HARLEQUIN NURSERY NEWSLETTER SPRING TERM 2023

We would like to wish all our families a very Happy New Year, we hope 2023 is a happy and healthy year for all. The last few months have been very exciting and we have had lots of fun activities taking place

Diary Dates

30th January - 6.00-7.30pm: Bluebells parents evening

30th January – 4.30-5.30 Fundraising Stay and Play

Nursery Closure Dates

Monday 1st May (May Day Bank Holiday)

Monday 8th May (Kings Coronation Bank Holiday)

Monday 29th May (Spring Bank Holiday)

Friday 7th April- Monday 10th April Easter bank holiday

Thursday 6th April -Training Day Closure

We close the nursery for staff training on two occasions each year.

In order to provide a high quality service to parents and children we demand high standards of our staff. We encourage everyone to continue with training throughout their career and ensure that staff regularly update their skills and attend a number of relevant courses.

Training days have proved invaluable, especially when we want to embed new ways of thinking throughout the company.

Daisies

Over the past few weeks the Daisy room have been doing lots of sensory activities. We do this to support the babies to discover new textures and sensory experiences. Some of the activities we do are: shaving foam, bubbly water, corn flour and our textures tray. The babies are encouraged to use their whole bodies to explore the textures. Babies feet are sensitive areas which are good to help learning to identify different feelings and textures. During these activities, we repeat descriptive words (sticky, slimey, soft etc) which introduces the babies to new words and encourages them to say the words. The children have become more and more confident when joining in with these activities and spend long periods of time in them.

Poppies

In the Poppies room we have had lots of fun creating artwork in lots of different ways. We have used paint, pencils, pom poms, sequins, bubble wrap and lots more and the children have loved making things. We have also been exploring with textures using corn flour: we have put powder paint in with the corn flour and pom poms to see how they feel in the mix. We have also made playdough adding different solutions such as hair conditioner and baby lotion to make see how it changes the feel and smell of the playdough. These solutions made the playdough really soft and the children decided we should call it fairy dough. We have also added some of our own home grown herbs to the mix to see how it changes not only the smell but also the colour.

Bluebells

The children in Bluebells have loved starting our fortnightly forest school sessions again. We have done lots of activities with Simon such as building dens, worm hunts and bark rubbings. We have explored the textures in the garden and then looked at how these change the crayon patterns on paper. We have been spending more time looking after our composting worms making sure they have plenty leaves to eat and they have been working hard providing lots of compost and compost ‘tea’ for us to use to help our plants grow. We have also enjoyed using branches from evergreen trees to create our own artwork and going for hunts around the garden to see what treasures we can find to add to these.

Upcoming Topics

Over the next month in the poppy and bluebell room our topic is science. We have already started some ‘germ’ experiments and we are looking forward to lots more exciting investigations such as growing broad beans in different environments, changing the colour of plants with food colouring, colour mixing and cooking activities.

In the Daisy room our topic is Winter. We will be doing lots of ice play, looking at the cold weather and hopefully we’ll have some snow to play in as well.

Quick reminders

Even though we are having lots of rain in the weather at the moment we are still going outside please make sure your child has plenty warm spare clothes in their bag which are labelled.

Finance

Please note that our childcare software ‘Connect’ have terminated their contract with Worldpay, so we can no longer accept payment by this method. Our preferred payment method is by bank transfer (please use your child’s name as reference), TFC and Voucher. Please be reminded that fees are due on or before the 1st of the month and payment can take 3-4 days to clear, particularly TFC and Voucher payments.

Nursery Education Funding

All 3 and 4 year olds are already entitled to 15 hours of free early education for 38 weeks of the year. There is an additional 15 hours of free childcare available for families that meet the Government's eligibility criteria, this will also be for 38 weeks of the year.

More detail information can be found on the GOV.UK website:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/482517/Childcare_Bill_Policy_Statement_12.03.2015.pdf

Application and funding process - You will need to apply online via HMRC they have a dedicated helpdesk to support parents apply if you are unable to apply online. The link to the website is below.

https://childcare-support.tax.service.gov.uk/par/app/applynow

Eligible parents will be given a code which will be valid for 3 months, you will be asked to re-confirm your eligibility towards the end of the 3 month period. HMRC will send reminders to parents.

Please be aware that if you would like to increase your child’s attendance with your eligibility for 30 hours we have limited places until September 2023

Copyright © 2018 Portland Nurseries, All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:
Oakwood House, 2 Hungerford Road, Huddersfield HD3 3AL
Portland Nurseries Limited. Company No. 7538309. Registered in England & Wales.

Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.