• ' Little Explorers' for two year olds at St. Gerard's.

Welcome to St Gerard's Nursery School

"Our Nursery is a place of learning within a loving and Christian community. We achieve this through our mission statement: "Guided by God, St Gerard's is an inspiring and aspirational community where we learn to love, hope, dream and achieve. All staff, children, governors and  parents contribute to school life and share in its growth and well being."

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A huge welcome to our Nursery Class at St Gerard's Catholic Primary and Nursery School.  I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself to you. My name is Mrs Tickle  and I am the EYFS Lead and  Nursery Class teacher here at St Gerard's .I have been teaching for many years  and we are accompianed all week by our classroom assistant Mrs Harrison.

During the SPRING TERM  2025, my class will be learning about the season of winter. The children will be looking for signs of winter within the outdoor environment and exploring all that this brisk season has to offer.We will experience snow and real snow play, building snowmen and forming snowballs with those little hands. We will look for frost and ice, finding out what happens when the weather warms up! They will learn about suitable clothing, how creatures manage the cold and the beauty and unique nature of snowflakes.

We will then learn about Chinese New Year and participate in celebrating the year of the Snake. The children will learn about the country of China and see how it differs to Britain. They will experience a typical dragon dance, food tasting and find out how our Chinese families celebrate the new year traditionally.

It is going to be an exciting term of learning ahead!

For more information, please see the 'Nursery Class Spring Term Curriculum Leaflet  2025' that can be accessed at the bottom of this page.

During the SUMMER TERM 2025, our nursery children will be learning about 'All creatures great and small.' This will include learning about caterpillars through the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. The children will learn about bees and find out why they are so important and why they play such an important role in our world. The class will have their very own pretend bee hive and get the opportunity to be the beekeepers. We will also learn about snails and be looking at the work of the artist Matisse and 'The Snail.' The children wil have a focuse week of creative development where they wil be experiencing many different art skills to complete the half term.

During our physical development sessions, the children will be developing their athletics skills and practice running in the lanes on the school field, in preparation for our annual Sports Day event for EYFS.

As we celebrate the anniversary of VE days with an 80 year celebration, the children will wear red, white and blue and have their lunch outside for a whole school party, They will be making commemorative medals, create crowns and also make a special flag for VE Day.

In the second half of the term we will learn about kings and queens. Our role play area will be a London Bus Station and the children will create the bus themselves during creative time. They will learn about our capital city of London and compare it to where they live in Widnes.

During this term we will hold our end of year Graduation Ceremony for all of our older nursery pupils who will be joining the Reception Class in September.

Meet Our Nursery Team

Mrs E. Tickle

(EYFS Lead and Nursery Class Teacher)

Mrs C Harrison

(Teaching Assistant)

Our Nursery Environment

In our Nursery, happiness is key. We provide a very warm and friendly approach, thus enabling your child to feel  happy and settled within our classroom setting. 

We provide a wealth of activities and opportunities for your child both inside and outside of our classroom. We are fortunate to have a well resourced outside space, for our children to develop their learning through play.

We pride ourselves on our welcoming environment, where children can learn, be happy and play. Everyday the team ensure that the classroom is equipped with exciting learning opportunities for all children regardless of their age, stage of development or special educational need. 

HOME LEARNING

Home learning activities will be both practical and enjoyable, that a parent can carry out with their child, to support their learning and develop their skills.  It will always be closely linked to our curriculum and will be clearly explained in the weekly home/school letter.   This provides an opportunity for parents to work in partnership with school and their child, to help them by carrying out fun, practical tasks that have been planned for that week.

They will be linked to different areas of the curriculum and may be evidenced  through photographs via Class Dojo, should you the parent choose to do so.

Our School Day

Our Nursery has its own highly secured entrance gate separate to the main school. This allows access to the EYFS outdoor play area as well as the Nursery classroom.

Our classroom door is open each morning at 8:40am and our sessions work as follows:

Morning session    08:40 am - 11:45am

Afternoon session 12:15pm - 3:15pm

Part time children come to school for 15 hours a week, which equates to 5 morning  or 5 afternoon sessions.

Full time children come to school each day and undertake 30 hours per week.

30 hour places can be fully funded for working parents via a 30 hour code. Alternatively you can pay for the additional 15 hours at a cost of just £65 per week.

PE SESSION

Our PE session is every Thursday morning with Mr Firkins our PE coach.

Your child must wear either the school PE kit and trainers, or plain black joggers/leggings, plain white t-shirt, plain black hoodie and trainers.

DAILY REQUIREMENTS

Each day your child needs a refillable water bottle and a waterproof coat with them in school.

School Uniform

We kindly ask that your child wears a uniform in our Nursery . There are many posiitives to this as well as saving your child's own clothes. Our reasons include the following;

- The children are all equal when dressed the same

-  When putting the uniform on, it is helping yor child to prepare for school. They know where they will be going and what to expect. They associate the outfit with school life. This greatly helps their settling in process.

- The children gain a sense of belonging, in the family of St Gerard's and share the same beliefs and values.

Class Dojo System

Your child will be given a Class Dojo character of their own.  Dojo points will be given in school for many reasons, including great work, fantastic effort, lovely manners, kindness towards others and so forth. We provide parents with login detail for the Class Dojo App, to enable you to be up to date with progress.

We also use the Clas Dojo system as a great form of communication between parents and teachers. If you have a concern or question, you can always message us  through this system.

Read, Write Inc - Phonics

In Nursery we teach the children ‘Read, Write Inc’. This is a Phonics programme designed to teach the children the sounds and the skills to read. In Nursery we will be focusing on the following sounds in the following order. If you are not sure on how to reinforce this learning at home please ask Mrs Tickle or click on the following document. 

Twitter

We follow the interests of our children on a weekly basis. To ensure that you are up to date with our learning please check out our school twitter page and search using the hashtag #StGerardsEYFS

Click on the school badge to be taken to our school twitter page