Nursery
We are excited to welcome you to our nursery at Castle Academy. Our nursery class is called Cubs and caters for children aged 3 and 4 years old.
We follow the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum. This has seven areas of learning split into three prime areas which are communication and language, personal, social and emotional development, physical development and four specific areas which are mathematics, literacy, expressive arts and design plus understanding the world. Each term we have a topic or theme that we focus our learning around.
We really value everything you do at home to support your child and love to hear about their achievements at home, please let us know. We really value reading in nursery so your child will be part of a story time every session they are with us, reading for pleasure is so important to develop your child interest in stories as well as introducing them to new vocabulary and concepts. The children have the opportunities to visit the school library and to borrow a book each week from the classroom. This will be a book chosen by your child and will reflect their interest. We will change the books once per week, we are unable to give your child a new book until the borrowed one is returned. We encourage you to share stories each day with your child and support them to learn book skills, talking about the story and pictures will help their understanding and build a good foundation for enjoying books.
Our nursery children do not have designated PE slots but do have access to our outside space each day with many opportunities to develop their gross motor skills. There will also be times to explore our main playground and play equipment over the year as well as having time with our sport coach. We visit the hall once a week to support with physical development and gross motor skills.
We do not expect our nursery children to complete homework, however we may send home occasional home learning challenges linking to our topic. These challenges will usually be fun and practical but are optional.
We encourage our nursery children to be as independent as possible when using the toilet but will offer support when needed. Please support your child to recognise when they need the toilet and ask to go. We will work alongside you to support your child with any toileting needs to develop their independence in this area.
Please ensure that your child has their named bag, with a spare change of clothes and water bottle (water only) in school, every day and that your children’s clothes are labelled. The children are provided with a healthy fruit or vegetable snack during the session.
