1.Term and Holiday Dates
Academic Year 2020-2021
Autumn Term 2020 Wednesday 3rd September 2020- Friday 18th December 2020
NYCC Half term holiday (WE ARE OPEN BUT NO FUNDING RECEIVED) Monday 26th October 2020 Friday 30th October 2020
Christmas holiday WE ARE CLOSED Monday 21st December 2020 – Friday 01st January 2021
Spring Term 2021 4th January 2021 – Friday 26th March 2021
NYCC Half term holiday (WE ARE OPEN BUT NO FUNDING RECEIVED) Monday 15th February 2021 – Friday 19th February 2021
NYCC Easter Holiday (WE ARE OPEN BUT NO FUNDING RECEIVED) Monday 29th March 2021 until Friday 09th April 2021
(CLOSED B/HOL 2nd &5th April)
Summer Term 2021 Monday 12th April 2021- Friday 23rd July
May Bank Holiday WE ARE CLOSED Monday 3rd May 2021
Half term holiday WE ARE CLOSED Monday 31st May 2021 – Friday 4th June 2021
NYCC Summer holidays (WE ARE OPEN UNTIL 14 TH AUG BUT NO FUNDING RECEIVED) We are closed from the 16th August 2021 for 3 weeks
Funding is received from the authority for 38 weeks a year, therefore if your child has a funded place and attends in the school holidays that we are open or the first week in September there will be a charge to yourself of either £40 a day or £21 half a day.

Term and Holiday dates
Academic Year 2021/22

Autumn Term 2021: Monday 6 September 2021 – Friday 17th December 2021

Professional development training day: Monday 6 September 2021

Half term holiday: Monday 25 October 2021 to Friday 29 October 2021
We are open but no funding received – term time only children can attend dependent on numbers and this will be charged at £40 per full day/£21 per half day session

Christmas holiday: We are closed

Monday 20 December 2021 to Tuesday 4th January 2022

Professional development training day: Tuesday 4 January 2022

Spring Term Tuesday 4th January 2022 – Friday 8th April 2022

Half term holiday: Monday 21 February 2022 to Friday 25 February 2022

We are open but no funding received – term time only children can attend dependent on numbers and this will be charged at £40 per full day/£21 per half day session

Easter holiday: Monday 11 April 2022 to Friday 22 April 2022

We are open but no funding received – term time only children can attend dependent on numbers and this will be charged at £40 per full day/£21 per half day session

Closed Good Friday and Easter Monday (15th April and 18th April)

Summer Term Monday 25th April 2022 – Monday 25th July 2022

Early May bank holiday: We are closed Monday 2 May 2022

Half term: We are closed Monday 30th May 2022 to Friday 3 June 2022

Professional Development Training Day: Tuesday 26th July 2022 – School Leavers Teddy Bears Picnic

NYCC Summer holidays (WE ARE OPEN UNTIL 12th August 2022) We are open but no funding received – term time only children can attend dependent on numbers and this will be charged at £40 per full day/£21 per half day session We are closed from Monday 15th August 2022 to Friday 2nd September 2022

Professional Development Training day – Monday 5th September 202

Academic year 2020/21

Tuesday 1st September 2020

Monday 4th January 2021

Friday 23rd July 2021 (school leavers teddy bears picnic)

Academic year 2021/22

Monday 6th September 2021

Tuesday 4th January 2022

Tuesday 26th September 2022 (school leavers teddy bears picnic)

Academic Year 2022/23

Monday 5th September 2022

(There will not be a charge for those days if you normally pay for your child’s place)

Starting school is a big step for both your child and family.

Creating a smooth transition into school is vital to ensuring your child gets the best possible start in their new setting.

We are very proud of our school transitions and work in partnership with you and the different schools, to fully prepare your child for their new challenge ahead, strong partnerships are key to a smooth transition.

Our Assistant Manager Kim Foxall is also our transition lead and is a first contact for any questions relating to school transitions

But what do we do to support transitions? We do a lot……..

Routines

We have a well embedded routine within nursery which closely mirrors a school day with self-registration, together time, focused activities and rolling snacks which all help your child to feel comfortable, confident and know what will happen next.

Together Time

Your child will take part in together times with children who are also ready to take that next step in their education. Together time allows us to support children to engage and listen to each other whilst developing positive relationships.

Together time encourages respect, turn taking and working together – we use these together times to work on key skills children will need for school such as thinking, listening, looking, speaking and concentrating.

Together times in nursery are carried out twice a day for around 20-30 minutes depending on children’s age and ability to concentrate – they have a specific structure with the older children’s being the “hello song” and talking about how we feel followed by the daily calendar then a focus on phonics, letter/number recognition, pencil control, cutting skills, co-operative games as well as talking and listening activities and it ends with our superstars and lunchtime songs.

The benefits of our together time on the school transition are that children go on to school with:

• Improved problem-solving skills.
• Improved speaking and listening skills.
• A sense of community.
• Increased self-esteem.
• Improved emotional intelligence.
• A sense of responsibility.
• Improved relationships between children and key adults.

We have close relationships with feeder schools

We have close relationships with all feeder schools and understand each individual school’s transition procedure, we feel that the investment of time in making these links is invaluable in supporting your child’s transition to school. We feel it is important to have good links with schools throughout the year, not just at times of transitions and we regularly check how our school leavers have settled into school life. Something we find very useful is hand delivering transition paperwork.

We read stories about starting school

Reading stories about going to a new school provides a great basis to start talking about moving to somewhere new and the associated feelings that may occur. One of our favourites to read with your children is ‘I am too absolutely small for school’ and it was actually introduced to us by Miss Ball at Sherburn Hungate Primary School when she visited the children and read a story.

We always focus on change as a positive

As a setting we always focus on the change as a good thing and talk about the exciting things that will happen at school – making new friends, a new exciting classroom, we talk about who will be going to school with your child, where they will each lunch and all the new activities, they will be able to do.

We focus on and develop children’s independence

We focus on small tasks that will make a big difference to your child starting reception class: being able to put on their own shoes; to get dressed/undressed without help – ready for those PE lessons; to independently go to the toilet and wash their hands; to open wrappers and peel fruit in their lunchboxes and crucially having the confidence to ask an adult for help when needed.

We encourage all children to ‘have a go’ and provide challenging activities. We also have a big focus on recognising and writing our names.

Role play school

We create a school in our role play area this allows your child to explore school life in a creative and imaginative way – Our home corner is transformed into a reception class with school book bags, uniforms to dress up in, transition photo books and school logos on the walls. This allows children to partake in activities associated with school such as daily registration, assemblies and wearing a school uniform. This exposes your child to some of the elements of their first day at school.

Photo transition books

We ask individual schools for photos of key adults and key areas of provision to create transition photo books to be used in nursery and help your child to become familiar with their new learning environments – these can also be taken home to share and talk about with parents and carers. We also talk about resources we have in nursery that are similar to school such as the wooden blocks, sand and numicon.

Help children to maintain their attention and focus

You may have heard about Geoff the giraffe – we use Geoff at together time.

Geoff has a “good listening” symbol on his ears, a “good sitting” symbol on his tummy and a “good looking” symbol beside his eyes to help your child to maintain attention and focus. If Geoff can do it so can you.

Teacher Visits

We contact all the schools that children will be attending and invite the teacher into our setting to meet your child/ren. This helps your child to feel more settled when they start school as there will be a familiar face. Teachers are given sufficient time to spend with your child and key person to discuss and share information about the transition.

Transfer of information

We complete a detailed summative report for children leaving us to go to school which includes comments from parents – this is hand delivered to your child’s school ahead of them starting along with a copy of their assessments which gives your child’s new teacher a starting point for planning in the first few weeks along with any additional information that we feel will help the transition such as particular interests, worries or achievements. We always contact schools following the transfer of information to request feedback on the transition paperwork.

We support parents and carers

Some parents need a lot of support during the transitional time and that is fine – if you’re feeling anxious come and speak to us. For some of you this transitional period will be all new. We will inform you about what you might expect in the months before starting school and how you can help your child through the transition. We will also discuss starting school in our summer term parent consultations and how you can help the transition. We want you to feel as comfortable as possible about your child starting school as children can pick up on parent’s anxieties. As a parent you can support children to become independent in dressing and toileting at home.

The final step

As your child’s last day approaches, we prepare your child for the separation from us and the close relationships we have formed with them. We mark their last day with a special celebration – a teddy bears picnic, we feel this is meaningful and celebrates your child’s time with us in an informal relaxed way. As part of our Kirkgate Childcare family we would always be happy to see you and your child for a visit.

COVID 19 UPDATES

27.05.2020

Everyone should have now been contacted to let you know the arrangements for re-opening nursery for working parents and parents of key workers. If you are returning to nursery we look forward to seeing you back at our magical little nursery on the 1st.

As always we will continue to keep you updated with our next steps, our risk assessments are under constant review and we will contact everyone further when we open up to more children.

The health and safety of staff, children and families is always our top priority.

23.03.2020

Nursery is now CLOSED following guidance from the government….we can still be contacted via Facebook and email – Dawn will get back to any queries as soon as she can.

Please rest assured that as soon as we are able to re open we will be, with open arms ready to welcome and settle the children. It is a very strange time for everyone.

For latest government advice please follow the link below, which is updated regularly.

https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus

Stay safe everyone

We are continuing to follow government advice regarding the Coronavirus so we wanted to provide you with some updates on how these measures could affect you.
The Coronavirus is changing almost hourly and we will do our best to keep you fully updated as and when information arrives. We are doing our very best to provide continuity for all of our families
As a parent/carer, you’ll need to take the following decisions:
~ if you believe your child to be at heightened risk of exposure, please act accordingly and self-isolate them.
~ if your child exhibits a cough or high temperature, DO NOT SEND THEM TO NURSERY. The child and the rest of the family who reside at home are to self-isolate for a period of 14 days (adults and children) as per new government advice.
THIS MEANS THAT IF YOU FEEL THE NEED TO SELF ISOLATE ONE CHILD, THE SAME APPLIES TO EVERYONE IN THE HOUSEHOLD.
~ As an educational setting that is open, we would expect only those children who are at heightened risk (underlying health issues) or those with identified symptoms not to be at nursery.
– however we fully understand parents concerns and choice with regards to keeping children off – we would just ask that you keep us informed and updated if you choose to self isolate for your own reasons.
NURSERY IS OPEN
While the Prime Minister has stated that public gatherings, restaurants, pubs etc are to be avoided, he has clearly stated that educational settings will remain open…. we will follow this guidance until:
~ The government advise us to close
~ There aren’t enough staff to operate safely
We receive emails everyday regarding COVID-19 from the government and will update as information changes.
We have children who are absent due to colds, sore-throats, coughs etc…..its that time of year and these families have self isolated as per government guidelines.
While the next few weeks and months are going to be challenging for us all, it is important that we support each other and follow guidelines provided by professionals.
If any of our families need any support please don’t hesitate to contact us.