Seagulls Term 4 Newsletter
Dear parents and carers of children in Seagulls,
Kelly, our teacher at the beginning of the week and Orange Group Key Person has been busy gathering all of the teaching and learning highlights from all of the groups and written a very thorough reflection on what’s been going on in Seagulls. I hope you’re able to take the time to read and find it valuable. We would appreciate any feedback on the value of this information. Many thanks, Sam.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Dear Seagulls families,
There has been so much wonderful learning happening in our busy room this term for both the children and adults. Where to begin?!
- We continue to reflect on and adapt the learning environment in response to how the children use it.
- Forest, food, Rainbow Room, and library sessions are in full swing.
- Each group now has access to Spotify meaning we can use music in our nest spaces, Seagulls, and the garden (thank you Brooke!).
- We’ve ordered new resources to enhance our role play, small world play, maths and more!
- Adapting morning snack with different offers such as dates, toast, smoothies, or eating it outside.
- We’ve had teachers from other settings visiting to learn from our skilled and experienced staff. Next up there will be trainee primary school teachers coming to learn about maths in the early years with Hugo and Kelly.
It truly is a privilege to work with such a dedicated team. The love, care and passion each member of staff brings to the room is nothing short of magic.
Key Group Highlights
Each Key Person was asked to share some of the big interests, themes in learning, or specific focus points for their group. Every group is unique and Key People have the challenge of planning activities specific to their own group – some of this planning happens in advance based on observations and reflections, but much of the planning happens in the moment, in response to, and in collaboration with the children.
|
Orange Group |
|
|
We’ve been interested in learning about the letter shapes in our names – many of us are now recognising our own names and are starting to notice different letter shapes in our friends’ names too! |
|
|
Kelly shares: We’ve been exploring pattern through movement, our voices + body percussion. Block play both inside + outside has been heavily influenced by our love of princesses and Power Rangers! The structures have been impressive! We’ve also been developing our sense of self, celebrating our differences + learning about Ramadan and Eid. We continue to practice our friendship skills using puppets, stories, and turn-taking games. |
Lou shares: Music has been very popular this term; we love sharing our favourite songs! Songs have helped us to explore the alphabet and explore shapes.
We’re learning about different shapes + using them to make collages, tesselate, and do tangram puzzles. Number Blocks have also helped us to focus on matching numerals to quantities. |
|
Yellow Group |
|
Daisy shares: Yellow group have been exploring different art techniques such as marbling and creating a group collage. Some children in the group have shown an interest in cutting and watering the plants in the garden. This led to discussions about ‘can a cut plant or flower can grow… how? Why not?’ We’ve been planting cress and basil to extend our learning from the food sessions and to support understanding of the life cycle of a plant. Our current favourite story is ‘I Want My Hat Back’ by Jon Klassen. I made a hat which we use when retelling the story through a turn-taking game, which always gets us laughing! |
|
Blue Group |
|
|
Billy shares: The group LOVE animals + have a strong interest in the natural world. Our curiosities from the forest have raised questions such as ‘Can mango grow in our forest?’ ‘What could we grow here? Why/why not?’ We’re enjoying non-fiction books about the forest and are researching how to make bird feeders. A big change is how the group are playing collaboratively with blocks, exploring spatial reasoning to make shops, tents, and a dance floor! |
Hugo shares: We’ve have had a new challenge this term! I created new labels for our self-registration routine (new font, just text, no photo) to experience + promote name recognition in a new way. In our daily routines we’ve been exploring counting in different ways to get a better understanding of number. We’re also exploring pattern with buttons, shapes and counters. The group are getting more out of storytelling, currently enjoying ‘Mr Gumpy’ + ‘Mr Gumpy’s Motorcar’. |
|
Green Group |
|
Sara shares: Our love for Gruffalo Woods started back in term 2 when we spotted a Gruffalo claw in the forest! We built a small world with characters when learning the story (written by Julia Donaldson) which the group still love to play with. We’ve made our own maps of Gruffalo Woods too! After each forest trip the group have been telling me stories. I scribe the stories + the children use their knowledge of The Gruffalo to inspire their ideas! In maths we are using the self-registration routine to explore addition and subtraction. We are learning about what different numbers are made up of (composition). E.g. 5+5=10 and finding other ways to make 10. |
|
Purple Group |
|
|
Lucy shares: We’ve been working on our listening + attention skills through group games, exploring rhythm, + starting group discussions. The children are showing more confidence as I’ve been promoting independence (use of a nose wiping station, a focus on zips and buttons). We’ve focused on our understanding of 1-5 through song, counting, and number recognition. Role-playing shops has made it really fun! |
Carmen shares: We’ve been warming up for the spring equinox and learning about, and noticing, the seasonal changes. A wonderful book ‘The Root Children’ has been special and meaningful to the group. We’ve been using objects to continue and create simple patterns in group time. This continued at the forest too, using sticks and leaves! |
In Seagulls and Beyond
One of our favourite things in Seagulls this term was the Pancake Café – a booming business full of customers! Children who visited the Pancake Café enjoyed preparing fruit toppings, cooking a pancake, enjoying tasty food with friends, and counting out their coins to pay. It is rumoured the celebratory cheers could be heard as far as the city farm each time a pancake was flipped!
We’ve been visiting the forest for longer sessions to allow groups to dive deeper into their curiosities and slow down the pace of the day. Packed lunch forest picnics in Spring – what a treat!
Key Groups are also continuing regular food sessions in the kitchen with their Key Person and Carys. Not only do the children benefit from an extra adult during these sessions, but it also provides an opportunity for the adults to learn from each other too. Carys has a passion for cooking with young children - she wrote her dissertation on this very topic! We are so grateful for her knowledge and expertise.
We’ve also been learning about Ramadan – through books, videos, crafts, Muslim staff members, and our youngest experts – the children! It has been another opportunity to continue to learn about one another. The pride our Muslim children show when talking about Ramadan and Eid is a joyful thing to witness.
The Learning Environment
Just like Blackbirds, we started our term with a new addition to our shared learning space – canvas walls added to the shelter just outside of the garden door! Seagulls is a big space, with lots of children and many different things happening at once, so as I am sure you can imagine… it can become rather noisy at times!
The Seagulls team have been experimenting with different ways to use this space to figure out how to maximise its potential. We have tried a few things – a space for morning snack, outside lunch, watercolour painting, clay, a space for rest…
Through discussion we have found that the space works well for many things, and we’ve not yet settled on how it might be used in the future – the biggest value, however, is providing a calm, quiet, sheltered space for conversation allowing us to focus on communication and language skills, listening, and taking turns to speak.
We hope that you have a wonderful break and look forward to seeing you from Tuesday 22nd April.
From Kelly and the whole Seagulls team, Sara, Hugo, Billy, Daisy, Carmen, Lucy, Lou, Emma, Gemma, Socheat, Jeanette, Debbie, Paula, Rochelle, Debs and Jessie.
Eid celebration:
Thank you to everyone who joined us for the Eid Celebration on Wednesday – it was wonderful and has left us smiling and feeling joyful. It was lovely to see so many families come together. Thank you to everyone who donated food and volunteered their time to help with the planning and organising of this event and to the PTFA who provided funds for the Eid Gifts for the children.
Primary School Offers:
If your child is due to start Primary School in September 2025, and you applied on time, you will be notified of their allocated school place on Wednesday 16th April 2025. You will need to accept/decline the offer by Wednesday 30th April. When you return from the Easter break, please let your child’s Key Person know your child’s allocated primary school so we can start the transition process.
Partial York Road closure to switch from 6 April
A reminder that the stabilising works taking place on York Road will be switching on April the 6th. Please refer to email sent on Friday 28/03/2025 for further details.
Tesco – Please vote!
We are delighted to let you know that our application to Tesco Stronger Starts has been successful and our project will be put forward to a customer vote in local Tesco stores. Voting will commence in store from the first week in April 2025 until the end of June 2025.
Redcliffe Nursery School - Forest Experience
To enable children from all walks of life, the opportunity to experience the natural world beyond our urban community, through forest exploration.
The project with the highest number of votes across our region will receive £1,500!
What happens next?
To vote, you will need to make a purchase within store of any value. You will receive one token per transaction Please see below a list of stores taking part in the voting on our project. Feel free to share this list of stores amongst your family & friends.
2129 Bristol Express Express BS1 3DW
2141 Bristol Brislington Extra BS4 5AY
3302 Totterdown Express Express BS3 4RJ
3424 Whitchurch Express Express BS14 9HX
5235 Bristol Wine Street Express Express BS1 2PH
5247 Bristol Blenheim Court Express Express BS1 3LA
5366 Bedminster Express Express BS3 3NN
5515 Bristol Clare Street Express Express BS1 1XR
5800 Bristol St North Express Express BS3 1HZ
6040 College Bristol Express Express BS1 5SP
6132 Bristol Axbridge Road Express Express BS4 2RX
6138 Bristol Canons Express Express BS1 5TY
6352 Bristol Paragon Express Express BS1 2HJ
Reminders:
I would like to give you some important information reminders
- Please ensure you bring a named bag in with multiple spare changes of clothes as well as shoes, sun hats and suncream If your child is in nappies, please remember to pack spares
- Please provide water in your child’s named water bottle – no squash!
- Mobile phones are not to be used once you have gone through reception into the Seagulls or Blackbirds rooms.
- Please can you fold down your buggies or take them away if possible. We need to keep the main entrance walkway clear at all times as this is a fire exit.
- Parking - please note that the car park is for the residents and a tow scheme is in place. We recommend using the on road pay and display bays for free 30 minutes to drop off and collect your children.
- Please check Facebook, Instagram and the website regularly. We are aiming to post photos (non-identifiable) of what the children have been enjoying each week.
Dates for your Diary:
- We will finish for the half term break on Friday 4th April and reopen on Tuesday 22nd April. Nursery will be closed to all children during this time.
- Photos – Jefferson Photography will be in on Tuesday 29th April and Thursday 1st May to take group photos of the children with their Key Person. These will be available for you to view and purchase as a keepsake shortly after.
- INSET Day – Wednesday 11th June. Closed for staff training
The Easter Holidays are here! why not check out what’s on offer in Bristol:
Easter in Bristol - VisitBristol.co.uk
Warm wishes,
Sam Williams, Head Teacher
