Pre-School's January 2022 Newsletter

Harvard Park Pre- School LTD.

Notes from the management team: Happy New Year! We hope you all had a lovely festive break and it wasn’t too stressful for you all. We would like to start by officially welcoming Cathy, Shalyna and Claudia to our Pre-School Team. If you have changed any of your details such as mobile number or home address, please be sure to let us know in a email, phone call or text.

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Reception applications are now open and must be completed online: https://www.hounslow.gov.uk/ info/20028/primary_admissions/1906/primary_school_admissions - for children who were born between 1st September 2017 and 31st August 2018. If you need support or guidance, please let us know and we will try to help the best we can - the closing date for all applications is 15th January 2022.

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Where the rules and regulations are forever changing with COVID-19 restrictions regarding daily life and travel, please understand that although you may not have to isolate on return from a holiday abroad, we may ask you for proof of negative PCR’S or lateral flows before you are due back in the setting. Please let us know if you will not be attending your sessions for any period of time. For funding purposes we will need to when you are not attending and why. Any prolonged period of absences may require a loss of space if you do not keep in regular contact with us.

Term dates and closures:

We will be closed from: Monday 14th February to Friday 18th February 2022.

Reminders: 

If you pick your child up @ 3:30 pm - Please do not come after this time. We do not have the staff to get your children ready and bring them out to you. If you arrive after 3:30 pm you may have to wait until 4:10 pm. Children will have a home time group and be released to you at 3:30 pm - no earlier and no later.

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Completing your set homework: We have set homework which runs for a period of 6 weeks to co-inside with your children’s targets at nursery.

Please try your best to follow through with it as it helps them to move forward in their development and understanding of the world.

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If your child is potty training, please ensure you’re providing enough spare clothes to last your child for their session. Around 3 to 4 pairs of underwear, trousers, socks and a spare pair of shoes is enough.

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Please can ALL parents provide their child with hats and gloves while they are at the setting, It is very cold in our garden in the morning and the children have free access to this all day!

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We are still recruiting for a qualified level 3 in education and childcare position. If you know of anyone looking for a job, ask them to send their CV to us or get in touch!

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Please label all coats, hats and gloves with children’s initials to prevent mix ups or things being misplaced.

We will be open again from: Monday 21st February 2022 We are setting all of you as parents a goal: Post on the EyLog at least once a month!

It benefits your child’s development as we are then able to use the evidence and photo’s as markers to secure them in all the areas of development. It also makes a lovely memory when it comes to the end of your child’s time at Harvard park.

Birthdays for the month of January: Happy 3rd birthday to Kyro!

Happy birthday to Roshelle and Eva too!

We hope you all have a lovely day!

Harvard Park Pre- School LTD.

Notes from your Pre-School Teachers: Jeanna, Eva, Sima, Roshelle, Shalyna, Claudia, Cathy and Carmela: Focus: Space and the universe!

We are kicking off the new year with by looking into Space and the universe. We will be using the story ”Whatever Next” by Jill Murphy and focusing on the 3 songs Row Row Row your boat, 5 little men in a flying saucer and Zoom Zoom Zoom. We have a video on our Facebook page which you can use to support your children’s learning where Jeanna and Eva read the story. If you have the story at home or know the songs above, read them and sing them together to help your child become familiar with them and help develop their language.

Throughout January we will also be working on incorporating mathematics into our activities. Support their learning by introducing numbers around the home such as on a remote control or counting the buses you pass on the way to nursery. At pre-school we use a technique called “bumping into books”. This is where we provide books in all of our area’s at the nursery to help children engage with books. We use a similar technique with numbers so will be implementing this into our activities. Alongside this we will be doing lots of music and movements to beats and rhythms. We will start to look at distinguishing between beats and noticing patterns. It will also help us keep warm and active in the chilly weather.

For our younger children we will be using a strategy called bucket time to help support with early listening and attention skills twice a week. It is conducted in a quiet and calm space with minimal distractions. As children become more confident with these sessions, it then helps to develop language and also sharing skills.

For our older children who will be preparing to go to school this year, we will be encouraging them to participate in small group phonics sessions twice a week. We will be introducing children to both the sounds and the names of letters which feature in their names and encouraging to form some letters where they are able. Alongside this we will be focusing on the letters S, A and T. Reminders: 

The weather is changing - please make sure you are bringing in a coat/thick jacket, woolly hat, gloves and a scarf (with names on the labels) and sturdy shoes so we can continue to go out and get our daily dose of fresh air. Please also make sure that their outfits are also reflective of the weather - no thin summer dresses or shorts.

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Continue to uploading onto the EyLog - some of you are doing great and supporting your child’s development. Please see us if you are having trouble or are not sure what to do!

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Please make sure you are informing us if you will not be in for your session. We will be keeping an eye on attendance and if not attending regularly may end up in reduced hours or loss of funded space.

Dates for you diary and reminders: COVID-19 updates: All of our staff are continuing to test using the Lateral Flows 2 times a week and sending us their results. We are continuing to have our windows professionally cleaned and all room’s are having regular de-fogging. Where possible all doors and windows are left open to allow clean air to flow through. We will continue to inform you of any positive cases within the nursery as is our duty of care.

Half Term Closures: We are closed from Monday 14th February to Friday 18th February 2022