keep your eyes peeled for more information.
- Wednesday 2nd November: concept photos from 9.30-11.30. If your child is not booked in to attend on this day please contact the office if you would like to book a slot to pop in!
- Wednesday 23rd November: Smores and sparks. We will be hosting our very own smores evening with our lovely Nat, more information to follow on this soon!
Superstars!
..and finally another huuuuuge thank you to all of you who have nominated your superstar, it really is such a boost for the team. Again, please find the link below if you wanted to send your favourite team member a little thank you!
Snappies Superstar — Snapdragons Nursery
July and August 2022 at Atworth
Hello! Summer is here!
We hope all of our term time only families and school leavers have a fun and relaxing break! If you are one of our all year round families please remember to let us know if you have booked a last minute break or are enjoying a day out together over the summer so we can update our systems. Thank you!
Graduation..
A huge huge thank you to all of our families who attended our pre-school graduation last month, it was a huge success and we are so proud of each and every child. Good luck to all of our school leavers in their new adventure, it has been an absolute pleasure to have you all with us. Here are a few snaps from the day!
Nominate your superstars..
I’m sure you will agree that our team here at Atworth are phenomenal, we certainly think so! To remind them of this we run a little reward scheme where they are able to collect stars to spend on treats. If you would like to nominate your superstar then please follow the link below to send them a star and a message.
Snappies Superstar — Snapdragons Nursery
What have we been up to?
We have been loving the weather and making the most of our gardens during the sunshine! The children have been hard at work in the forest garden experimenting with water and how to transport it. We even found some wild animals hiding in the nursery…
Reminders reminders reminders..
Just a few reminders as we head in to the new September term. Of course with the weather heating up please remember to provide your child with a named water bottle and a named sun cream as we do try our best to get outside twice a day.
Slippers! We do encourage children and staff to wear slippers indoors, and our baby room has a no shoe policy. For this reason we do ask that your child is also provided with a named pair of slippers that they can pop on in the rooms.
Illnesses.. if your child is unwell we do ask that you keep them home from nursery to monitor them. We are able to administer Calpol for temperatures for those children with pre-signed consent however we do then ask for you to pick them up from nursery. If your child has been sick we ask that they remain home for 48hrs after the last time they were sick.
Who is Royce?
Hi! My name is Royce.
I am the new Social Media & Marketing Assistant for Snapdragons. I will be spending time at all of the nurseries capturing magical moments and, permissions allowing, sharing them on our media platforms for parents and guardians to see. So don’t be alarmed if your children ask you if you saw the man with the camera in the nursery garden, it’s just me.
To see these moments please follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Or head over to our website for even more!
Staff news…
Some of you may have noticed that Lindsey has returned to us in the pre-school room! Lindsey has been off on her maternity leave with her little boy, Zachary, and we couldn’t be happier to have her back so give her a warm hello when you see her!
We have unfortunately said goodbye to Chelsea and Jamie. Chelsea has moved to the Isle of Wight to be closer to her family and Jamie has moved on to a new adventure. We wish them both the best of luck for the future.
Finally hello to Jadea! Donna has made her move to our toddler room and we have welcomed Jadea as the head of babies. Jadea is level 3 qualified and has worked in childcare for a number of years, we can’t wait for her to meet you all.
March 2022 at Atworth
Have a look through and see what we have been up to during the month of March at Snapdragons Atworth!
Events, events and more events!
It’s felt like there have been so many events this month from Holi, to Red nose day to Mothers day.
Have a look at some of our pictures. We have thoroughly enjoyed welcoming in our families to play and explore our setting once again!
Holi 2022 - let’s get colourful!
Mother’s day celebrations!
Did you say Easter is coming?
We are going to be having fun in the Atworth Park with the children and will be holding an Easter hunt with some pre-baked goodies as prizes! The children are being put to work next week to bake up some goodies ready for the hunt so be excited!!
Our Babies and Toddlers will be heading to the park on Wednesday 13th April at 2pm!
Our Pre-schoolers will be heading to the park on Thursday 14th April at 2pm!
We will take all of the children that are booked in with us but we would love to invite all of our Atworth families and if your little one is not booked in for one of the days above then come and join us at the park!
Don’t forget we have little legs and it might take us a little while to walk along as we aim to start walking at 2pm :)
What will you find….. Hopefully something better than a spider!
Illnesses at the nursery…
You might have noticed that our Illness notifications have changed and moved.
We now have a weekly notification sheet that will live on the main office door with day to day illnesses that children have come down with.
Please ensure that you are checking this.
These are written based on a rolling week so don’t forget to check each day that you collect or drop off your little one.
We've had a bit of an influx Chicken pox lately so please do keep an eye on your little ones for any symptoms!
For further information on Chicken pox then please have a look on the NHS website below.
Chicken pox…
We’ve been contacted by Robin Marlow, one of the Consultants in the Bristol Children's Hospital A&E. He says they are seeing loads of chickenpox at the moment and he is doing a research study trying to understand if it would be sensible to use the chickenpox vaccine in this country. Are you happy to help with a study?
The Children's Hospital and University of Bristol are trying and understand the potential benefits of the chickenpox vaccine in the UK.
To do this we need parents of children with chickenpox to help us by filling out an online diary each day while ill.
It is just a few short daily questions, no blood tests, no home or hospital visits.
The results of the study will be really important to help us decide if we should use a vaccine against chickenpox in the UK.
If your child does catch chickenpox please visit www.chickenpox-study.co.uk for more information.
Wild Art Club!
Tim and Nat our Forest School leaders have arranged a Forest School event, Wild Art Club.
Come and join us with your little one to see what Forest sessions with us are all about. It’s a time to get messy and have fun with your little one and it’s free!!
Have a little look at the attached poster for further information on the event!
The event will be at Atworth for parents to come and stay and play. We need to know rough numbers before each session for resource purposes so please do let us know if you would like to attend.
Book now if you’d like to join! There are still spaces available at the 10am to 12pm and 2pm and 4pm session!
Look what fun we’ve been having!
We’ve been making the most of the lovely weather. We’ve enjoyed being out and about and welcoming in Spring!
We have been looking at the changes in all of the colours around us and have been busy with making different colours at nursery!
Spurgeons Children’s Charity activities coming up…
Our linked Children’s centre; Spurgeons is putting on some great sessions that you can join. For more information have a look below or visit their website for further activities and support!
About Us - Wiltshire Children's Centres (wiltshirechildrenscentres.org.uk)
What’s Happening? - Wiltshire Children's Centres (wiltshirechildrenscentres.org.uk)
Dates for your diary…
Parents evenings:
Babies and toddlers - 25th April from 6pm to 7.30pm.
Pre-school - 28th April from 6pm to 7.30pm.
Please speak to your child’s key person to book a time slot!
February 2022
February was a busy month here at Snapdragons Atworth… The children have been busy making to celebrate Chinese new year, valentines day and national bread making week which included bread and pizza!
We hope you all enjoyed making your bread at home… Don’t forget to pop pictures on to Parent Zone so we can explore this with the children!
Updated Covid regulations
We have made the decision that it will not be mandatory for our staff members to wear masks when on site. During handovers we would respectfully ask that you continue to adhere to social distancing. Mask wearing by parents will also be discretionary.
We will no longer be operating in bubbles at the nurseries. Recently our bubble groups have grown to be whole rooms (classroom bubbles) with no mixing outdoors but we feel that it is now time to allow the children free movement in all nursery spaces.
We would like to thank you, again, for your continued support as we cautiously relax our restrictions. We are looking forward to holding parent events in the near future and welcome you into the nursery for Parent’s evenings and Graduations. Your individual nurseries will be in touch regarding any upcoming events.
From 1st March we would like to welcome you back into the nursery. We are finding that the majority of children start their day much calmer and happier when collected by their key person in the morning. Our procedure remains that children are dropped off outside the nursery. When collecting we will direct you inside to collect your little one.
Updated Calpol policy
If you have a confirmed positive test result for your child we ask that you notify the nursery immediately and follow this guidance below. Please note that we do not expect parents to carry out routine testing on their children and will not be offering advice of when tests should be carried out.
If a parent wishes to take their child to or from nursery while they, themselves, are positive with coronavirus we ask that you remain mindful of others and please consider mask wearing, social distancing and the possibility of remaining outdoors.
We will continue to administer Calpol/Paracetamol at doctors’ discretion for pain relief. This medication must be signed in on a MEDICATION AUTHORISATION FORM.
If a child has an unexpected temperature spike or is clearly in pain, we will administer an emergency dose of Calpol at nursery. We then ask that your child is collected within four hours. We will not administer more than one emergency dose of Calpol. We can only administer emergency medication with pre-signed consent from parents on a RECORD OF CALPOL, PIRITON AND TEETHING GEL FORM.
If you have administered Calpol/Paracetamol to your child, please ensure that this is more than four hours prior to their session starting. This dose must be signed on a PRE-EXISTING MEDICATION FORM. If children are needing regular doses of paracetamol, they may need to see a medical professional and should stay home until they are well in themselves.
We want to continue welcoming children to nursery, healthy and happy and stop illnesses spreading to our more vulnerable groups. We have already seen a reduction of colds and other illnesses over the last two years and our prevention methods have been proven to minimise the spread of infection. We will continue with our heightened cleaning measures at the nurseries.
If your child is not well then please help us to keep everyone well and healthy by keeping them at home if possible.
What’s coming up at Atworth…
Ukraine day
Snapdragons' appeal to support child victims of war in Ukraine
No one can be unmoved by the stories coming from the horrific war in Ukraine and we feel we cannot stand by and watch without trying to help in any way we can. We have decided that the best way is to support Unicef UK in its Fundraise for Ukraine appeal. Unicef helps children across the world – children caught up in wars, in disasters, in poverty and without education. At the moment, we would like to support the children of Ukraine, displaced by conflict, torn from their homes, their schools, their friends and extended families, or worse, trapped in a deteriorating war situation and unable to get away.
All of our nurseries will be holding a selection of fundraising events, from bake sales and plant sales to singing and dancing, all with a Ukrainian theme. We will approach any activities involving the children at nursery in the way that we normally celebrate other countries and cultures, through food, colours, stories and pictures. We want to reassure you that children will not be exposed to any upsetting concepts or explanations of the current conflict.
We have set up a Justgiving page for any donations you kindly make and Snapdragons is pledging to match any contributions received before the end of March up to £5000.
Snapdragons Nurseries is fundraising for Unicef UK (justgiving.com)
At Snapdragons Atworth on Monday 21st March we will be having a Ukraine day, the children can wear yellow and blue. We will be having Ukraine inspired meals and will have inspired activities. Please either donate via our just giving page or feel free to bring in any non perishables, children’s clothes as we will be collecting for charities that will transport these to the families and children that need them in Ukraine.
We are also planning to continue supporting Unicef UK as one of our primary charities into the future to support their work across the world “For Every Child in Danger”.
Holi Festival
On Thursday 17th March we will be celebrating Holi Festival.
Holi originates from Hinduism and is known as the festival of colour, celebrating the changing of the seasons. We have already created some fantastic art work by flicking paint with straws and baked some colourful bread for our snacks!
As these activities continue throughout the week, if your child attends on Thursdays we kindly ask that you bring them in a white t-shirt on 17th March. We will be participating in powder paint throwing to create our very own Holi Fest t-shirts!
Feel free to push the boat out with an all-white outfit!
Comic Relief day
Following on from our Holi celebrations, on Friday 18th March we will be supporting Comic Relief.
The popular CBeebies animated series, Love Monster, has struck up a new partnership with Comic Relief to help raise money for Red Nose Day 2022. Under the new partnership, the heart-warming hero will take pride of place on the Red Nose Day early years fundraising packs, a series of activity packs that will be made available to children and families ahead of Red Nose Day on 18th March 2022.
To show our support for this we will be holding ‘monster balls’ across the nursery, featuring Comic Reliefs very own Love Monster! These balls will incorporate a crazy hair day! Please bring your child to nursery dressed in their best red outfit with their craziest, scariest hair style! We can’t wait to see them!
Watch out as we will have our face paints at the ready for you to collect a real life Love monster from nursery! You’ve been warned!!
We will also be in touch shortly about our Mothers Day plans that are currently underway, watch this space for further information and finer details! As always, if you have any questions or queries about any of these upcoming events, please do not hesitate to give us a call, or send an e-mail.
January 2022 at Atworth
Welcome back, we hope you all had lovely Christmas and happy new year, although feels like a distant memory now! Since the return from Christmas we have hit the ground running and things have been rather busy here!
Expansion of our baby room:
We have had some exciting work that has been happening behind the scenes at Snapdragons Atworth lately and we would love to share the plans for the nursery!
We have expanded! No not just because we will ate a little too much over Christmas but because we are bursting at our seams with children at the nursery! Our baby room has increased!
One of our un-used rooms has been given lots of love and care and has transformed in to another baby room. We will be keeping our baby rooms to 6 per room but will have two rooms for the children to explore. Our babies will stay upstairs until 2 years of age. Our toddler room will slightly increase and will be for 2 to 3 year olds. Our pre-school room is staying as is.
You may have seen some new faces in our team and once they have passed their probations we will introduce them to you, so please watch this space… Over the next few months we will have ‘meet the team’ sections on our newsletters - just in case you have not met the whole team!
Covid 19 Update-Masks and changes:
We have made the decision that it will not be mandatory for our staff members to wear masks when on site. During handovers we would respectfully ask that you continue to adhere to social distancing. Mask wearing by parents will also be discretionary.
We will no longer be operating in bubbles at the nurseries. Recently our bubble groups have grown to be whole rooms (classroom bubbles) with no mixing outdoors but we feel that it is now time to allow the children free movement in all nursery spaces.
We would like to thank you, again, for your continued support as we cautiously relax our restrictions. We are looking forward to holding parent events in the near future and welcome you into the nursery for Parent’s evenings and Graduations. We will be in touch regarding any upcoming events.
Reminder to parents:
Collection times:
With our expansion we now have an increased number of cars entering the carpark, please could we remind all parents where possible to try and avoid busy times such as 8am to 8:30am and 5:30pm to 6pm to limit congestion and parking issues. This will also help us to ensure we are still adhering to social distancing when completing handovers.
Please do appreciate that if you are collecting close to 6pm that a full handover will not be available as the nursery closes at 6pm.
Water please!
Just a little message to remind parents that we promote and encourage healthy eating across the nursery therefore remind parents please send children in with water only in there cups/drink bottles. We have found that recently an increasing number of children are having squash and other liquids in their bottles. We have a few children with severe allergies so please ensure that they are given water only for nursery.
Please see our healthy eating policy below.
Spurgeons events:
Spurgeons now have a new Senior Early Years Practitioner for the Children’s Centres in the West of Wiltshire - Holly Meek.
There are many events held throughout the year for families such as stories, rhymes , dental hygiene and breastfeeding. head to the website below for more info…
Parents Evening:
Finally we will be holding our parents evening for the children soon. Dates are yet to be confirmed so please keep an eye out for these. We are just awaiting on Boris’ instructions that are due any day now……!
October at Snapdragons Atworth
Hi Everyone we are settling in well to the new academic year here at Snapdragons Atworth!
We have had a few wiggles and jiggles with our staffing team lately so please do have a look on our website to get yourselves acquainted with the team!
Jamie has also completed her NVQ3 and has just started her Degree - a huge congratulations and good luck to her.
Kim has been promoted to Head of Pre-school. Well done Kim, it is truly deserved! When you see her make sure you say a big well done and give her a big pat on the back!
Kim is a truly homegrown member of the team. She started in our Pre-school room and quickly completed her NVQ level 3. She has three older children so she knows children inside and out. She is based in our Pre- School room where her passion is Sunshine circles!
In other news Ella is now our Deputy Manager, as well as carrying on with her Head of Toddler role. She’s enjoying her new role so you may see her across the nursery in all of our rooms!
Congratulations Ella!
In some very exciting news Zoe, Sarah and Lindsey have all had their beautiful babies. Zoe has had a little boy called Monty. Sarah has had a little girl called Gracie and Lindsey had a little boy called Zachary. A huge congratulations to them all!
What’s happening at Atworth?
Messy activities!
The children have been making the most of the lovely dry weather, with lots of fun activities outside including making an obstacle course and outdoor painting!
Exploring foam in the baby room was very exciting! We enjoyed the feeling the texture and of course getting messy!
Pre-school also made some cloud dough and enjoyed mixing up the all ingredients to make this.
Come on in!
Firstly, it has been great being able to invite the parents into the nursery to collect the children. It’s great to see everyone inside, to be able to show off our nursery environment and for you all to see the children engaged in their play.
Please remember to wear a mask if you are entering the nursery and ensure that you are socially distancing from the team. We are still being precautious with our approach and are allowing parents into our hall areas rather than going fully into rooms. This is just to restrict the risk to the children and the staff team.
Collections will still be brief, we will only allow a few parents into the nursery but we will be popping weekly pictures of the happenings of your child’s day on to ParentZone.
Childrens Observations
Some of you may be aware of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), which is a statutory document that all Ofsted registered childcare providers are required to follow.
The EYFS framework sets the standards to ensure that children aged from birth to 5 learn and develop well and are kept healthy and safe.
The framework has had a reform from September 2021 and this means a few changes for us. There is now a requirement for leaders and managers to reduce the workload for our fantastic practitioners, such as unnecessary paperwork, so they can spend more time with your children.
Within the educational programmes there is also more focus on early language development and extending vocabulary in young children. Its importance in underpinning children’s development within the broader curriculum has been acknowledged. Communication and Language development has always been a focus in our teaching at Snapdragons, as well as personal social and emotional development. We feel these two areas are a priority in children’s learning; without language skills or resilience and social skills, children may find the next stage of their learning more challenging.
There are some useful resources to support language development that you may be interested in, including “Top Tips for Talking”, a handout which you can collect from the office and “Ages and Stages” which you can find at ican.org.uk.
Another change is that we are now required to design our own curriculum around the educational programmes set out by the EYFS. We have always used the educational programmes to inform our teaching at nursery, but now we have been given the opportunity to collaborate as a whole nursery group about the main things that we want our children to learn whilst they are at nursery.
There are 10 themes to our curriculum and these 10 themes are the starting point of who we want our children to be, what we want them to learn and be able to do at each stage of their time at nursery, from the baby room all the way through to when they leave us for school.
Thrive through secure attachments and positive relationships to be safe, secure and loved
Communicate with confidence to be talkative and love language.
Develop self-help skills to be capable and proud of increasing independence
Move with control and coordination to be strong, active and healthy
Explore and investigate with curiosity to be curious, fascinated and deeply involved
Experience music, song and dance to be joyful, exuberant and confident
Develop a love of books and story to be enthralled, engaged and enquiring
Make their mark to be willing to have a go and explore
Be creative to be experimental and expressive
Make Maths meaningful to be motivated by mathematics in everyday life
Embedded in this approach is our commitment to making sure our children feel part of a global community. Please collect your full copy of our Snapdragons curriculum from the office.
You may have noticed recently that the style of your child’s observations have changed. We have been using a new planning system this year called “in the moment planning”. This means we teach the children in the moment, when they are particularly motivated or involved in what they are doing using their interests to motivate their learning. For example, we could teach a child about mathematical concepts of ‘under’ and ‘over’, when building a bridge for the train track they are playing with. You may have seen some entries in your child’s learning journey on Parent Zone in this style, where we document the initial observation, the teaching and then the impact that makes on the child’s learning.
We are going to continue to plan and teach our children this way, however, in line with the new requirement of reduction in paperwork, we will no longer be requiring staff to update the online learning journeys in this format.
I want to give an updated outline of what you should expect to see on your child’s learning journey.
1 photo or video snapshot per week per child.
Assessments used to be done three times a year on all children, these are now only done on children who fall within the ‘vulnerable’ category (children who are in receipt of the two-year-old funding, children who have English as an additional language, children who are classed as looked after by the local authorities, children with SEND) or for any child whom requires additional support.
The statutory progress check at age two, which will continue to be completed by your child's key person at around 30 months.
A ‘moving to school’ assessment in the term before your child starts school.
Every term your child will be the focus child for the week. At the end of this week, you will see your child’s focus child form uploaded to their learning journey.
When your child is selected as the focus child, you will be emailed with a learning contribution form which we would be very grateful if you could complete and send back to us, you are your child’s main educator and it’s important to us to be up to date on how you think your child is progressing.
Alongside our Snapdragons Curriculum Teaching Toolkit, we have recently published on our website our Teaching Philosophy. This is Snapdragons’ pedagogy and it details all the practices we follow at Snapdragons to support your child’s learning and development. I really encourage you to take a look at this page of our website.
Fundraising at Atworth…
We recently held a week of fundraising for breast cancer awareness. The children and staff dressed in pink and we had some lovely cakes on sale as well as guess the smarties in the jar!
Thankyou to all those who donated! We raised a grand total of £114.43! Well done to our chef Mel who won guess the smarties!
Every stamp counts!
We will be collecting used stamps very shortly for the Charity Kicks Count, please hand them to our team and we can pop them in our collection box.
Children in Need day!
On the 19th November 2021 we will be fundraising for Children in Need.
Children in Need supports some specialist nurseries that we work very closely with such as Stepping stones so it's a cause really close to our hearts! Please do donate generously.
Your children (and yourselves) are welcome to dress up as their favourite superhero, Prince or Princess! We are recommending a £1 donation per child.
Christmas Nativity
Kim and the team started practicing all the songs for the Christmas nativity which will be on December 8th! Keep an eye out closer to the date for more information!
March at Atworth
I have some good news to share……
Bel has been promoted to Deputy Head of our Pre-school room. She is just so amazing and I am really proud of everything that she does. She has been recognised as the star that she is and has been promoted as a Senior member of our Atworth Team!
Go and give Bel a high five (socially distance of course) and a pat on the back!
Meet our Younger Toddler Team…
This month we will be focusing on our younger toddler team here at Atworth which consists of the very lovely trio of Kim, Helena and Lara.
Kim - Nursery Nurse
This is Kimberley but you may know her as Kim! She has worked at our Atworth nursery for 4, almost 5 years! She has worked in every room of the nursery.
Lucky Kim started with myself (Christina) in the Pre-school room and even interviewed in the room with me when I was the Deputy Manager and Head of pre-school! I remember telling her ‘don’t be fooled as we aren’t always this quiet!’ as it was a half term and lots of children were on holiday! How times have changed.
Kim had children when she was young and now has a teenager. She is now focussing on her career in childcare. Since starting with us she absolutely flew through her NVQ3 and passed with flying colours. She is home grown, just like our vegetables in the Forest Garden.
Most recently she is working in our younger toddler room; our room with children who are 18 months to 2 years old. She has always had a passion for Sunshine circles. She has been an ambassador for Sunshine Circles (TheraPlay) at Atworth and has trained up twice to lead these sessions with the children! Feel free to ask Kim about how she leads Sunshine circle sessions in our younger toddler room or even ask her to sing you the Toody Ta song - with actions of course!
Helena - Graduate Apprentice
Helena is one of our newest recruits to Atworth! She joined our setting just after we re-opened after the first lockdown - many moons ago…..
She started in our baby room and learned the ropes from our baby room team. She then moved to the younger toddler room as we started to form bubbles for each room and is now a key member of the younger toddler team. Helena is the most happy, easy going and caring person we know. Nothing phases her and her voice calms the children and staff. Helena works alongside Kim and Lara and they make up our famous Atworth younger toddler trio! Helena is the perfect person to take care, teach and have fun with the younger toddlers. She really has found her niche in the younger toddler room!
Helena has a degree in Early Childhood Studies and has a vast amount of experience with Early years children and completed many placements during her degree. She is pretty clued up about all things Early Years!
In the pipeline, Helena is due to start her Early Years Initial Teacher Training with us. We are just awaiting to hear the news that she is starting this in September! Please do wish her luck with this and we will update you all when she is due to start her training - please do ask her lots of questions about this when you see her!
Lara - Nursery Nurse
Lara started a few years ago as our 1:1 support for our children with additional needs. She is our ambassador for the nursery in all things SEND (Special educational needs and disabilities). She works closely with myself (Christina) as the SENDco and she has built really strong relationships with professionals at other settings and specialist settings to support all children with SEND.
You may not know this but Lara has a little boy who also attends Snapdragons Atworth. Lara is experienced as a practitioner but can also give practical advice as a parent so please do see her as a font of knowledge for all things SEND, parenting and practical advice.
You might to see Lara around the nursery a little more as she is joining us for some more hours at the nursery. She just can’t keep herself away from all the fun at Atworth.
She is currently busy supporting the teams to understand ‘bucket time’. This is an attention activity which encourages the children to hold their attention longer which she is amazing at - ask her if you’d like more details about this!
What has been happening in Atworth this month…
World Book Day 4th March
World Book Day is a brilliant opportunity for everyone to celebrate the joy of reading and the children here have been doing just that! We have been snuggling down, getting cosy, reading books with each other and even creating our very own story books with our friends. Have a look at some of our favourites stories that we have been reading…
Spring has finally sprung!
We have been loving the start of the warmer weather and the glorious sunshine the last few days. The children have been getting in the spring mood by looking at all the spring colours around them, getting messy and painting daffodils and enjoying being out in the garden, swinging, climbing and jumping all around!
World Water Day
It has been World Water Day this month and the children have been having fun learning and exploring the importance of water. Often we take water for granted so it was important that we turned this into a teachable moment, guiding the children to appreciate how lucky we are to have clean, safe water from a young age and talking about how we can reduce our own water usage.
Available courses from Spurgeons
Self Care and Independence with children 0 - 5
It has been reported nationally and locally that due to the lockdowns; children’s Self care and Independence are areas that have been affected and families might need extra support. Spurgeons have organised an online One off event on the 28th April 2021 where they will share the importance of this and how parents can build their children’s confidence in becoming independent and making their own choices, especially in every day skills. They will talk through all ages (0-5y) and will finish focusing on the very important skills that children need starting school.
To book a space please click on the following link;
Ready to Start School
As we all know; children need more support in transition to school than ever. Splurgeons are offering their first Ready to Start School One off event which will be held on Wednesday 21st April 2021. This is an online session and all families will be offered one to one support in how to join.
Snapdragons will also be posting information about how we get children ready and prepared for school in the next coming months, so please watch this space for more information.
Dates to remember…
April Fools Day - 1st April
Good Friday - 10th April
Easter Sunday - 12th April
Easter Monday - 13th April
St George’s Day - 26th April
February at Atworth....
Meet our Baby room team….
We thought each month we would focus on one team in our nursery and tell you all about them. We know it is tricky not being able to come on to site and not being able to really see the whole room team so we thought this might help!
Harriet - Head of Baby room
This is Harriet. She started at Atworth many moons ago in 2014. She started her Nursery Apprentice here and very quickly received her Level 3 qualification. She has been the Head of our baby room for over 4 years now and she knows the nursery inside and out! During her Apprenticeship she worked in every room and really homed in on her skills in the baby room.
With having 6 babies in the baby room she knows every child inside and out. Her strengths are that she has such amazing relationships with the parents. You can usually find her chatting to a parent on the doorstep about what they have been up to, how their child has been and how their family are. She really puts the children and families at the heart of everything that she does. She will tailor the room routine based on the children’s sleeping needs, their feeding needs and what they are enjoying that day.
The children absolutely love seeing Harriet and always toddle in to her or hold their arms out for a cuddle when they see her. She will always tailor her day on the child, their interests and needs. She is a great team leader and works extremely closely with her team. She has worked extremely hard on making her baby room more curious and supported the team to achieve the ‘Curiosity approach Accreditation’. Her baby room is homely, curious and all the babies run in to see what exciting bits and bobs are available for them to explore.
Her room is trialling In The Moment Planning and they have hit the ground running! They are tailoring their day on the babies interests and developing teaching cycles from these. Ask Harriet if you would like to know more!
Sarah - Advanced Baby Room Practitioner
Sarah has worked at our larger Weston Nursery in Bath in their baby room prior to going on maternity leave. She returned from Maternity leave and transferred to our Atworth nursery where, like Harriet, has worked in many of the rooms. She has really homed in her skills in our baby room and has recently been promoted to Advanced baby room practitioner. Sarah has a Level 3 qualification in Early Years Childcare.
Sarah can usually be heard singing to the babies so keep your ears open for those summer days when you will hear her beautiful singing voice coming out of the baby room! She has two children herself so really makes all families feel at ease and can provide honest, valuable advice to families from sleeping, toilet training to feeding. So please do ask away or even ask to hear her beautiful singing voice!
She is bubbly, happy and always one to sing, dance and get messy with the children! Again Sarah is a professional at building those key relationships with the children and families, not only her key children, but of all the children in the baby room.
Sarah is also our Well-being Champion for our Atworth team. She leads well-being at our site and provides ideas to support the teams well-being. She is a friendly, open ear for our team. Working long hours and working with children can be stressful and it’s Sarah’s job to be aware of this and to target our teams well-being! Most recently she has brought in weekly ‘Random acts of kindness’ to our team where they can choose a member of staff who is most deserving of a little uplift during the week which can be anything from covering them to go home five minutes early or bringing in their favourite biscuits. She is also busy working on our ‘Time to talk’ week and our ‘Hugs in a mug’ for our teams!
Jenna - Nursery Nurse
Jenna joined us in 2015 at Atworth after moving from a very busy baby room role in Bristol. She has always worked with children and in 2004 she completed her Level 5 Higher National Diploma in Early Childhood Studies. She sure knows her stuff!
Since starting she was always based in our toddler room where she was a strong and calm member of our team across our two toddler rooms. She then went on Maternity leave to return to be based in our baby room where she has absolutely flourished!
Jenna is a mother to two young girls, of which you may hear or see her youngest in our pre-school room! Jenna is one of those people who behind the scenes are juggling multiple spinning plates but on the outside is calm and extremely happy! Maybe one day she might become a juggler in the circus, you never know!
She is a warm, calming person who is always smiley and has a happy demeanour. You will always find her with a smile on her face. Again, the babies absolutely love seeing her in the mornings, as do the families, and she really makes every child feel special, cared for and comfortable in her care. She is working hard at the moment with the baby room team to be our trial room for In the Moment Planning.
Being a mother, Jenna knows the ins and outs of bringing up a little baby. She is so knowledgeable and can really relate to parents struggles with sleeping, feeding or teething. Feel free to use her as a source of knowledge and throw your questions at her!
Observations on ParentZone…
Why do we observe the children?
We observe the children to learn about the child’s interests, to observe where the child is with their learning and how they are learning. We observe to assess and plan so that we can support the child’s next step of learning.
Why are we changing our observations?
We feel that we can improve our observations to really highlight the learning of the children during the day at nursery. We want to really push the adult’s role of observing their play, assessing what they see, planning how to respond and then to teach next steps immediately in a way that is unique to that child in that particular moment.
How are they changing?
We used to pop on a picture of an activity that the child has engaged with and link it to the EYFS but this has now changed.
Now we are observing teaching cycles. Teaching cycles happen 100 or plus times per day. These can either be exceptional learning moments or really small moments of learning.
A teaching cycle consists of; an Observation, Teaching Moment and the Outcome.
The observation is what the child is doing, what the child did or said.
A teaching moment is how we supported the child, did we explain/model anything, did we change the situation to support them further? What the adult did or said.
The outcome is what the child managed to achieve with the adult input. What did they achieve or learn.
We will also link this to a Characteristic of effective learning – how are the children learning. Also, we will link this to an area of their development.
We will complete at least one of these observations per week per key child. Your child may have more if they are our focus child – this will be explained when your child is this! Don’t worry, we will still be popping ‘snapshots’ of your children; some lovely pictures, videos of your children on ParentZone too!
You will always see your child’s observations detailing these three items above. Here are a few examples below:
___
Observation:
Jenna wanted a turn on the rope.
Teachable moment / next step:
I modelled the language and encouraged Jenna to repeat the phrase ‘Can I have a turn please?’
Outcome:
Jenna does this and the pair then took turns independently.
Characteristic of Effective Learning – Being willing to have a go
Area of Learning – Personal, Social & Emotional Development: Making Relationships
_____
Observation:
Ethan wants to turn on the tap but can’t reach.
Teachable moment / next step:
I showed him the step and suggested he could use that.
Outcome:
Ethan pulls the step over, climbs up and turns on the tap.
Characteristic of Effective Learning – Being willing to have a go
Area of Learning – Physical Development: Moving and Handling
How can we help as parents?
Have a look at what we have been observing at the nursery. These are things that your child is learning with our teaching and adult input. Maybe you might like to support your child with these at home. It could be anyone of a multitude of areas such as, verbalising their needs, scissor skills, confidence in standing, listening to instructions. The lists go on and on!
None the less, we would love for families to get involved with their observations. If you see any fantastic learning moment at home, please do pop them on to ParentZone.
Let us know what they did:
How did you support them with this:
What they learnt:
If not, just pop on a picture and we would love to support you to see how you have supported your child’s learning!
If you need any help logging in to ParentZone please do just ask and we will be happy to take a look.
Can you give some advice to prospective families?
Since the Lockdown last year, children have been having such different experiences to what they would usually have. Prior to COVID, families would integrate, meet up, newborns would meet the extended family and we are finding that this isn’t happening. It’s always going to be daunting leaving your child in a setting, with new people and the amount of trust that you have to have in the practitioners and team taking care of your little one is immense. We have had a lot of nervous prospective families who have found that this has been extremely heightened due to lockdown. Can you provide them with any help or would you like to let us know your experiences? Please do send them via email to atworth@snapdragonsnursery.com
As always, we would love to hear about any staff that have gone above and beyond so please do let us know. You can nominate your Snappy Superstar on our website! See link below.
What’s been happening at Atworth in February?
Our Story of the month has been ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ and we have been celebrating Chinese New year and valentines day! Come and have a look at how the children have been exploring the story and events this month!
We always celebrate all festivals and events that each and every one of the Atworth children may be involved in but we also push their comfort zones and get them to understand other festivals and events around the world. This really supports their British Values and encourages them to be respectful and accepting of others and their beliefs. Have a look below at what we have been doing to celebrate Chinese New Year.
We have made playdough pancakes, real pancakes, made breakfast menus for goldilocks and made puppets from the stories. We even tried different foods such as bamboo shoots, prawn crackers, water chestnuts and even lychee juice and green tea!
As always, pop on to ParentZone to have a look at what the children have been up to. Please do upload some pictures of what you have been up to at home!
Share the Love
We had so much fun making our ‘Share the Love’ video and we were blown away with how natural it was for all the children to show kindness, love and happiness :) We hope you enjoy watching it too!
Training and support for Spurgeons; our linked Children’s centre
Please do have a look at the attached courses and information about support, advice and courses that Spurgeons are offering to parents and carers of children. If you would like any advice or have any questions about these, please do ask.
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Dates to remember:
St David’s Day - 1st March,
World Book day - 4th March,
Mothers day - 14th March,
Spring begins - 20th March,
World Water day - 22nd March,
Holi Festival - 28th March (watch this space for an event!).
January 2021 at Atworth
It’s the start of a new year and we have been very busy after the Christmas break.
Have a look at what we have been up to through January…
Babies and toddlers have been getting messy and creative with paints! Using all the colours of the rainbow, paintbrushes, rollers, hands and feet they have been creating beautiful works of art.
They have been exploring fruits and vegetables and talking about healthy eating by feeling and tasting the fruits and vegetables and exploring their smell and texture. Toddlers made prints with the fruits and vegetables for our menu of the week display and then played with them in the role play kitchen.
Our main priority of our nursery, especially our baby room is our relationships and high quality care of our babies and children. I know it’s a hard job but yes we give lots of cuddles to our babies!
What’s our favourite thing to do in the baby room I hear you ask….. getting cosy and snuggling down with lots of cuddles, stories and comfy cushions.
Trevor the very friendly tiger came to tea!
The tiger came to tea and the babies had lots of fun creating a little tea party and feeding him lots of yummy food.
🎶 ‘Do you want to build a snowman?’ 🎶
We had so much fun exploring the snow at nursery. It fell at the weekend and because the nursery was closed at the weekend we could explore LOTS of untouched snow!
We had snowball fights, made snow angels and our toddlers even made a snowman.
The toddlers thought the snowman looked a little cold so we kindly shared our hats and gloves with him. He has lasted for days! We even had trays of snow inside but when we had our tea it disappeared. Maybe you know where it went?
Birthdays…
We know that celebrating your child’s birthday can be a bit tricky at the moment so we would like to help in any way we can.
If your child has a birthday coming up please get in touch and let us know.
If you would like to bring in packaged items e.g. balloons, sweets, hats we will be happy to arrange for these to be given out and have a little party to celebrate. We can even have a little sing song too!
Parents are more than welcome to bring in cakes which we will be able to cut up and send home with the children. Please can we remind you all that we are a nut-free nursery.
Share the love
We feel that the last year has lacked a bit of love so this year we want to promote kindness, love and smiles!
With Valentines day fast approaching we would love to see some great videos of your families having cuddles, kisses and fun times. We are hoping to make a lovely Snapdragons ‘Share the love’ video.
Please do send us your ‘Share the love’ videos. These will be shared on our Snapdragons social media so please send us videos that you don’t mind being shared there. It doesn’t have to cost anything. Just a quick cuddle, kiss or smile from our friends and families at Atworth.
We will also be making little videos of our ‘Share the love’ moments in the nursery that you will be able to see on our special video.
Be creative and have fun! After last year, I think we all agree, that we all need a little more kindness in the world!
Just send them to: atworth@snapdragonsnursery.com
The way we plan and observe is being updated…..
As a company we are starting to move away from our current systems to focus on individual children and to react on what they are interested in and what they need to develop next as an individual in that moment. Over the next few months we will be training our room teams to work with ‘In the moment planning’. This means that the observations on ParentZone may look a little different but I will explain all below.
Observations
The way our staff record observations is also changing slightly. Moving forward you will see comments written with the following structure: Observation, Teachable Moment, Outcome, This new format shows you that our wonderful practitioners are continually helping your child to progress in all areas of learning, and should make it clear what new skills they are currently mastering at nursery. Alongside these new observations, you will also receive additional ‘Snapshots’ of your child’s time at nursery, in the form of photos, videos, and comments. If you have any trouble accessing your ParentZone account then please let us know and we can resend the welcome email. If you have any questions about these assessments or observations then please feel free to drop me email or give me a call at Atworth.
Assessments
Within the next week, you will receive an ‘assessment’ for your child on your ParentZone account. Our staff complete these assessments as a tracking tool, to help your child make the maximum progress whilst they are with us at Snapdragons. The software that we use to complete these assessments automatically uses a colour coding system. This means that you will see red, yellow, or green, alongside an age bracket recorded in months, for each area of learning. I know this can look worrying if you see a lot of red, but all this means is that your child is at the beginning of showing these skills whilst at nursery. Even if these skills are part of a higher age bracket, it will still show up as red. Children all develop in their own ways and at their own pace. Please rest assured that if we were ever concerned about your child’s development then we would always speak with you in the first instance.
Schemas, what are they?
Schema is just a fancy word for a framework of learning. Children may have one, two or lots of schemas working at one time. Have you ever noticed that you child just LOVES filling your bag with items or you look around the house to find things hidden inside of things. This would be an enclosure schema - they just love putting things inside of other things. Please have a little read of the document below to learn more about these. We will be using these more and more in our observations to really tailor our practice, opportunities and environments to our children’s learning. We would love to hear what schemas you have observed at home too!
Dates to remember:
Chinese new year - 12th February
Valentines day - 14th February
Shrove Tuesday - 16th February
See you all in February!
December at Atworth...
So what’s been happening at Atworth in December?
The children and staff have been busy getting in to the Christmas mood this month! Have a little look at what we have been up to…
Christmas Jumper Day!
The children have been getting festive in the run up to Christmas in a variety of ways including Christmas Jumper day! We have been collecting for the food bank which we will continue to collect up to the 22nd of December and taking to The White Hart pub in Atworth, who are also collecting for their food bank underneath their wishing tree.
Slippers and wellies please…
As part of the curiosity approach, we pride ourselves to be a homely environment and have decided that from January we will wear slipper inside and wellies outside. Please bring a pair of slipper that you are happy to stay here and either bring in or have your child wear a pair of shoes or wellies that you don’t mind getting muddy.
As our spare wellies have been used a lot this year they are looking a bit worse for wear. Due to this please can you make sure that you bring in some wellies for your child to wear (perhaps Santa and his elves could bring some this Christmas?). If you have any spares at home, please don’t throw them away as we would be happy to give them a new home.
Family Photos
Please could we ask that you send in some family photos to us. We create family photo books for the children to look through during the day so it would be lovely to have some new pictures of you all having fun. As we have shared our family photo (above) please send in some of yours. Get happy snapping and creative as you like! We can’t wait to see them.
Our code of kindness
We have been working really hard to follow our code of kindness which focuses on reinforcing positive behaviour. Below are some pictures of the children in action.
A step-by-step guide to making salt dough - Thanks to our babies
Step 1:
Mix up all the ingredients. We have added a handy little recipe below…
Step 2:
Roll out so mixture is nice and flat.
Step 3:
Cut and shape.
Step 4:
Paint and leave to dry.
Pre-School have been helping decorating the tree with some unusual bits and bobs.
Babies have been having fun dressing up in their Christmas hats.
Reminders and important dates….
Christmas opening dates and hours…
Don’t forget that we are closed from December 25th 2020 and we re-open on the 4th January 2021. Our teams will be having a very well earned rest!
Collection and session times....
Please consider dropping off your child later and/or collecting earlier where possible. Please do avoid 8am to 8:30am and 5:30pm to 6pm. We are starting to get extremely busy early in the morning and close to 6pm and we are almost at the point where we will have to set and stagger drop off and collection times. To avoid this please try to avoid the times above.
Our baby and toddler sessions start at either 8:00am or 1:15pm. They end at either 12:45pm or 6:00pm. Please do ensure that you keep to these times as it is getting quite busy at drop off and collection times.
Our funded sessions start at either 8:00am or 1:00pm and end at either 1:00pm or 6:00pm.
However, if you are unsure of your session times then please do not hesitate to ask a member of the team!
Children that are dropped off early to sessions or collected late from sessions will be subject to additional charges as per the parental contracts, see the below extract from the contract.
Children that are collected late, without pre-arrangement, at the end of their session will incur a late pickup charge of £7.00. For children who are still not collected by 18:15, a further charge of £15.00 will be administered.
For children who are still uncollected by 18:30, a further charge of £1.00 per minute will be administered.
Tote bags
As a company we are really trying to focus on how we can reduce waste, recycle and reuse items more. If possible please can all parents pop a little tote bag in their child’s main nursery bag. This will be for any wet clothes and this will help to reduce the amount of plastic nappy bags that we are using during our nursery day!
Car park
Can we please remind parents to be mindful when entering and leaving the car park here at nursery! There are lots of people and children around so please drive slowly and be mindful when entering and leaving.
Just a few more COVID reminders...
Sorry to send these continuously but please do ensure that you are aware of the below.....
Please do remember the below as it is important that we are keeping all bugs out of the nursery:
• Children can only attend nursery who are fit and well. This is to ensure that we are keeping staff, children and families safe and well.
• We are no longer administering any fever/pain relief medication.
• We will not accept any child in our care that has had pre-existing fever relief medication on the same day (this can mask a temperature).
Please ensure you are driving slowly and carefully on the site.
If anyone is already out and near the door entrances REMAIN IN YOUR CAR or at a safe distance using the small cones which illustrate 2m distance between waiting areas. Please respect that many people will be nervous and will want to socially distance away from everyone. With this in mind I will be trailing not staggering drop off times. This may change in the future but please do ensure that in the car park social distancing is being adhered to.
Parents are not permitted to enter the nursery unless the manager has pre-arranged this. This is to keep the staff and children as safe as possible. You will be met at the entrance by a familiar face to the child who will take them in to their base room.
Depending on your entrance, you will see a hand washing station for you to wash your child’s hands before you hand them over to the staff member. Please follow the hand washing guidance and clean your child’s hands using soap and water before you drop them off.
Wishing all of our families a Merry Christmas and a very Happy new year!
See you in 2021!
November 2020 at Atworth ...
So what’s been happening at Atworth?
Firstly can I say a huge thank you to all of our families, children and staff for being very patient and working with the new COVID regimes! It’s a strange time for us all but thank you for supporting us as usual and for following all of the new procedures that we have in place.
Please have a little look at whats been happening lately. I have popped a few handy dates and reminders at the bottom too!
Halloween Fun
Our babies had lots of fun playing and exploring with all the different colours and shaped pumpkins in readiness for Halloween.
Whatever Next!
One of our stories of the month is ‘Whatever Next!’ by Jill Murphy. Our toddlers have been inspired by the story so have grabbed their colanders, a box and tried to blast to the moon. Have a look at some of our pictures!
Children in Need
You may have been greeted by the team in some rather peculiar looking outfits this month! All for an extremely good cause, the children and staff dressed up in their pyjamas for the day to raise awareness for Children in Need. Thank you to all the parents that donated tins of food and long life items. As lockdown has been hard for everyone we wanted to show our support and help our local community and so all items donated were sent to our local food bank in Melksham who do some fantastic work. Our babies have been busy and have walked all the way to our local church to deliver the items to the food bank.
Team news at Atworth…
Firstly a HUGE congratulations to both Tilly and Sofia who have both welcomed their little ones during the craziness of Lockdown!
Both are doing well and we are looking forwards to welcoming them both back in the new year!
Congratulations Tilly!
Tilly has had a little boy called George.
Congratulations Sofia!
Sofia has had a little girl called Olivia.
Welcome Olivia!
Olivia is our new Deputy Manager, Head of pre-school and Deputy Designated Safeguarding lead at Atworth.
Some of you may have noticed that we have a new Deputy Manager and Head of Pre-school who has been with us for a few months now.
Please feel free to go and say hello to Olivia who has joined our team. She is a trained teacher and has not long returned from being an au pair in Australia! She is doing a great job and has worked for Snapdragons previously. She has hit the ground running so feel free to throw any questions at her :)
The rest of our team remains the same. Please have a little look through our team page!
https://www.snapdragonsnursery.com/atworth
Reminders and important dates….
Christmas opening dates and hours…
Don’t forget that we are closed from December 25th 2020 and we re-open on the 4th January 2021. Our teams will be having a very well earned rest!
Christmas Dinner…
We will be having Christmas dinner on the Wednesday 16th December for the children who are with us that day.
Christmas Nativity….
Unfortunately we cannot hold our usual Christmas Nativity but we are in the process of filming a nativity for our pre-school parents. Please bring in a lovely Christmas jumper from 30th November that can live in your child’s bag as we are going to start filming from then. Keep your eyes and ears open as you may hear us singing!
Collection and session times....
Please consider dropping off your child later and/or collecting earlier where possible. Please do avoid 8am to 8:30am and 5:30pm to 6pm. We are starting to get extremely busy early in the morning and close to 6pm and we are almost at the point where we will have to set and stagger drop off and collection times. To avoid this please try to avoid the times above.
Our baby and toddler sessions start at either 8:00am or 1:15pm. They end at either 12:45pm or 6:00pm. Please do ensure that you keep to these times as it is getting quite busy at drop off and collection times.
Our funded sessions start at either 8:00am or 1:00pm and end at either 1:00pm or 6:00pm.
However, if you are unsure of your session times then please do not hesitate to ask a member of the team!
Children that are dropped off early to sessions or collected late from sessions will be subject to additional charges as per the parental contracts, see the below extract from the contract.
Children that are collected late, without pre-arrangement, at the end of their session will incur a late pickup charge of £7.00. For children who are still not collected by 18:15, a further charge of £15.00 will be administered.
For children who are still uncollected by 18:30, a further charge of £1.00 per minute will be administered.
Tote bags
As a company we are really trying to focus on how we can reduce waste, recycle and reuse items more. If possible please can all parents pop a little tote bag in their child’s main nursery bag. This will be for any wet clothes and this will help to reduce the amount of plastic nappy bags that we are using during our nursery day!
Car park
Can we please remind parents to be mindful when entering and leaving the car park here at nursery! There are lots of people and children around so please drive slowly and be mindful when entering and leaving.
Invoices
Please remember that invoices are due to be paid in full by the 15th of every month. You are able to view your most up to date invoice on the parent zone app by requesting a new invoice through the finance tab.
Just a few more COVID reminders...
Sorry to send these continuously but please do ensure that you are aware of the below.....
Please do remember the below as it is important that we are keeping all bugs out of the nursery:
• Children can only attend nursery who are fit and well. This is to ensure that we are keeping staff, children and families safe and well.
• We are no longer administering any fever/pain relief medication.
• We will not accept any child in our care that has had pre-existing fever relief medication on the same day (this can mask a temperature).
Please ensure you are driving slowly and carefully on the site.
If anyone is already out and near the door entrances REMAIN IN YOUR CAR or at a safe distance using the small cones which illustrate 2m distance between waiting areas. Please respect that many people will be nervous and will want to socially distance away from everyone. With this in mind I will be trailing not staggering drop off times. This may change in the future but please do ensure that in the car park social distancing is being adhered to.
Parents are not permitted to enter the nursery unless the manager has pre-arranged this. This is to keep the staff and children as safe as possible. You will be met at the entrance by a familiar face to the child who will take them in to their base room.
Depending on your entrance, you will see a hand washing station for you to wash your child’s hands before you hand them over to the staff member. Please follow the hand washing guidance and clean your child’s hands using soap and water before you drop them off.
The countdown to Christmas has started at Atworth! We will be doing lots of exciting Christmas activities with the children. Please keep an eye on ParentZone and Twitter to see what we have been up to!
Wishing all of our families a lovely Christmas when it finally arrives. See you all in the new year!
February 2020 at Snapdragons Atworth…..
A good cause close to our hearts…..
Please support one of our Atworth Families who are fundraising for the British Heart Foundation!
They are aiming to raise as much money as possible for the British Heart Foundation in honour of our 3 month old daughter Amalie. At just 2 weeks old she underwent open heart surgery. She’s doing really well and we now want to raise as much money as possible so the BHF can continue to help others like her. Here’s how the family are fundraising:
In April Matt will be taking part in the 2020 Marathon des Sables. Dubbed the ‘toughest footrace on earth’, the challenge will see Matt cover 250km in 6 days across the Sahara Desert. A former rugby player through and through, Matt has already taken part in many marathons over the past year raising money for the BHF, culminating in not only the MDS but the London Marathon 2 weeks later!
To sponsor Matt through this epic event, visit: www.justgiving.com/Backrow2heartbabies
Here is one of their latest fundraising events that is happening in a few weeks.
Some of our Atworth team will be there to support the family with this.
See you on the 21st March!
Sit down, take a seat and have a look at what we have been up to during February at Snapdragons Atworth…..
Chefs in the making … Some of our Pre-schoolers were very kindly invited to be chefs for the day at Wagamama’s in Trowbridge.
Thank you very much for having us. We can’t wait to come back!
No one loves being in the garden as much as our babies and toddlers. We climbed, we splashed and we searched…..
Surprisingly we couldn’t find any puddles but instead we made our own. We even managed to find giant insects in the garden!
Let’s get messy in our baby room!
As usual we have been celebrating festivals from around the world. One we have been celebrating is Holi - the festival of colour!
Reminders…
Tote bags
As a company we are really trying to focus on how we can reduce waste, recycle and reuse items more. If possible please can all parents pop a little tote bag in their child’s main nursery bag. This will be for any wet clothes and this will help to reduce the amount plastic nappy bags that we are using during our nursery day!
Car park
Can we please remind parents to be mindful when entering and leaving the car park here at nursery! There are lots of people and children around so please drive slowly and be mindful when entering and leaving
Invoices
Please remember that invoices are due to be paid in full by the 15th of every month. You are able to view your most up to date invoice on the parent zone app by requesting a new invoice through the finance tab.
Session times
Children that are dropped off early to sessions or collected late from sessions will be subject to additional charges as per the parental contracts, see the below extract from the contract.
Children that are collected late, without pre-arrangement, at the end of their session will incur a late pickup charge of £7.00. For children who are still not collected by 18:15, a further charge of £15.00 will be administered.
For children who are still uncollected by 18:30, a further charge of £1.00 per minute will be administered.
Don’t forget that we are constantly updating our pictures and videos on our website so make sure that you are having a nosey at our website for what we have been up to!
Important dates for your diary….
Parents Evening for our Toddlers and babies - 25th March 2020.
This is from 6pm to 7:30pm. Don’t forget to book in a time in the rooms!
Parents Evening for Pre-school - 30th March 2020.
This is from 6pm to 7:30pm. Don’t forget to book in a time in the rooms!
Thank you for reading our February Newsletter!
See you again in March…..
Let’s hope we don’t have to catch the rain this month!
January 2020
This month at Atworth..
We have been busy since coming back to nursery after a fantastic Christmas break. Come and have a look at what we have been up to……..
Yay!
We did it…
You may have noticed a slight change of the layout and look of the nursery. We have been working on our Curiosity Approach Accreditation. This has enabled us to reflect on our current practice and provision that we offer from our baby room, toddler room to our pre-school room. After all of the team’s hard work we are now a Curiosity Approach Accredited setting!
January 2020 Snapshot…
Our babies have been busy in the garden! Everyone loves bubbles especially the babies when they can watch them pop, fly and land in the garden.
It’s been very chilly but this didn’t put the toddlers off and they have been busy selling ice-creams…..
Our Pre-schoolers are in training to be expert car washers. Although once the cars are gleaming they love to make them dirty again!
Christmas 2019…
We have had a wonderful Christmas exploring the excitement through the children’s learning, wishes and discoveries. We have had a lot of Christmas events and we have loved inviting you all in to the nursery to join in with the Christmas spirit. Also, we put on our annual Nativity performance with our pre-school children. Don’t forget that we have lots of pictures of these on our website. Even though it is a few months in to 2020 we can still re-live the Christmas events!
Reminders…
Car park
Can we please remind parents to be mindful when entering and leaving the car park here at nursery! There are lots of people and children around so please drive slowly and be mindful when entering and leaving
Invoices
Please remember that invoices are due to be paid in full by the 15th of every month. You are able to view your most up to date invoice on the parent zone app by requesting a new invoice through the finance tab.
Session times
Children that are dropped off early to sessions or collected late from sessions will be subject to additional charges as per the parental contracts, see the below extract from the contract.
Children that are collected late, without pre-arrangement, at the end of their session will incur a late pickup charge of £7.00. For children who are still not collected by 18:15, a further charge of £15.00 will be administered.
For children who are still uncollected by 18:30, a further charge of £1.00 per minute will be administered.
Don’t forget that we are constantly updating our pictures and videos on our website so make sure that you are having a nosey at our website for what we have been up to!
Important dates for your diary….
Pajamas and story evening - 4th March 2020
Parent’s evening for Babies and Toddlers - 25th March 2020
Parent’s evening for Pre-school - 30th March 2020