Nursery
We currently have places available to start September 2023 in our nursery.
If you are interested in a place for your child, please contact us,
we would love to offer you a tour of our early years area and to meet our team.
Meet the Team
Daily Routine
At Dell Nursery our doors open at 8:30am and children arrive via the Nursery gate on the school playground. The MORNING sessions runs from 8:30am-11:30am with children collected via the Nursery gate on Winston Avenue. The AFTERNOON session runs from 12:15pm-3:15pm with children arriving via the Nursery gate on Winston Avenue and children collected via the Nursery gate on the school playground. Children who attend Nursery for FULL days arrive at 8:30am via the Nursery gate on the school playground and are collected via the same gate at 3:15pm.
8:30am- AM and DAY children arrive via the Nursery gate on the school playground.
8:45am- Registration
9:00am- Whole class session
9:15am- Free Flow play and adult focused tasks both indoors and outdoors.
Throughout the morning session, our snack café is open for children to access.
10:45am- Whole class session
11:00 am- Tidy up time
11:10 am- Story time/Song time
11:20am- Home time/Lunchtime routine
11:30am- AM Children collected by parents via Winston Avenue gate
11:30am-12:30pm- Lunchtime for DAY children
12:15pm- PM Children arrive via Winston Avenue gate
12:30pm- Registration
12:45pm- Whole class session
1:00pm- Free Flow play and adult focused tasks both indoors and outdoors.
Throughout the afternoon session, our snack café is open for children to access.
2:30pm- Whole Class session
2:45pm- Tidy up time
2:55pm- Story time/song time
3:05pm- Home time Routine
3:15pm- PM and DAY children are collected via the Nursery gate on the school playground.
Snack Time
We offer a rolling snack during our sessions with the snack café open for around 40 minutes per session. A Nursery adult supports the children during this time to help themselves to snack and a drink. We provide children with a healthy snack such as apples, bananas, pears, oranges, tomatoes, raisons etc. We also provide children with a drink of milk or water. We encourage children to bring a drink bottle from home with either water of sugar free squash inside. Snack is always provided in both the morning and afternoon session.
Lunchtime Provision
Children who attend Nursery for FULL day sessions have lunch between 11:30am and 12:30pm. During this time, two MDSA’s Mrs Thomas and Mrs Nash support them. Children eat their lunch in the school canteen with the Reception children and once they have finished eating they play outside in the early year’s area. The children return to Nursery at 12:30pm ready to start the afternoon session.
There is no charge for lunch time provision however charges apply if you would like to order your child a school meal. A school meal is £2.40per day (£12.00 per week) and we need this to be paid in advance of meals being taken, via our School Money system. We do not accept cash or cheques in school. As well as the main hot dinner, jacket potatoes, hot tomato pasta or the vegetarian choice of the day can be ordered at the morning register. We also have a 'pick and mix' style lunch for children - the children love it! Children can will receive a freshly filled sandwich or roll, a healthy snack, a home baked goodie and a piece of fruit. All this for the same great value £2.40! Meals are cooked and prepared to order so a change of mind at the serving hatch cannot be catered for.
If you have any dietary requirements that you would like to discuss then please speak to a member of the Nursery team.
Please note - we have children with nut allergies in school and therefore ask that you DO NOT send nuts or nut products in your child's packed lunches.
Breakfast club
We offer a popular Breakfast Club before school between 7:45 and 8:30 as part of our extended provision. Children take part in a range of activities and, of course, enjoy a healthy breakfast.
Breakfast Club is free of charge, but booking is essential. This is done via our online booking system.
Wraparound Club
We offer Wraparound Care after school from 3:15 to 4:30, as part of our extended provision. Children take part in a range of activities and enjoy a healthy snack and drink. Mrs Berrecloth leads Wraparound Care. Each session is £3 per child and booking is essential. This is done via our online booking system.
Uniform
School uniform is not compulsory in Nursery however, most of our parents choose to put their child in uniform to help them feel part of the school community. We recommend wearing the school uniform as activities in Nursery can be messy. Please do not send your child to school in their favourite clothing. We recommend comfortable shoes that are easy to take on and off (by the child) such as Velcro and we recommend either jogging bottoms or leggings that your child can remove easily for toileting.
Brand new uniforms can be purchased from Screens in Rant Score, or purchased online. However a cheaper alternative is to have a look at Uniformd, please see below for more details.
Library
We have Library once a week where the Nursery children can choose a library book to bring home and share with you. Nursery children will require a BOOK BAG in order to bring their library books and school work too and from school each day.
Nursery Children also participate in the whole school Reading Race. Children are rewarded for reading with tokens that can be redeemed in our ‘Library Shop’, for a variety of items, ranging from smaller things such as pencils and notepads to books. The more tokens children collect, the better the item they can buy with their tokens. 1 token is given for every 10 reads. You can record a maximum of one read per day, which means there are 7 tokens per week available. There will be lots of things to purchase in the shop priced at either; 1, 5 or 10 tokens.
Alongside this we have our ‘Reader of the Week’ who will receive a certificate in the celebration assembly on a Friday.
P.E.
Nursery children do attend a P.E. session each week however they are not required to wear a P.E. kit. Nursery children remove their shoes and socks in order to participate in this session.
Key Children
At Dell Nursery we understand the importance of allocating your child with a Key Member of staff to help support them during their transition. A Key Person provides individual, tailored care to every child assigned to them. From an early age, it’s important for a child to develop key cognitive skills like confidence and social interaction, and this person offers nursery school children a place where learning can be performed in a safe and trusting way. Your child will be allocated with a Key Person as part of their enrolment within our setting however, the Nursery Teacher (Miss Moss) has the overall responsibility for all nursery children.
Start Dates and Visits
Tours of the Early Years unit are arranged via the main school office. You can contact us on the admin email address listed below or by calling the main school office on 01502 565956.
Tours are carried out by members of the Senior Leadership Team or the Nursery class Teacher.
A majority of our children will start with us in the September after their 3rd birthday. Offer letters are sent out at the beginning of June which will offer the hours stipulated on your initial application form (depending on availability). Your offer letter will also contain your invitation to the Nursery intake meeting with the Early Years Lead Mrs Moyse who will be able to answer any questions you may have. You will have the opportunity to meet Miss Moss the Nursery class teacher at this meeting. At this meeting, you will receive your Nursery starter pack, which will contain the internal admission forms and your home visit date, nursery visit date and start date. You will need to complete the admission forms and return them to the school office prior to your child starting with us.
In some cases, we are able to offer mid-year start dates as long as your child has turned 3 years old. If we have spaces available then we will contact the parents of children who have already handed in an application form and who are due to turn 3 years old in the coming weeks. The Nursery teacher will then organise stay-and-play visits and start dates. Visit dates and start dates will need to be negotiated between the school and parents to ensure that they are suitable for all involved. Your nursery visit is usually an hour visit the day before they are due to start however, we are flexible and more visits can be arranged it needed.
Funding and Hours
We can accept children for 15 hours per week unless you are eligible for a 30-hour code in which case you can choose the sessions/days you would like however, this is always dependent on spaces. Children who are attending for 15 hours will either attend for AM or PM sessions and will not be able to do a mixture of the two. We encourage all of our children to attend no less than 3 sessions per week in order to ensure coverage of curriculum and time to develop and foster friendships and relationships.
If you believe you are eligible for a 30-hour code then you can follow the link below to claim your code. In order to access the 30-hour provision within our setting you must apply for your code at the end of each term ready for the next. It is the responsibility of the parents to ensure their code is validated by the dates that can be found on the website listed below. It is not the responsibility of the school or Nursery staff. If you do not validate your code then it may be that we are unable to provide your child with the continuation their extended hours.
30 hours free childcare - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
If you are not eligible for extended hours (30-hour code) but you would like your child to experience some full days in our Nursery then there is the option to pay for the extra session. We charge £15 per session, and this needs to be paid in advance of the session being attended, via our School Money System. As mentioned previously we do not accept cash or cheques in school. If you would like to enquire about extra sessions then please speak to the main school office or a member of the nursery team. Extra sessions are subject to spaces and we are unable to change/drop sessions until the start of a new term. Failure to pay for sessions will result in the sessions being withdrawn.
At the start of each term you will complete a PAF form and this is the time to change your child’s hours or request for extra sessions. The Nursery teacher will inform you when it is time to sign for an update your child’s funded hours.
Tapestry
All Nursery children attending Dell Primary School have a personal on-line Learning Journey which records photos, observations and comments, in line with the Early Years Foundation Stage, to build up a record of your child’s experiences during their time with us.
We use Tapestry, a system, which is hosted in the UK on secure servers. These servers conform to very high environmental standards and are proactively managed 24 hours a day. Each Tapestry account has its own database and the code itself is developed using hack-resistant techniques. Filenames are encoded for uploaded videos and images, making Tapestry a safe and secure on-line Learning Journey tool. The benefits to yourselves from Tapestry being on-line means you will have secure access (via a website which you login to using your email address and a password) to your child’s Learning Journey and, in addition to viewing our contributions, we encourage you to add to it by uploading photos and comments, or commenting on observations made by us.
Each class in Nursery has their own secure Tapestry website, which once you have provided the school with an e-mail address we will be able to set you up with an account. We will also give you information on how to view/use your child’s Learning Journey.
If you do not have access to e-mail your child is still able to have an online Learning Journey which you can access through the use of school computer equipment during specific dates throughout the year (Please let us know if you would like to access it in this way). It is also possible to provide print outs of the Learning Journeys (for a small fee).
Home Time
Nursery children must be collected from the nursery by a named adult. Children under 16 cannot collect children from the nursery. If you are unable to collect your child, then it is your responsibility to inform a member of the nursery team.
If you would like to set up a password system for your children then please let us know!
Toileting
Staff at Dell Nursery will help all children with their toileting needs. In a majority of cases most children will be toilet trained prior to starting with us however, we understand that this may not always be the case. We encourage all parents to attempt to toilet train their child in the months prior to starting at Nursery. If your child is not toilet trained before their start date then please speak to the member of the nursery team who attends the home visit. We will need to be aware of this prior to your child starting. Your child will need a clean nappy put on before coming to nursery and nursery staff will check the nappy half way through the session. Nappies will only be changed if wet/soiled. If your child attends nursery for FULL day sessions then their nappy will be checked half way through the morning session and then changed upon their return to nursery after lunch.
Once your child has settled into nursery the nursery team will the support you to potty train your child unless there is a medical/SEN need which means that this is not possible.