Nursery

Nursery

Our Nursery is a wonderful space within the grounds of St John’s School, Sidmouth. Located next to Reception and Year 1 and Year 2, the nursery provides an outstanding start to your child’s passion for learning.

 

Offering a stimulating and creative indoor classroom, a bespoke outside play area, forest school, a heated pool as well as music, PE, tennis and Spanish, the nursery is a place where children fall in love with learning and discover the excitements of the world around them.

With a high staff:pupil ratio and a maximum of 20 children per day, they are all known as individuals and encouraged to develop their passions whilst being supported in their learning.

 The Nursery is open from 8am until 4pm on Mondays and Fridays and until 5pm on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays during term time with children attending for a minimum of three days a week.

St John’s accepts government funded hours between 9am and 4pm.

Please do contact us to arrange a tour to see Nursery in action by calling 01395 513984

About Nursery

Our Nursery is delighted to welcome children from ages 2.5 year olds to 4 year old during term time.

Our team consists of a Nursery Manager, Ms Churchill, along with a full time deputy and assistants.

Our highly experienced, passionate and motivated team is supplemented by St John’s School PE, Swimming, Music and Spanish teachers, who provide age-appropriate learning. We are far more than a child–minding centre, and make up an integral part of St John’s School.

As part of the school, we are lucky enough to be able to enjoy all the school facilities including the sports hall, the extensive playing fields, Welly Boot Camp, in addition to a heated indoor/outdoor swimming pool. This allows our youngest children the opportunity to access fun lessons, which we consider
essential with so many water hazards and amenities in the local area. Older children from the school often help within Nursery and this contributes to a smooth transition for those moving through to ‘big school’ in Reception at St John’s, which are the majority. There is also a constant interaction between
Nursery, Reception and Year 1, the sharing of resources in addition to team teaching, so that all children benefit from staff skills, enthusiasm and professionalism.

As well as a package of comprehensive care throughout the day, children receive a mid-morning snack, a healthy lunch in our nursery dining area and a light tea in the afternoon. St John’s Nursery is subject to Independent School Inspections on a regular basis and receives glowing praise for the academic and pastoral support, along with the opportunity to enjoy the excellent school facilities.

How we learn

Our Nursery follow the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and our own method of enquiry based learning which allows us to create an environment that encourages children to enquire, explore, question, investigate, create, imagine and most importantly have fun!

Our children are encouraged to learn through play and exploration, making full use of our indoor and outdoor learning environment. We are very fortunate to have a fantastic indoor learning space, our own playground as well as use of the heated swimming pool, the forest school and the sports hall. This means we can learn in many different ways.

Nursery Life

Loose parts play a big focus within St John’s Nursery. The children are the creators of their own learning throughout the environment provided. Through the open-ended resources they are able to transport. fill, create and imagine and allowing the children to be in control of this journey is one of the most exciting things to watch. At St John’s we plan the environment through the eyes of the child. What sparks them, what are their next steps? From this we can plan activities to extend their prior knowledge.

Story of the week is a big focus at Nursery. We love to really get into a story and talk more deeply about what is happening and the language being used. By the end of the week we can hopefully recall the story! This forms the beginning of the learning journey to becoming an enthusiastic reader. Our Reading Den’ expands on the love of books by allowing the children to have time to look at them independently or quietly with an adult. The engaging cubby holes with props to support story and non-fiction books are planned with the children’s interests and next steps at the forefront. Books can be found all around the nursery for the children to engage with whenever and wherever they are exploring.

At ‘Funky fingers’ they explore and have fun whilst strengthening those hand muscles as they play. Our ‘Design Area’ is always a busy zonel From construction in all different shapes and sizes to animals from all types of habitats to trains, ramps and cars. Transient art’ is an area for the children to create, change and evolve by using the loose parts in a non permanent way.

The ‘investigation area and message centre’ are areas with a variety of resources that allow the children to freely explore. When mark making in whatever form, children are encouraged to tell a story of their own creation. In the investigation area children can access this at any level and for those that need extra challenge, an adult can be there to support.

At St John’s Nursery we pride ourselves in each and every child being part of the creation of the learning environment. Through their love of learning we aim to inspire their young minds to become enthusiastic learners. However, the four walls do not restrict us as the natural world beyond it gives us endless opportunities tool.

Miss Churchill-Deam
Nursery Manager

AROUND NURSERY
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