Welcome to Rockets Nursery!

Pre-school education for 2, 3 and 4 year olds.

We want to wish a very warm welcome to Athelney Primary School to all of our new families. Here you will find important information for your child transitioning to Nursery, your child's teachers, ' A day in the life' and other useful information to support you and your child. 
Click on the subheadings below

In the meantime if you have any questions, queries, worries, ideas of things that would make this webpage better, please contact us through the office on 020 8697 2945 or email

A day in the life

Parents/Carers will often wonder what their child gets up to at nursery.
Many parents/ carers collect their child and ask them what did you do today? / how was your day? and they will often get replies like 'it was good or I can't remember or I played' 

So below is a little insight, for you, of your child's day - this shows a full timers day with morning and afternoon session

8.45am

MORNING SESSION
8.45-9am: Settling in

I enter through the nursery gate Firhill road, where my parent/carer can come into the cloakroom to help me find my peg and hang up my belongings. It would be great if you can teach me here, how to take off my jacket and hang it up along with my bag- this helps me to become more independent. I then will find my name/photo to self register. I then will say goodbye to my parent/carer and begin doing some choosing time while waiting for my friends to arrive and before our first carpet session starts. 

9.30-9.45am 

BUCKET TIME & PHONICS

Bucket Time is a fun, short group activity that helps me develop my attention and listening skills. During the session, the teacher uses a special "bucket" filled with exciting toys and activities to capture the my interest.

We are encouraged to:

Look and listen carefully.

Take turns and wait patiently.

Join in with simple activities.

Build my attention and concentration in a fun and enjoyable way.

Bucket Time helps me learn important skills I use every day, such as listening to instructions, focusing during group activities, and learning alongside others. Sessions are kept short, positive, and engaging so that I can experience success while having fun.
We also add phonics, maths and art into this session too! 

9.45- 11.30am

FREE LEARNING
Learning through play is important part of of my nursery day. My classroom is designed to be
accessible, engaging and fun for me to play, explore, and experiment independently, with my peers or with my teachers. There is a mixture of child led learning, adult guided learning and enhanced provision opportunities which will be linked to our learning for that week. We have a snack table which may have fruit, vegetables, bagels, cereal etc.. where I can help myself and learn to be independent. 
I am encouraged to help tidy up my classroom before the next carpet session, this helps me to become responsible for my own environment, show teamwork by working together with my friends, improves my understanding of following simple instructions, supports problem solving, language and strengthen my physical skills.

11.30-11.45am
CARPET SESSION
Singing and Literacy Story 
Our literacy story time is linked to Understanding of the world topic. I will listen to the story as we will talk about the story, my teacher will ask me questions and will get us to join in repeated refrains. Across the week there will be enhanced provision activities linked to this story. 

11.45am
Morning session is finished
The children sit patiently on the carpet while the teacher calls their names. When their parent or carer arrives, they are called to collect their belongings from their peg before getting ready to go home.

11.45-12.30 
LUNCHTIME 
 

12.30

AFTERNOON SESSION 

12.30-12.45 
More children arrive through the Nursery Firhill gate for the afternoon session. They follow the same settling-in routine as the morning children, helping them to feel happy, confident, and ready for a fun afternoon of learning and play.

1.1-15pm
BUCKET TIME & PHONICS

1.15-3 
FREE LEARNING 

Our full-time nursery children are collected at 3:00 pm.

When my parent or carer arrives, my teacher lets me know. I collect my jacket and belongings from my peg and get ready to go home.
The rest of my class tidy up at 3pm.

3.15-3.30pm
CARPET SESSION
Singing and Literacy Story 
 

3.30pm
Afternoon session is finished
The children sit patiently on the carpet while the teacher calls their names. When their parent or carer arrives, they are called to collect their belongings from their peg before getting ready to go home.
You are welcome to collect your child earlier on Fridays, in line with the main school day. Friday collection 2.30pm.

Hopefully that shows you a lot about what I get up to at school so then you can ask me some targeted questions and hopefully I will give you more than 'It was good, I played or I can't remember?

Some questions you could ask me:

What exciting toys was in the bucket? Did you get to play with it? Did you do good waiting/ sitting? What sound do you think was in the box- what objects had the same sound?

What book did you read? What happened- can you tell me what you saw on the pictures?

Who did you play with? What did you do in your free learning time- what activities did you do?
Did you sing a song?
You looked like you done some great learning today- How did you get messy?