Our Nursery is warm and welcoming, inclusive, bright and colourful and a really fun place to learn. We have an immersive classroom which enhances our skills based continuous provision, complimented by a text-led, knowledge and vocabulary rich curriculum. 

What do Ofsted say?

  'Activities inspire children to be independent and creative in their learning'

and the team create 'a bright, vibrant and exciting environment'.

Ofsted GOOD in December 2018

Meet the Nursery Team

Class Teacher Miss May (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday)

Class Teacher, SENDCo & Assistant Headteacher Mrs Searson (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday) 

Early Years Practitioner Mrs Cholewa (All week)

We would like to warmly welcome you to our Nursery class at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Primary School

- a place to learn and grow.

Achieving Excellence Together with God's Love

Here at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Primary School we know and understand that starting school can be a very exciting adventure, with many new experiences along the way and, we care that sometimes we might need a little extra help and may also need to be a little extra brave when change is on the way. With this in mind, we want to reassure you that we are here to make sure that we support all of our families transitioning to school, to ensure that experiences are positive and happy when starting your educational journey with us.

We have already enjoyed meeting you all during our pre-summer 'stay and play' sessions and soon it will be time for our home visits. On Tuesday 6th and Wednesday 7th September we will be visiting you in the comfort and familiarity of your home to give us a chance to get to know each other better. This is a perfect opportunity to answer all of your questions, make personalised preparations for your school start and build strong, supportive relationships right from the start.

NURSERY HOME VISITS

Tuesday 6th September & Wednesday 7th September

Please check your parent email for further details.

NURSERY PRE-SCHOOL VISITS/CONTACT

Thursday 8th September & Friday 9th September

SCHOOL START DATES & TIMES FOR NURSERY SESSIONS 

Monday 12th September - Morning sessions start - 08:45am-11:45am

Thursday 15th September - Full day sessions start - 08:45am-15:15pm

Thursday 15th September - Afternoon sessions start - 12:15pm-15:15pm

30 HOURS FUNDED CHILDCARE

Have you checked to see if you qualify for full time funding?

https://www.doncaster.gov.uk/services/schools/30-hour-free-entitlement

Share these stories with your child and talk about what to expect when starting school.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWFuqnYXxLI

https:// https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWsZ2q9ROac

Going to Nursery School - Making new friends

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU7gbsZJGlA

This is the way we go to school - Let's sing and get ready together!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsIb5L0_pGY

    What do you need every day for school?

* Full school uniform, including ties

* A full set of spare clothes in their back pack

* Intimate care supplies if necessary

* A water bottle with their name on     

* A packed lunch if staying all day

Please remember to label all children's belongings.

Fresh fruit, milk and water will be provided.

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HAPPY WORLD OCEAN DAY !!!

8TH JUNE

Bursting with wildlife and teeming with mysteries to be solved, our ocean is one of the most amazing on Earth!

Take a deep breath, as you dive into our under the sea learning...

In nursery we have been doing lots of learning through the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. The story is about a little caterpillar who is very hungry. We follow him through the week as he eats lots of different fruit and lots of other food too, until he is very big and very full. He then spins himself a cocoon and after two weeks inside, he emerges at a beautiful butterfly.
As we read the book we talked about where the story took place and how we knew this. We talked about the different fruit and which fruit we had tried and liked, we also talked about healthy eating as the hungry caterpillar ate lots of other food that made his tummy hurt! We discussed the life cycle of the butterfly and how the egg changes into a caterpillar first, then into a cocoon and then into a butterfly. In our choosing time we were very creative. We made some symmetrical butterfly pictures using a mirror to help us, we also made some caterpillar pictures using a balloon! We used dough to exercise our fingers and make wings for the butterfly, caterpillars and cocoons, we learned a new song, looked at non-fiction books and used models to help us to understand more about the life cycle of a butterfly and we dressed up as caterpillar and a butterfly to take on the role of the character in the story. The children really enjoyed the learning about the very hungry caterpillar and revisited the book independently lots of time in the reading area.

Wow! Another busy week and lots of brilliant learning!
Please talk to your child at home about their understanding of the story and keep an eye out in your garden for hungry caterpillars and beautiful butterflies.

What a great start to the summer term! 

We are learning all about... MINIBEASTS!

Look at our immersive classroom!

A BIG thank you to Mrs Nesbit

for buying the waterproof suits for our children. 

The children love them and they love going outside to play

and learn in all sorts of weather.

They said they look like fire fighters!!!

Nursery were practising their fine motor skills using wheetos and leaves.

Look at our FANTASTC BEANSTALKS!

Nursery are getting better at writing their names.

Fantastic work Nursery!  We are so proud of you all!

We have had so much fun in Nursery! 

The children loved music and movement parachute activities.

They focused on rhythm and listening skills while worked together

to move the parachute in different ways.

What a fantastic gross movement activity!

Below is a curriculum letter which outlines all of the fun and exciting learning that we will be doing this half term: 

TRADITIONAL TALES

Our learning journey

During our topic, the children will listen to stories and use their imagination to bring them to life. They will use their senses to explore the world around them as they explore characters and events in our much loved traditional tales. The children will have the opportunity to engage with stories and explore their feelings and thoughts as they listen, read or watch. 

JACK AND THE BEANSTALK

The children in Nursery have had fantastic two weeks, they have been reading the story 'Jack and the Beanstalk' and enjoyed lots of exciting activities including retelling the story, creating beanstalk pictures, building beanstalks and even planting our own magic beans! 

The children have been loving listening to the story so much, so they decided to act out the story. There were some fab 'Fe Fi Fo Fums!'. This was a great language and social opportunity for children, they were learning new words, sharing their ideas and listening to each other too as they played. They also wrote 'wanted' posters to warn everyone about the Giant!

We set up a small world area where the children played beautifully together, using their imaginations to retell the story and take turns acting out the different characters. 

The children received a letter from the magic man who hid the magic beans around the school and carefully heard riddles and clues to try and figure where to find the magic beans. We found FIVE magic beans!!!

During the play the children talked about how big and high the beanstalk was and compared it to themselves. This inspired us to make our own beanstalk and measure each other to see how tall we were.

The children learned a lot of new language from staff about tall/short, bigger/smaller and looked at each other height closely. They were fascinated by the beanstalk and studied it for a long time, looking the beanstalk leaves and talking which one is bigger, medium or smaller. 

What an amazing Winter Market we have had!

Thank you to all our families who came and enjoyed the fun games and stalls. I hope you liked the wonderful Nursery Winter Jars! 

SANTA IS COMING....

What an exciting morning we have had in Nursery!!!

We had a special visit from Santa Clause 

Enterprise week!

Twinkle Twinkle tea light jars...

We had great fun creating our very own beautiful winter jars in preparation for Enterprise week!

FALLING FROM THE SKY 

Our learning journey

During the topic 'Falling from the sky' the children developed the understanding of changes within environment during the autumn season. To immerse the children into our new topic, we went on a local walk to identify seasonal changes in our environment. We explored the shape, size and colour of leaves and how the trees were bare. We discussed how the leaves had fallen to the floor and why. We collected our favourite leaf from our walk and brought them back to our classroom. We shared the story 'Leaf Man' which inspired us to create our very own leaf men!

We explored the texture and smell of a pumpkin soup. We then tasted it and discussed our preferences. We loved the story 'Pumpkin soup'. We enjoyed pretending to be the Cat, the Squirrel and the Duck and acting out the story outdoors in our mud kitchen area.

We became scientists and took part in an experiment to test what materials a good hibernation den for animals throughout the Winter.

We learnt about nocturnal animals. We have been reading the story 'Owl Babies' and learnt five finger facts about owls. We enjoyed making our own rice cracker owl for snack. YUUUMMYYY! We used a range of tools to build our own owl nest and created little owlets. We discussed together how the owl babies felt when their mummy was gone. The children enjoyed looking after their little owlets. 

In Maths we have been reviewing our understanding of 1,2,3 and our ability to recognise different representations of these numbers.  

Friendship have continued to develop as we have enjoyed many team building activities such as den building. 

REMEMBRANCE DAY

In Nursery we celebrated Remembrance Day by learning the importance of the poppy. We have been sharing some books, along with the beautiful CBeebies short animation and making our own poppies.

We hope you like our fabulous displays!

Nursery children enjoyed dressing up for HISTORY DAY!

Take a look at our fantastic costumes

ALL AROUND THE WORLD

Our learning journey 

Our Nursery children have had a great time exploring their new learning environment.

They have been busy with all of our exciting activities.

 As part of our phonics we were on our listening walk. We had so much fun! We were quietly walking round the school to listen to all different sounds. When our walk finished we sat in a big circle and we all said one sound we heard. We got some very interesting answers!

In Nursery we aim to instil a lifelong love of Reading into all our children, which we hope they will continue on their St Francis journey! We visited the school library for the first time. We learnt some important rules about the library and made sure we were very quiet. We were learning how to vote for stories and we enjoyed lots of different books!!!

As part of our topic, all Around the World, we were reading the story, 'You Choose'. We were focusing on the different types of home. We know the vocabulary flat, terrace, bungalow, semi-detached, detached and caravan. 

 During our maths we learnt about different representations of numbers1-3. We have made sets, played matching games and began learning how to subitise as part of our early maths development. 

 We enjoyed the 'Squiggle as you Wiggle' sessions. We had so much fun learning different movements. We danced using new movements and used it to make marks. Our sessions were great FUN but most importantly help our children to be confident mark makers!

We began to gain a wider experience about the world around us. We learnt through first-hand experiences to explore, observe people, plants and objects in our natural environments. We learnt about features in the local area and the buildings that surround them. We looked at the photographs of the local area to help us identified  features, for example a library, railway, church or mosque. We also tried to record our findings through drawing, writing, and modelling. We also have been learning about food and nutrition. The children explored foods from different cultures and learnt how food is grown and where it comes from. We know that food and healthy choices are important to us!

Look at our amazing learning...

We are so proud of our Nursery children, they have all been settled lovely and have been working so hard, exploring, being creative, and being friendly to all of our friends. What a fantastic first half term we had!

Look at our fantastic 'All Around the World' learning environment in EYFS!!!

Intent

At St Francis Xavier Catholic Primary School, we believe that a good early education is fundamental for a child’s success. Through achieving the balance between play and adult led sessions, our early year’s curriculum is designed to provide children with the best possible start in life. The children’s interests are at the heart of our syllabus which enables us to deliver a high quality and child led learning.

We strongly believe that children thrive in an environment where they feel safe, happy and respected. At St Francis, we achieve this through providing children with fun and engaging lessons, forming positive relationships with parents and listening and responding to each individual child’s need.

Implementation

Each half term, we plan a topic which we feel will interest the children. This topic is then broken down into seven areas of learning which are: personal social and emotional development, communication and language, physical development, literacy. mathematics, expressive arts and design, and understanding the world. When delivering these sessions, children will participate in physical activities, discussion and role play activities to enable them to gain good knowledge and understanding of what is being taught. We strongly believe that children learn best through play therefore, anything which is taught is placed into the provision for children to explore in their own time either independently or with their peers.

Communication and language is essential in ensuring that children are able to reach age expected levels (or higher), across all areas of learning. Communication and Language is broken down into three vital parts which are: listening and attention, understanding and speaking. At St Francis, we provide the children with these skills through introducing a wide range of stories, poems and rhymes. We also ensure that children are exposed to high quality texts which build their vocabulary and promote questioning to develop their understanding further.

Impact

Delivering an enriched curriculum in the early years will provide children with the foundations they need to reach their full potential. By the time the children leave the foundation stage unit, they have learnt skills which will enable them to be successful throughout their school life. Explicit modelling, promoting independence and providing ongoing assessments, promotes high levels of engagement in learning, and enables the children to make rapid progress throughout their early years.

Throughout the day, children will engage in various stimulating activities within both the indoor and outdoor provision. There are activities that are adult led where we work alongside your child to support new skills. There will also be numerous open-ended activities for children to choose that promote independence and curiosity. Within the Foundation Stage, children learn through play which is fun and engaging! 

EYFS Curriculum