Staggered Start for Nursery Children

Dear Nursery Families,

Further to the communications on Friday I would like to share more detail with regards to the Nursery resumption of face to face learning. Please note that individual class letters will be shared with further information regarding everyday Nursery life in the coming weeks.

 

Please find details of our Nursery programme below, it is important to highlight the children are in school participating in face to face learning for the first 4 hours of the day. When the children are normally in school, whilst lunch and rest time (from 11:30am – 1pm) are important parts of the school day, they are not structured learning times, therefore the children will only be missing 25 minutes of face to face contact time which will be accommodated for through online home learning provision (the majority of which will be specialist lessons). We will continue to ask the EdB to allow us to reopen for full days as soon as possible. 

 

Nursery Opening Program

 

8:45am: Start of the school day. Parents and carers will be able to bring their child to the classroom and say goodbye at the door. Children will have their temperature taken and wear a face mask before entering the classroom. We regret that parents will not be able to enter the classroom with their child. Please note that your child will be invited for an initial stay and play in which an adult will be able to accompany for the session. Further details of this can be found in the ‘Staggered Start’ section later in this letter. 

 

8:45 – 9:15am: Welcome time 

 

9:15 – 9:30am: Community Time

 

9:30 – 10:00am: Discovery time in class

 

10:00 – 10:45am: Outdoor learning experience and Snack Time (a substantial snack will be provided by school and children will eat their snack class by class in the dining hall according to EDB and CHP regulations). Children will have access to provision during outdoor learning time that complies with government guidelines, there will be a larger focus on physical development during this time due to the number and type of shared resources we are able to provide. During outdoor learning time the children will have the opportunity to develop relationships with children from other classes. 

 

10:45am – 12:00pm: Discovery learning. During this period, the children will have the opportunity to learn in other areas of our Early Years campus including the Discovery Centre, library, hall and forest. Each class will be allocated a different area each day to avoid multiple children using different areas on any particular day.

 

12:00pm: Outdoor learning experience & Optional Snack Optional snack of a breadstick for children who require it.

 

12:20pm: Reflection time and end of the day routines

 

12:45pm: Home Time. Children are dismissed to an adult at the classroom door (parents will not be able to come into the classroom). 

 

On a usual day, the children would have lunch from 11:30am – 12:00pm, unstructured play time from 12:00 – 12:30pm and rest time from 12:30 – 1:00pm. In order to comply with government regulations, we must ensure sufficient lunch and rest time before we can start our online home learning programme in the afternoon. In the afternoons from 2:15pm your child will have access to online learning opportunities from specialist teachers which will be different each day and allocated as follows per week: 

 

1 x Physical Education lesson which will be taught live via Google Meet 

1 x live Story time and weekly celebration with Miss Cole / Mrs Cassidy 

1 x Music lesson, 1 x Learning Technologies lesson and 2 x Mandarin lessons which will be recorded. 

 

All home learning will be accessible via the Virtual Classroom on Seesaw which we will give you full details of how to access.

 

At DBIS we take a play based approach to teaching and learning, therefore during outdoor and indoor discovery learning time, the environments will be purposefully planned to support your child’s ongoing development in each of the seven areas of learning. Your child’s class teacher and education assistant will continually be adapting the learning environment to support the emerging interests of the children. We will use Seesaw to document your child’s learning journey whilst they are in school as well as to provide the home learning aspect of our programme through the virtual classroom. 

 

Once we are allowed to open for the full day we will be able to reintroduce lunch, playtime, rest time and a full face to face specialist learning programme for the children. 

 

The government has approved DBIS Early Years campus to be open for a significant part of the school day and we are confident that the children will gain valuable learning opportunities from spending the majority of the school day in school. Whilst we would much prefer to offer our specialist programme as face to face lessons, we feel that these lessons are best suited to online learning in the afternoons whilst we are unable to open the campus for the full day. 

 

Staggered Starts for Nursery children

 

As would usually be the case at the start of the year for Nursery, we will be running a staggered return for our Nursery children. Whilst we will not be staggering the start as much as we would usually do, we need to bear in mind that the children have never visited our setting before or met the adults they will be learning with. In order to ensure the transition for the children is as smooth and safe as possible we will be staggering our Nursery children as follows:

 

Week 1

 

Tuesday 29th September: 

8:45 – 10am: All children who are already enrolled at the school and completed the online home learning programme, accompanied by 1 adult.

 

11:45am – 12:45pm: Group 1 of the new intake, accompanied by 1 adult.

 

1:30pm onwards: Online PTCs for parents of the new intake (Group 1)

 

Wednesday 30th September:

8:45 – 10am: All children who are already enrolled at the school and completed the online home learning programme to be dropped off (no accompanying adult).

 

11:45am – 12:45pm: Group 2 of the new intake, accompanied by 1 adult.

 

1:30pm onwards: Online PTCs for the parents of the new intake (Group 2)

 

Please note that Thursday 1st and Friday 2nd October are Public Holidays therefore children will not be in school.

 

Week 2

 

Monday 5th October: 

8:45 – 11:45: All children who are already enrolled at the school and completed the online home learning programme to be dropped off (no accompanying adult).

 

Tuesday 6th October:

8:45 – 11:45: All children who are already enrolled at the school and completed the online home learning programme and Group 1 of the new intake to be dropped off (no accompanying adult).

 

Wednesday 7th October:

8:45 – 11:45: All children

 

Thursday 8th October:

8:45 – 11:45: All children

 

Friday 9th October:

8:45 – 11:45: All children

 

During Week 2 children will be provided with a learning pack of challenges and resources which they can use throughout the week in the afternoons at home. Specialist lessons will also take place either in live time via Google Meet or as recorded sessions on Seesaw. 

 

Week 3

 

All children to be in school for the ‘full day’ 8:45am – 12:45pm with specialist lessons in the afternoon available from home via Seesaw / Google Meet.

 

Nursery Welcome Afternoon

 

We would like to invite you to our Nursery Welcome Afternoon on Monday 21st September at 3pm. This will be hosted via Google Meet and an opportunity for us share further information about our Nursery curriculum and learning experience at DBIS. 

 

Half Term

 

Half term will still take place from Monday 19th – Friday 23rd October. Please note that Monday 26th October is a Public Holiday therefore the children will return on Tuesday 27th October after the half term break.

 

Should you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me. We look forward to being able to welcome your children back into school to continue their learning journey with us.

 

With best wishes

Hannah Cole

Head of Early Years