A Typical Nursery Day
Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays
8.50am
The children arrive, hang up their things and go straight into their choice of activity. All areas of the EYFS are accessible through our continuous provision. During the autumn term the adults register the children, as the year progresses they begin self-registration using their pictures and then their names.
9.30am
We come together for our morning routine, singing songs about the days of the week, the weather and more.
9.30-11.30am
The children take part in a flexible schedule of free flow activities (following their own interests in the indoor and outdoor provisions, supported by their class teacher/room leader and key workers), group times (small teaching groups of 4-9 children focusing on a particular activity) and snack time (fresh fruit provided daily by the government, supervised by a member of staff trained in first aid).
Some examples of free flow activities include:
- playing in the sandpit
- mud kitchen, or water tray
- building with the construction toys
- enjoying stories together
- drawing, cutting, sticking and painting
- junk-modelling or messy play
Some examples of group time activities include music and movement, exploring key texts in more detail, discussing our emotions, learning new vocabulary, maths or phonics games.
11.30-12.15pm
The children sit down for lunch in their classrooms. Children can bring a packed lunch from home or parents can pay for a hot school dinner. All children sit together at the tables where conversation, manners and eating with cutlery are all encouraged by the nursery staff and lunchtime supervisors.
12.15-1pm
All children are encouraged to play outside after lunch. We like to go out in all weathers so a good coat, wellies and gloves are essential in winter, and sunscreen and a sunhat are essentials in summer!
1.30pm
Time for milk and a story. The government provides a free carton of semi-skimmed cow’s milk each day until children turn five. If you wish to provide a different type of milk (e.g. oat, soya), we are happy to store this at school and offer it to your child at milk time. Children also have access to their water bottles all day.
1.30-2.45pm
The rest of the afternoon is another round of free flow activities and group times. Over the course of a week part-time children will have five group times and full-time children will have ten. Group time inputs from the beginning of the week are repeated in a slightly different way at the end of the week. This ensures that all children receive the same input and that the full-time children are not repeating anything.
2.45pm
Time for our end of the day routine. We encourage the children to collect their belongings as independently as possible and enjoy some time sitting together on the carpet, talking about our day or singing familiar songs.
3pm
We sing our goodbye song at the end of every day and wait on the carpet to be dismissed to our grown ups.
Wednesdays
11.30am
On Wednesdays our part-time children who attend at the start of the week leave before lunch. Our full-time children have their lunch in their classrooms as usual.
12.20pm in Butterflies, 12.30pm in Caterpillars
Our part-time children who attend at the end of the week arrive after lunch. They go straight into free flow activities with their full-time friends who have just finished their lunch.
Fridays
2.10pm in Butterflies and Caterpillars
This is when the 30 hour funding from the government ends each week. Parents can either collect their child from the Early Years office at 2.10pm on Fridays or pay a weekly top-up fee (invoiced on a half termly basis) in order for their child to stay until 3pm.
