Supporting Brake’s Road Safety week 2021, making the most of the opportunity to teach the children the importance of being safe on the road, and sharing resources and information with families.

It was lovely for us all this week to focus on ourselves, our friendships and being kind to each other.

We were able to think about what makes a good friend. It was also a good opportunity to discuss feelings, understanding both our own feelings and those of the people around us. What makes us happy? How can we make our friends happy? What can we do if someone is feeling sad, cross or all mixed up?

We have enjoyed learning about and celebrating several Special Events and Festivals including the Harvest Festival, Diwali, Bonfire night and Remembrance Day.

It is always fun and engaging to learn about things that the children can relate to and that prompts them to share stories and experiences with us. As soon as fireworks were mentioned, planned registration times were abandoned and the children excitedly took over telling us about their own bonfire nights, some remembering the cold, some remembering the sounds and colours and some children telling us how they enjoyed watching them through the window.

We have been very busy welcoming back old and new friends.

It is more important than ever to focus on our children and families well being, ensuring that the children feel safe and supported. We have therefore purposely provided a range of familiar and favourite toys, activities and areas, extending our Child Initiated Play, giving us the time to concentrate on building relationships and getting to know each and every child.

We have been continuously risk assessing the activities we can provide safely and this week were pleased to re-introduce circle time activities. We began with some simple and favourite circle games before excitedly moving on to small parachute games followed by large parachute games.

The children listened, followed instructions, worked together and responded positively and enthusiastically to all of the activities offered.

We were excited this week to learn more about Ramadan and Eid. We learnt that people have different faiths, religions and beliefs. We also learnt about fasting for Ramadan between Sunrise and Sunset, and thinking about others during this time.

We thought about how lucky we are, what makes us happy and what we are grateful for, as well as how we can help others to feel happy too, including through kindness.

We worked together on making our own display moon, before discussing what kindness means, how we can be kind, and adding ‘kindness stars’ to our moon. We also enjoyed decorating and eating moon and stars biscuits, thank you to Zachy and his family for helping us to learn more, and for the yummy biscuits.

Each Summer Term as well as continuing to nurture and welcome younger children we pro-actively extend and challenge our older children moving on to school in September. We introduce additional adult guided learning opportunities in the morning, as well as our fun and exciting OWLS CLUB – an additional afternoon club focusing on key skills, the specific areas of learning and we even have our first opportunity to independently change for Physical Education Sessions.