Summer Term Newsletter 2025

Additional Services Charges (Working families funding only)

An additional service charge is applied to all children accessing the Working Families Funding. This is to ensure that the standard of childcare provided is maintained and continually improved, and so that we can continue to attract staff of a high quality to work for us. We try and keep these costs to a minimum however, inflationary forces outside our control are impacting heavily on the cost of running the business.
These costs are outlined in your funding contract before you take up the funded place so please ensure you read this contract before signing and returning back to nursery.

Here are some of the things we have booked in at nursery over the next term and are examples of how the additional service fee is used.

• Sing & Sign sessions for Bunnikins & Rainbows
• Dance & Yoga sessions for Sunshines & Busy Bees
• Hatching our own chickens with the living eggs company
• Visiting the Farm aswell as walking around our local community
• Zoolab-which is a company who are bringing live animals into the setting for Sunshines & Busy Bees

Q-Bell & Entrance way

Please can we ask that all Parents/Carers use the q-bell system when dropping your child off and collecting them at the end of the day. If you would like to add additional carers, then we will need their name, telephone number and email address in order for us to send them a link for them to download the app themselves.

Please can you be mindful of individual family’s privacy in the entrance way when dropping off your child. We have noticed many Parents/Carers walking in in the entrance way when staff are trying to have a conversation and sometimes these conversations may be of a sensitive nature and may need privacy whilst having them. We ask that you wait outside the door until the staff member is ready for your child to enter

Primary School Offers

You will receive a notification of your application by letter or email on 16th April 2025. If you could let the office know of your chosen school when you receive your offer.

If a school cannot offer a place, you will be offered the nearest school with vacancies. You may be added to a waiting list for the school you have
requested.

Appeals – If you are unhappy with your school offer, you can download Oldham Councils appeal form between 16th April and 9th May 2025.

Parents Evenings

We will be holding our Spring term Parents evening week in April, this will give you the opportunity to discuss together about your child’s progress,
behaviour and any other information you would like to share with your child’s key-worker.

Bunnikins and Rainbows – W/C 21st April 2025
Sunshines and Busy Bees – W/C 28th April 2025

Please speak to your child’s key-worker to arrange a time. If you are unable to attend in person, we can arrange a telephone call instead.

Concept Photography

On Tuesday 10th June, Concept Photography will be visiting in the morning to take photographs of your child.

If your child does not access a Tuesday, then feel free to book an appointment slot where you can bring your child yourself so they are not missing out. If you do not wish your child to have their photo taken, please let a member of staff know. We will be in touch nearer to the time about booking
appointment times.

Bunnikins

Aunties Jayde, Leanne, Margaret, Mollie and Eleanor are based in this room.
We would like to welcome back Aunty Jayde who has returned from maternity leave. Jayde is currently covering in all the rooms to help with getting back to nursery life but will soon return as room leader of Bunnikins. We would like to welcome all our new children to Bunnikins, but want to say goodbye to some of our Bunnikins children who are moving upto Rainbows from April.

Our Themes/Topics for this term are: April-Easter May-Farm Animals June-Sea-life/Father’s Day/Eid July-Holidays/At the beach August- Zoo/Safari animals

Please ensure your child’s spare clothes bag has plenty of age-appropriate clothes in as they do get messy through activities, leaking nappies and spillages at mealtimes. If you could check their coat pegs for any soiled clothes at the end of their day. As the nice weather is approaches, please could you provide a sunhat and in date suncream for your child to stay at nursery.

As you may have seen the display board in the entrance, we are now licensed to use ‘Sing & Sign’ within the nursery after being trained. We have introduced weekly ‘sing & sign’ sessions so every child can take part.

We will be introducing and teaching the children words per month. April’s word is ‘sing & bed’, May’s word is ‘stop/no/can’t’, June’s word is ‘garden’, July’s word is ‘bubbles’ and August’s word is ‘cuddle’.

Please speak to a member of staff if you would like more information, you can find the word of the month for your room on the display board in the entrance if you would like to support with this at home.

We have also created a scrapbook which is available in the Bunnikins room, this is updated every week for Parents to freely take a look at what we have been up to at nursery.

Rainbows

The staff based in this room are:
Lizzie, Emma, Dawn, Reanna, Alisha and Pat on Fridays.

Over the summer term in Rainbows, we will be enjoying our themes of Easter, Farm Animals, Sea life animals, Holidays/ At the beach, Zoo/
Safari animals. Following our themes we will be doing lots of exploring of the local area such as visiting the travel agents, local fish shops and
our main trip of going to Lancaster petting farm where we may be able to pet the lambs their bottles, pet the rabbits and feed the alpacas. We
are also looking forward to raising our own chickens which will arrive just before the Easter break which we will also be able to pet.

We are really looking forward to the summer period and enjoying spending lots of time outside, as we start to approach the warmer months
can we please ask that you ensure your child has suncream and a sunhat to leave at nursery. We look forward to the new adventures Summer
term will bring as we will welcome our new Rainbows.

This term we will be focussing on activities around:
April-Easter
May-Farm Animals
June-Sea-life/Father’s Day/Eid
July-Holidays/At the beach
August– Zoo/Safari animals

Sunshines

The staff based in the Sunshine room are Becci, Vicky, Becky, Kurana, Jenna, Chloe, Pat and Eryn.
Our Topics/Core Books
• We’re going on an egg hunt (April)
• The hungry caterpillar (May)
• Rumble in the jungle (June)
• Commotion in the ocean (July)
• Seaside book to be confirmed (August)

Upcoming events & activities

We will be celebrating Mother’s Day, Eid, Easter and Father’s Day. We will be having an Easter Bonnet competition in April. If you would
like to take part, your child’s homemade Easter bonnet needs to be returned by Friday 11thApril and the competition will be held on
Thursday 17thApril. Sunshine’s will look forward to seeing your lovely creations!
In the Summer term, we are having a planned visit from ‘Zoolab’ where lots of mini-beasts will be shown to the children as part of our
May’s topic ‘The hungry Caterpillar’ aswell as visiting the local community areas such as the park and pet shop.

REMINDER: Please ensure that your child’s clothes/coats etc are clearly labelled with their name in. Could we also ask that you check
your child’s tray and coat peg for any dirty washing at the end of each nursery day and provide some wellies for those rainy outdoor
playtimes and sunhat & suncream for those sunny days over Summer.

Some of our Sunshine children will be moving up to our Busy Bees from April. They will be having some settling in sessions over the
next few weeks ready for their transition.

Busy Bees

Our Busy Bees staff are Joanna, Alice, Courtney and Chloe.

Busy Bees would like to welcome all the new children who are moving up from Sunshine’s at the beginning of April.
Our topics/Core books this term are:• The Hungry Caterpillar/Easter (April)
• Traditional Stories (May)
• Zog (June)
• The Rainbow Fish (July)
• Super Tato (August)

Upcoming events & activities this term:
Next term, Busy Bees have started looking at the core book ‘The hungry caterpillar’, this links into our topic growth and change. We are going to be
planting our own tomatoes to observe their change over time and we also have a planned visit from ‘Zoolab’ where the children can handle mini beasts together and learn about each one.

On the 31st March, we have living eggs arriving for us to take care off. The children will not only experience life cycles and growth and development, the programme encourages social interaction and promotes caring and nurturing skills.

As you are all aware, we brush our teeth after mealtimes at nursery and learning how to do this independently. The children have been trying hard with developing independent skills, such as putting on our coats, shoes, following toileting routines and using knife and fork at mealtimes. Please could you help to continue to do this at home.

Over Summer we will be reading ‘traditional stories’ and ‘Zog’. Zog is all about getting prepared for school and what things we do in school. We will be providing lots of activities to support the children’s transition to school aswell as celebrating their time at nursery by having a Summer’s leaver’s party.

This will take place on Wednesday 16th July. Invitations will be given out nearer the time. Can we please remind all parents to ensure their child has appropriate outdoor clothing, such as wellies, waterproof coat and spare clothes in their bag.

As the warmer weather approaches, could we ask that every child has their own suncream and sunhat at nursery. Please ensure all belongings are clearly labelled with your child’s name in.