• ' 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

Meet Our Nursery Team

Mrs E. Tickle

(EYFS Lead and Nursery Class Teacher)

Mrs C Harrison

(Teaching Assistant)

Academic Year 2026-2027

A U T U M N  TERM CURRICULUM 2026

We very much look forward to welcoming our Nursery pupils into class in Autumn Term. It is a period of adjustment and settling  into our learning environment with a warm welcome, looking forward to exciting opportunities and creating great relationships with both adults and peers.

During this term we will be developing our learning journey with lots of activities that involve the children getting to know one another, finding out about their likes and interests, what makes them happy ,curious or excited.  We will begin with lots of PSED Personal Social and Emotional Development work . These planned opportunities will enable the children to have so many different ways to get to know each other, to form bonds, shared interests, talk about themselves and their families and to share with us their life experiences to date. We will build upon these opportunities to help the children develop their self confidence, learn about friendships, sharing and caring for one another. Most importantly, they will learn to experience what it is, to be part of our Nursery Class within the family of St. Gerard's Catholic Primary School.

The children will be given  lots of time to settle into our class and become familiar with the provision layout, understand the structure of the day and the routines and expectations. The children's independence will be encouraged as they learn to locate their peg ,hang up their coat and put a lunch box or water bottle away in the correct place. They will learn to self register when they enter class by adding their photo to our calss board. We take a register, sing a welcome song and clap how many children have joined us for our session. All these routines gain familiarity for the children, they add security and routine to each session, which supports then in settling in quickly.

Our theme for Autum Term A is 'Me, Myself and I'  where through some  great books we will learn about why each child is special, what makes them unique and why it can be great to be different.  We will also be learning about the most colourful season of them all ...Autumn. We will use some great texts to read to the children as well as use our outdoor provision throughout the term to bring our learning to life. 

We will be having a whole school 'Healthy Schools Week' where allpupils across the school will p[articipate in a range of workshops to develop their understanding of 'healthy.' This will include physical activiies, looking a t great food choices and diet, looking after our mental health and wellbeing as well as the role of vital adults such as the police and nurses, who will also be giving up their time to help us across the week by visiting classes.

Our role play area in class will be a house. This is a familiar experience for the children so that they can embark upon playing different roles within the family and devlop their imaginative play alongside their peers, whilst imncreasing their communication and language skills within play.

W E L L I E    W E E K!

Each term our three EYFS classes wil participate in a Wellie Week. This will be  planned week of activities that involves the great outdoors! The children will participate in outdoor forest school types of activities and each week across the year wil have a particular theme. Our first Wellie Week will focus on the season of Autumn. We will look at autumnal treasures, signs of autumn, cthe colourful changes that take place, the changes in weather, autumn weaving, bark rubbings, autumn treasure sorting and much, much more!  

PE sessions

We have weekly PE sessions and the children come to school already dressed in their PE kit and trainers, so that they are ready for the session. The PE kit for our class is the same as their daily uniform: Purple joggers, purple school logo t-shirt, purple school logo hoodie and velcro fastening trainers.

I will provide all the information that you need about this on Class Dojo, which all parents will be added to in Autumn Term.

You will be kept informed each week about your child's learning with a weekly home/school letter that I will upload each week to Class Dojo.  

We look forward to welcoming our new pupils joining us, the class will immediately make them feel welcome and wanted as always.

We can't wait to see where our learning takes us this term!

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 £75 per week.

PE SESSION

Our PE session is every Friday morning .

Your child will wear their usual uniform for PE as it is so versatile for their movement : Purple joggers, purple school logo t-shirt and purple school logo hoodie with trainers ( velcro fastening)

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.