Nursery

Our nursery staff

Nursery 1- Mrs Dean, Mrs Henderson and Mrs Fox

Nursery 2- Mrs Kerr, Mrs Dooley, Miss Mackereth and Mrs Brodie

We aim to enable the children to develop their skills, concepts, attitudes and knowledge in ways most effective for nursery age children.

Young children learn best through PLAYING and TALKING.

PLAY – Play helps young children develop intellectually, socially and emotionally. Play that is well planned gives children the opportunity to be creative, to explore, and investigate materials. They can experiment and reason out problems. Play creates enthusiasm and helps develop cooperation with other children and adults. Play enables children to develop thinking skills, increases understanding and improves their ability to communicate.

TALK – Talking is vital to a child’s learning. Talking is one of the ways in which children make sense of the world. They learn to ask and answer questions. They learn to contribute to conversations with other children and adults. Children start to respond to stories and poems and talk about the characters in books. They describe outings and experiences and start to sequence events. All these enable language and thinking skills to develop.

The various activities which the nursery provides include:

• Large and Small Imaginative Play
• Maths
• Language and Literacy
• Art
• Physical activities
• Information Technology
• Music, Dance and Drama Social Skills
• Science – Knowledge and Understanding of the World

EARLY YEARS FOUNDATION STAGE CURRICULUM

Our revised EYFS curriculum has been statutory since Sept 2012. 

It outlines three characteristics of effective teaching

• Playing and exploring-children investigating and experiencing things “having a go”
• Active learning-children concentrate and keep on trying
• Creating and thinking critically-children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas and develop strategies for doing things

Learning and Development Requirements

There are three areas that are particularly crucial for igniting children’s curiosity and enthusiasm for learning and for building their capacity to learn, form relationships and thrive. These three areas are the prime areas.

• Communication and Language
• Physical Development
• Personal, Social and Emotional Development

There are four specific areas, through which the three prime areas are strengthened and applied. The specific areas are….

• Literacy
• Mathematics
• Understanding the World
• Expressive arts and design

Click here to view Early Years Foundation Stage Framework

Here at St Margaret Mary’s, we always seek to value the children’s self-initiated play and are vigilant in the maintenance of meaningful adult interventions. We provide a balance of child led and adult initiated teaching experiences for all our children in all areas of school. We plan and implement activities according to the developmental needs of the children.