INGLEBY MILL PRIMARY SCHOOL Headteacher: Mrs L Totty

Dear Parents / Guardians, We hope you had a relaxing Easter holiday and it has been delightful to welcome the children back to Nursery. We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your generosity and support with our Easter raffle. We raised 87.30 and your continued support is very much appreciated. We would also like to thank you for spending time working alongside your child during our Back to School Week. We hope you found it as rewarding as we do teaching the children. Its so hard to believe that we are nearing the end of the academic year and the progress the children have made is testament to the continued support we receive. Their education is very much a partnership between home and school. The next term is, once again, a busy one with many challenges still ahead for the children and we hope to meet them through fun filled and exciting activities. Our topic this term is Creep, Crawl and Take Off and we will focus on different minibeasts each week which will include ladybirds, bees, caterpillars, butterflies and spiders. As always, the activities will be taught across the seven areas of the curriculum, making links where possible to optimise learning. We have also arranged a visit from the Kirkleatham Owl Centre where the children will have the opportunity to see and handle a variety of different animals, birds and insects. The alphabetical sounds we will be learning are f, l, j, v and w. Reinforcement letter sheets to support the identification of both the letter sound and action will continue and in addition we will shortly be sending home a name card for those children entering school in September to support your child in writing their own name. We will continue to link our stories to the letter sound where possible in both small and larger groups. The local librarian will also be visiting the nursery to read and share books with the children, an activity which we all look forward to. We are also taking part in Rhyme Time this half term, an activity organised by the Barley Fields Childrens Centre where the children will listen to a variety of stories, rhymes and learn some new songs too which we hope to share with you all at the end of the term. Speaking and listening is continually developed through various activities as part of our everyday teaching and we will be extending vocabulary skills by encouraging the children to use more describing words and answer questions in short sentences where appropriate in our focused group sessions. Our main focus for the term is primarily number work within 10 and 20 for those children who are more confident with numbers. Problem solving activities continue to encourage the children to work out solutions for themselves and we will also be reinforcing the ordering of numbers within 10 and number values by adding 1 more. Additional activities will focus on patterns in the environment, creating simple patterns, symmetry and making direct comparisons between the lengths of objects. Opportunities to participate in a range of creative and physical activities are on-going and wherever possible these activities will extend to the outdoor areas too, now that the weather is beginning to improve a little. The children enjoy the use of the musical instruments and their knowledge of the different types of instruments and the sounds created continues to improve. We continue to visit the ICT suite and our focus is primarily the controlled use of the mouse for both selecting and creating images on screen. We will be introducing the use of simple gym equipment in our hall time alongside general movement skills. We are actively encouraging the children both to remove and put on their shoes and socks and your support to enhance their independence will be greatly appreciated. Please can you also ensure that your child has a suitable coat for outdoors, sensible footwear and a sun hat on a daily basis as we hope to see improvements in the weather. Spare clothing should be placed in a draw string bag and left in the cloakroom area as space is limited. All items of clothing and the bag should be clearly labelled to avoid any mix up or loss. We really appreciate your co-operation with this.

The children will continue to be given a SPLATT bag from the selection available and we request that all bags are returned to the nursery on the correct date at the beginning of the session.

We are very fortunate to have two members of our school staff who check and resource the bags for the next child to use every Wednesday afternoon. If SPLATT bags are returned late, your child will be unable to take home another bag that particular week as numbers of bags are very limited and there have been occasions when we have been unable to allocate any bags due to insufficient numbers returned. Please refer to the table for the selection and return dates.

Session
Flexi session Wed, Thurs, Fri PM Group Flexi session Mon, Tues, Wed AM Group Flexi session Wed, Thurs, Fri PM Group Flexi session Mon, Tues, Wed AM Group Flexi session Wed, Thurs, Fri PM Group Flexi session Mon, Tues, Wed AM Group Flexi session Wed, Thurs, Fri PM Group Flexi session Mon, Tues, Wed AM Group Flexi session Wed, Thurs, Fri PM Group

Allocation Date
24 April 24 April 6 May 1 May 8 May 8 May *19 May *15 May *22 May *22 May 9 June 5 June 12 June 12 June 23 June 19 June 26 June 26 June

Return Date
7 May 7 May 14 May 14 May 21 May 21 May 4 June 4 June 11 June 11 June 18 June 18 June 25 June 25 June 2 July 2 July 9 July 9 July

We request that all bags are returned by the 9th July at the latest to enable staff to check bags and resources in preparation for the children to re-use in the next academic year. Thank you. *SPLATT Bags to be retained for 3 weeks due to the half term holiday. Please refer to the SPLATT bag guidelines and ensure that the contents are well looked after. If necessary we may ask for a contribution towards damaged / lost items. Spaces within our staff car park are limited and at times our Lunchtime Assistants experience difficulties finding parking spaces prior to starting work. Therefore, we request that you do not use these facilities unless you are a permit holder. We would also like to remind you please to leave prams and buggies outside the cloakroom area due to lack of space and to prevent the area becoming overcrowded. We really appreciate your continued support with these matters. Please feel free to contact a member of staff regarding any questions or queries you may have. We look forward to seeing your children grow and develop in the best and most enjoyable way possible. Thank you for your co-operation. Yours sincerely, The Nursery Team
Windmill Way, Ingleby Barwick, Stockton-on-Tees, TS17 0LW Tel: 01642 761985