Salisbury Road, Burgate, Fordingbridge, Hants SP6 1LX

Telephone: 01425 656060 Email:

24 June 2015

Dear Parents

Welcome:

Welcome to our new children who have joined the nursery in the past few weeks and to those who will join us shortly; Oliver, Bella, Henry, Harry, Alfy, Emma, Ellie, Isaac, Austin, Logan and Thomas. As you can see, our numbers are growing rapidly as we become more established.

Staffing:

I would like to also welcome some new staff. Kassi will now work for the nursery full time from 1 July. Lesley will join the Robins room as the Senior Practitioner towards the end of July. She comes from the Coach House Day Nursery where she has been Senior in the Woodpecker room and Deputy Manager. Jessica has joined us from The Burgate School as an apprentice and will work towards her Level 2 and 3 qualification.

We also have some new bank staff. Andrea, Rebekah and Kaye will be doing holiday and lunch cover in term times.

Fathers’ Day:

Thank you to everyone who attended our first Fathers’ Day event. I do hope that everyone enjoyed the afternoon and had fun with their children. The shelter building activities were expertly carried out and everyone successfully completed their mission and qualified for their BBQ tea! Even the rain held off!

There are some photos for you to see in Reception. I will also email some photos to individual families.

Forest Schools:

Fordingbridge Junior School has given us permission to use their Forest School facilities on a Thursday morning. The Woodpecker and older Robin class children will walk along the Avon Valley footpath to the school to avoid the road.

Vegetable Patch:

The vegetable garden is underway. The children have planted beans, onions, carrots, courgettes, potatoes, pumpkin, leeks and radishes. Watering the garden is now an everyday activity. Nuthatches are watching their potatoes grow in the front garden.

Leavers’ Party:

There will be a Woodpeckers Leavers’ party on Thursday 23 July starting at 2.30 – 5pm. This is for the children who are going to school in September, and of course, for any Woodpecker child who usually attends on a Thursday afternoon. There will be games and a party tea.

Fordingbridge Festival – Saturday 18 July

The nursery is one of the event’s sponsors and will be present of the day. Please do come along and say hello – there will be balloons and bubbles for children who visit us.

Summer BBQ:

All our families (whether your child attends on a full time or term time basis) are invited to a summer BBQ on Friday 31 July, 4pm – 6.30pm. There will be a BBQ, Pimms (adults only!), Bouncy Castle, Face Painting, children’s fancy dress (with prizes). You will receive your invitation shortly, but please RSVP by Friday 24 July.

End of School Term:

This is Wednesday 22 July. All funding stops on this date. Please see below for September 2015.

Changes:

Some further improvements have been carried out recently. The reception now has additional office furniture which gives space for more than one staff member to work.

The front garden has now had the patio area extended with new paving slabs to replace the remnants of the pub’s crazy paving which was a little uneven for the bikes and trikes.

The door handles have been raised slightly to reduce the temptation of opening the room doors during the day!

September 2015:

The 2 year old and 3 / 4 year olds’ EYE funding starts once more on 1 September. For those of you who do not yet receive this funding let me explain. It is a universal benefit for all children which comes into effect the term after their third birthday. It entitles those children to 15 hours free early years education for 38 weeks of the year (i.e school term times only).

However, the nursery would like to offer all parents the opportunity to stretch their funding so that children can attend for 51 weeks of the year and not be interrupted by half terms or holidays. This would mean that instead of 15 hours per week, children would only be able to attend for 11 hours per week but continuously throughout the year.

Please see Catherine for further details, but please let us know how you would like to use your funding from September.

Kind regards

Catherine

Company Number: 08722187