Category Archives: Nursery

NNC Friday Newsletter 02.06.2023

Hello everyone,

This is such a busy and exciting time for our children and staff. As we approach the end of term, we have lots of events coming up for our children. Oh how time has flown!

Primary One Events at Netherlee Primary School
Please be reminded of our upcoming transition events for children starting at Netherlee Primary school in August.

Welcome Morning
This will be an opportunity for your child to meet their new teacher, visit their classroom and make some friends!

  • Tuesday 6th June 9.30am-11.30am: P1a Welcome Time
  • Thursday 8th June 9.30am-11.30am: P1b Welcome Time
  • Friday 9th June 9.30am-11.30am: P1c Welcome Time

Monday 12th June 1.45pm-2.30pm: P1 Pitch Party
This will be a fun and active session where the children can play games together. Please note the children will be outdoors regardless of the weather so please ensure they are suitably dressed.

Please bring your child to the entrance of the pitch in front of the school at 1.45pm and we will escort them to their class. You then have 45 minutes all to yourself before collection time.

Please be aware that some of our Nursery staff will be taking children who are in Nursery that day to the pitch. Children will return with Nursery staff to their building and will wait there until collection time.

Tue 13th June 6.30-7.30: Primary 1 Open Door Evening
This will be a relaxed and informal opportunity for parents/carers and new Primary 1 children to see where your children will be working in August, including their classrooms and the Open Area.

Special Books
We’re really looking forward to sending home your child’s Special Book next week. Our Special Books are a fantastic way of sharing your child’s learning journey during their time at nursery. We hope you thoroughly enjoy looking at the book together.

For children returning to nursery in August, these books will then continue to be added to by the children themselves and also their keyworker and staff. For children leaving nursery to start P1, Special Books are an important and very useful tool in our “transition to school” processes and these will be shared and discussed with your child’s new P1 teacher. These will then, once again, continue to be added to in P1. As such, please ensure that your child’s special book is returned to nursery as soon as you have finished reading through it.

Nursery Uniform
Our Nursery uniform is optional. If your child is returning to Nursery and you wish to place an order for next session, please complete this form. The deadline for payment is Friday 16th June by Parentpay.  We will advise when new uniforms are available in the new session.

King Charles III Artwork
Thank-you to those who have very kindly donated towards our nursery fund in return for your child’s artwork so far. We are very grateful of your generosity and support.

All children have created a piece of artwork to mark the King’s Coronation. These will be available at our nursery doors at drop off and collection for you to collect their artwork. To raise money for the nursery fund, in return for the artwork, we would be delighted and very appreciative if you could make a donation of £3 in cash. All money raised will go towards the nursery fund, to help us pay for such things as ingredients for cooking, outdoor seeds etc. Thank you. The deadline to collect your child’s artwork in return for a donation towards our nursery fund is Friday 16th June.

Celebrating Wider Achievements at Netherlee
Recognising and celebrating children’s achievements is an integral part to the Curriculum for Excellence. We are always looking for new ways to recognise and celebrate our children’s wider achievements out with Netherlee. As detailed in our Promoting Positive Behaviour Policy, during Celebrating Success assemblies each month, certificates are awarded to pupils who have really tried to uphold the Netherlee Values, for Effort and Progress and for Achievements within and out with school. For example, many of our children take part in extracurricular clubs and competitions, charity work or simply have learnt a new life skill. To help us celebrate as many children’s achievements as possible.  If you wish to share information about a recent wider achievement that your child has done, we would encourage you to complete the form below.

Wider Achievements Form

Netherlee Primary School and Nursery Class Parent Council – Meeting and AGM –  7pm on Wednesday 7th June
Our last meeting of this session and our AGM will be held in Netherlee and Stamperland Parish Church at 7pm on Wednesday 7th June.  As usual the agenda will include the Head Teacher’s Report and we will discuss any other items affecting parents and our children.
We will also be electing new members and office bearers and will be saying thank you and good bye to some long standing servants of the parent council as their children move up to Williamwood.

Parent council membership and office bearer positions are open to ALL members of the school and nursery’s parent and carer community and we would be delighted to welcome as many of you as possible on Wednesday.

For any more information or to raise any points for our agenda please email netherleeparentcouncil@gmail.com.

Have a lovely weekend.

Yvonne Donaldson (HT) and Jennifer McCann (PT)
Netherlee Primary School & Nursery Class

NNC Newsletter 25.05.2023

Hello everyone

We hope that many of you enjoyed the opportunity to talk with staff about the progress your child has made during their year at nursery. It’s a really lovely time to reflect on your child’s increasing independence and progress while playfully learning lots of new things.

Nursery Tie Gifting

We are very excited to invite you to our Nursery Tie Gifting for children leaving Netherlee Nursery to start school in August. This will take place on Thursday 15th June and Friday 16th June between 9.45-10.45am.  Both events will take place in the Saplings building. We kindly ask that a maximum of two guests per child attend the Tie Gifting.

Please see dates and times below for the groups:

  • White, Red and Orange (Acorns) and Blue Group (Saplings): Thursday 15th June 9.45-10.45am. Staff will take children to and from the Acorns to the Saplings on the day of the Tie Gifting.
  • Yellow, Pink, Green and Purple Group: Friday 16th June 9.45am-10.45am

The tie gifting will take place in the outdoor play area at the back of the Saplings building unless there is adverse weather. Parents and carers should arrive through Saplings gate and enter through the side gate in the P3/4/5 playground please.

Those not attending the tie gifting (including our younger children) on the above dates should still attend their normal nursery session. If your child does not normally attend on the days of the tie gifting, please just let us know should they still wish to take part- they are of course more than welcome and we would love to have them join us.

King Charles III Artwork
Thank-you to those who have very kindly donated towards our nursery fund in return for your child’s artwork so far. We are very grateful of your generosity and support.

All children have created a piece of artwork to mark the King’s Coronation. These will be displayed outside our nursery doors at drop off and collection for you to collect their artwork. To raise money for the nursery fund, in return for the artwork, we would be delighted and very appreciative if you could make a donation of £3 in cash. All money raised will go towards the nursery fund, to help us pay for such things as ingredients for cooking, outdoor seeds etc. Thank you.

Community News – Busby Foodbank
We have been asked to let all families know that the Busby foodbank is here to support families through this difficult time.  Opening hours at Busby Parish Church are a Tuesday from 1pm-3pm.

Community News – The Autistic Collective
The Autistic Collective recently announced the next event open to anyone who lives or works in East Renfrewshire.  On Monday 5th June at 11.00am, Dr Chloe Farahar, Aucademy and Ben Usher-Barrass, Autisticality are exploring “Autistic Wellbeing; What works?” More information can be found in the attached invitation.

Holiday

We would like to remind you that nursery is closed on Friday 26th May for the May weekend. We look forward to welcoming you back to nursery on Tuesday 30th May.

Have a wonderful, long weekend.

Yvonne Donaldson (HT) and Jennifer McCann (PT)
Netherlee Primary School & Nursery Class

NNC Friday Newsletter 19.05.2023

Hello everyone,

We hope that many of you enjoyed the opportunity to talk with staff about the progress your child has made during their year at nursery. It’s a great way to reflect on your child’s progress at Nursery. Week two of Nursery Parent and Carer appointments take place next week (22nd-26th).  If you have not managed to book a slot, please let a member of staff know. We look forward to seeing you then!

King Charles III Coronation Artwork
All children have created a piece of artwork to mark the King’s Coronation. Each child’s artwork is displayed at our nursery doors for you to collect at your parent’s appointment. To raise money for the nursery fund, in return for the artwork, we would be delighted and very appreciative if you could make a donation of £3 in cash. All money raised will go towards the nursery fund, to help us pay for such things as ingredients for cooking, outdoor seeds etc. Thank you.

Sun Safety
As we approach the summer months, we ask that you provide your child with sun cream (in-date) and a sun hat (e.g. cap or similar) in bags please. These items should be labelled with your child’s name please. On particularly hot days, it would be helpful if you could apply sun cream to children before entering the nursery if possible. We will keep your child’s sun cream in nursery for re-application and safekeeping.

Please also see our Sun Safe Policy which has also be added to our policy section on our nursery website.

Supporting Diversity at Netherlee
At Netherlee, we understand that communication is key to making sure that the information we provide to parents and the community is accessible for all.  We have therefore made a small, but important, change to our school and nursery website.  Now, when you visit the website, you will see in the top right hand corner the new “select a language” feature which translates the content and information into many different languages.  We hope this is a useful development for our families.

Sports Week Arrangements: Nursery
Our sports week is fast approaching and we wanted to invite you to some of the events we have planned.  We will be having some fun, potted sports and races on Tuesday 30 May, starting at 1.45pm on the pitch. You are welcome to come along a cheer the children on. You may even get a chance to run in a parents and carers race, so bring your trainers!

If you have older children in the school, you will know there are two Family mornings planned. The first on Wednesday 31st May at 9.15am -11.15am for families in the RED and BLUE houses and the second on Thursday 1 June at 9.15am – 11.15am for families in the GREEN and YELLOW houses. For these, our nursery children are able to participate, if you wish them to. We would ask that you register your child with us first, before going to collect their siblings for the sports activities.

We hope the children have lots of fun during sports week. If you have any questions, please contact Mrs Linn at SchoolMail@netherlee.e-renfrew.sch.uk . If your child does not usually attend nursery on any of the dates above, you are more than welcome to come along and join in for the above events.

Learning Links
Please click here to view the Acorns and Saplings Learning Links. The song of the week this week is ‘Three Blind Mice’ which can be listened to and enjoyed by logging on to your child’s google classroom: https://sts.platform.rmunify.com/Account/SignIn/glow

Have a lovely weekend.

Yvonne Donaldson (HT) and Jennifer McCann (PT)
Netherlee Primary School & Nursery Class

Nursery Friday Newsletter 12.05.2023

Hello everyone,

Miss McCann was very busy at Lochgoilhead with the Primary 7s this week. She has been taking part in lots of activities, including abseiling, kayaking and night-walking! Well done, Miss McCann. Check out our school and nursery twitter  to see how everyone got on!

Thank you to those who were able to attend our Stay and Play sessions this week. The children and staff just love welcoming our parents and carers into our nursery and they are a fantastic way to experience a day in the life of your child here at Netherlee!

We hope that you enjoy reading your child’s nursery reports which have been sent home today. The children have made such wonderful progress during their time with us. Time just flies!

A big congratulations to one of our nursery parents, Mrs Cross, who recently published her own book ‘Grow, Cook, Inspire’. Well done- this is a fantastic achievement.

Parents’ Appointments
Please be reminded that our parent appointments begin next week. These appointments will take place over two weeks (Monday 15th May- Thursday 25th May) with your child’s key worker in the nursery buildings. Sign-up sheets are now available at the nursery doors. If you haven’t managed to secure a suitable day or time, please let a member of staff know on pick up or drop off.

Your child’s artwork, inspired by King Charles III Coronation, will also be available in the nursery buildings for you to collect on your appointment. To raise money for the nursery fund, in return for the artwork, we would invite you to make a donation of at least £3. Unfortunately, we will only be able to accept cash. All money raised will go towards the nursery fund, this is used to pay for items to support children’s play and learning experiences, such as ingredients for cooking and other perishable items (e.g. flour, shaving foam).

PTA Uniform Sale
The uniform samples are now available to view and try on at our Saplings building. They will remain there from 9am until 6pm, every week day, until Thursday 25th May and orders may be placed online until Monday 29th May. As the hoodie styles and colours can vary from different suppliers, we would kindly encourage you to purchase any hoodies from the PTA, for consistency purposes.

Learning Links
Please click here to view the Acorns and Saplings learning links. This week’s song of the week is ‘Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle‘ which can be listened to and enjoyed on your child’s google classroom by clicking this link: https://sts.platform.rmunify.com/Account/SignIn/glow
Acorns
Saplings

Nursery Sports Day
As part of sports week, the children in our nursery will be taking part in a sports day on Tuesday 30 May, from 1.45pm on the pitch. I hope you can join us! We are also looking for any parents or carers who have experience of participating in sport who may be interested in coming to speak to the children or lead an active session. If you think this is something you would be interested in, please contact Mrs Kelly Linn at SchoolMail@netherlee.e-renfrew.sch.uk

Living Streets Walk to School Week
As you know, on Monday 15th till Friday 19th May, we are taking part in the Walk to School Week led by Living Streets. The aim of this week is to help encourage as many children as possible to experience the benefits of walking to school and in day-to-day life. We had a special assembly this week to learn more about how to take part and each class has received a Living Streets challenge pack which includes an activity diary if children wish to record if they travel actively (walk/wheel, cycle, scoot or Park and Stride) to school during the week. Park and Stride involves parking or hopping off public transport at least ten minutes away from the school and walking the rest of the way. Our P4 Wellbeing Committee will be leading an active warm up on Monday morning to launch the start of the week alongside Strider the Living Streets mascot. Our nursery children will have a special visit from Strider too! We hope by taking part in this week we can raise awareness of the health benefits of walking and that it is fun! We would also like to say thank you for completing our Living Streets Active Travel parent survey earlier this year and for your continued support.

If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Have a lovely weekend.

Yvonne Donaldson (HT) and Jennifer McCann (PT)
Netherlee Primary School & Nursery Class

Nursery Friday Newsletter 05.05.2023

Hello everyone,

Well done to Mrs Beattie, who took part in the Mighty Kilt Walk at the weekend to fundraise for the SSAFA Armed Forces charity. Super job Mrs Beattie!

This achievement features on our Nursery WOW Wall, alongside our children’s achievements.  Details of how to share wider achievements, including those of your child, are detailed below.

Family Focused: Questionnaire
Only if you haven’t filled in the form already for the school or nursery, please could you do so by clicking on the links below.

nursery parent and carer questionnaire
school parent and carer questionnaire.

If you have a child in both school and nursery, we kindly ask that you complete the nursery questionnaire only, if at all possible.

Access to the questionnaires will close on Friday 12th May at 3pm.

Celebrating Wider Achievements at Netherlee
Recognising and celebrating children’s achievements is an integral part to Curriculum for Excellence and what we do in Netherlee. We also understand that recognising the achievements of the special adults in our children’s lives help to inspire our children to reach their goals and model the importance of resilience.

As you will already be aware, we currently share and celebrate our children’s achievements through our Nursery WOW Wall. We would now love to showcase the achievements of parents, carers and our very own staff and include these with our children’s achievements on our WOW Wall for all to see! For example, this may include charity work, running a marathon or simply have learnt a new life skill.

If you wish to share information about a recent wider achievement that your child has done, we would encourage you to complete the form below.  Pictures of children and parents and carer’s achievements should continue to be submitted via email to be included on our WOW Wall (nurserymail@netherlee.e-renfrew.sch.uk).
Wider Achievements Form

Stay and Play
Please be reminded of our stay and play sessions next week (Tue 9th May- Friday 12th May).These sessions are a fantastic opportunity to play with your child in nursery. Our children’s special books are available to look at any time on the playroom floor. Please feel free to read through these with your child during your visit and have a chat with them about their learning journey. If you still require a slot, please let a staff member know on pick up or drop off to book a suitable date/time.

Pre-school Gaelic fun day Sat 13 May
East Renfrewshire is opening its first Gaelic medium primary provision at Thornliebank Primary School in August 2023. Please see the flyer for a Gaelic family information and fun day on Saturday 13 May at Thornliebank Primary School.

Nursery Reports and Transition to Primary One
This is a very exciting time for pre-school children as we will soon be beginning our Nursery to Primary One transition process. All nursery reports for those starting school will be sent home via email on Friday 12th May. These detail your child’s progress and how you can help at home. We hope you thoroughly enjoy reading them!

Also, a letter containing key dates and information about our upcoming Nursery to Primary One transition events was sent home yesterday. We cannot wait to welcome your children in August!

Parents Appointments
Our Nursery parent and carer’s appointments will take place on the week beginning Monday 15th May.  These appointments will take place over two weeks (Monday 15th May- Thursday 25th May) with your child’s key worker in the nursery buildings. We hope that many of you enjoy the opportunity to talk with staff about your child’s learning. Signup sheets will be made available at the nursery doors from Tuesday 9th May.

King Charles Coronation: Artwork
To mark the King’s Coronation, all children have created a piece of artwork with a nature/conservation theme, two areas that are very important to King Charles. Each child’s artwork will be on white canvas and available in the nursery buildings for you to collect on your parents appointment. To raise money for the nursery fund, in return for the artwork, we would be delighted and very appreciative if you could make a donation of £3 in cash if possible. All money raised will go towards the nursery fund, this is used to pay for items to support children’s play and learning experiences, such as ingredients for cooking and other perishable items (e.g. flour, shaving foam)

Bookbug Week
Bookbug Week takes place across Scotland from 15–21 May 2023. There will be special events both online and in your local area to celebrate the week. Full details can be found on our Bookbug Week webpage.

Parent Council Meeting Highlights
Thank you to the Parent Council for producing the latest Meeting Highlights Newsletter. We had a very productive meeting and the highlights can be found here.

Bank Holiday
Please be reminded that the school and nursery will be closed on Monday 8th May and will re-open on Tuesday 9th May- thank you.

Have a lovely long weekend.

Yvonne Donaldson (HT) and Jennifer McCann (PT)
Netherlee Primary School & Nursery Class

NNC Friday Newsletter 28.04.2023

Hello everyone,

A big thank-you to Mrs Mitchell for coming to the Acorns and Saplings to show us Makaton signs last week. The children and staff loved having a go at making their names and learned some songs too!

It has been wonderful to start our visits to Linn Park again for our woodland adventures. The children have such fun engaging in lots of risky play in the outdoors. Risky play is an exciting and exhilarating experience, which allows children to explore boundaries and challenge themselves whilst learning about managing risks. Have a look at our photos on our school and nursery twitter for some action shots!

Family Focused Gold Award: Update
We have been working hard to prepare for our Family Focused Gold Award accreditation date on Friday 19th May. Our nursery, please click here Acorns and Saplings and school Family Focused Charters are finalised and are visible at the entrances to our buildings. Thank-you again to Freya in Primary 6 who came up with the winning design! Please see again our charter statements included within the charter which were created with our Everyone Matters parent group. These statements uphold our school and nursery values and underpin the principles of family centred approaches.

Only if you haven’t filled in the form already for the school or nursery, please could you do so by clicking on the links below.

nursery parent and carer questionnaire
school parent and carer questionnaire.

If you have a child in both school and nursery, we kindly ask that you complete the nursery questionnaire only, if at all possible.

Access to the questionnaires will close on Friday 12th May at 3pm.

Stay and Play
Our final stay and play sessions for this session will take place from Tuesday 9th May-Friday 12th May. These sessions are a brilliant way to play with your child in our nursery. Sign-up sheets will be made available from next week at our nursery buildings (Wednesday 3rd May).

King Charles III Coronation
As you know, the Coronation of His Majesty The King and Her Majesty The Queen Consort will take place on Saturday 6th May, 2023. At Netherlee, on Friday 5th May, we would like to celebrate by creating a piece of artwork inspired by nature or conservation. Every child will take part and then sell their artwork to parents and carers at our parents appointments to fundraise money for cooking ingredients and perishable items, such as flour, shaving foam, food colouring. These resources help to support children’s play and learning experiences in nursery. Thank you for your support.

Cosy Corner
As you will be aware, our nursery buildings have a Cosy Corner to allow children to relax in a safe and secure environment. These are safe and nurturing spaces for our children, two of the wellbeing indicators from Getting It Right for Every Child (GIRFEC). We have tried to ensure that our Cosy Corner replicates the home environment as much as possible with soft furnishings and pictures from home. If you have a family photo you would like to include in the Cosy Corner, please email this to nurserymail@netherlee.e-renfrew.sch.uk.

We are looking to develop our Cosy Corner space in the Saplings building further and are on the hunt for some pre-loved items to support us with this. We would gratefully receive any items to enhance this space, such as pillows, blankets, rugs and fairy lights. If you have, and are finished with, any of these types of items, please hand in to the Saplings building. Many, many thanks.

Parent and Carer Volunteers
Do you have a particular skill or interest? The children and staff would really love to learn from you!

We are welcoming parent and carers who would be willing to volunteer to come to the nursery to carry out an activity with our children based on particular skills or interests you might have, such as sewing, playing a musical instrument, dancing, gardening or woodwork.

Also, it is always interesting for the children to find out about various jobs such as any emergency or health care services so if you have a job you think you could share with the children please do let us know. For example, this may include a visit from a dentist to talk to children about looking after their teeth.

It would also be lovely to hear from parents and carers who would be willing to come in and share cultural or religious festivals or experiences with us too – for example, showing photos of celebrating the Hindu festival of Holi, teaching children how to use chopsticks or write numbers in Chinese, sharing stories in different languages or helping to teach the children Irish dancing.

If you are interested, please complete this form, which is also available on our nursery website.  Thank you!

Recycled Donations
Thank you so much to everyone who has kindly donated recycled items so far. This week we would gratefully receive any large loose parts from our wish list below. Loose parts are any materials which can be combined, redesigned, lined up, taken apart, and put back together in different ways. If you have, and are finished with, any of these large items, please contact the school office beforehand to discuss a suitable drop-off time. If you have any of the smaller items then please place these in our Recycled Donations Box situated at the main school office entrance from Tuesday 2nd May. Many, many thanks.

Hardwood plywood sheets
Wood / timber planks
Crates
Pipes
Gutters
Small Tree stumps
Ropes

Learning Links
Please click to view the Acorns and the Saplings Learning links this week. These are a fantastic way to provide opportunities to support and develop your child’s learning at home should you wish. This week’s song of the week is ‘1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Once I caught a fish alive’ which can be listened to and enjoyed on your child’s google classroom:  https://sts.platform.rmunify.com/Account/SignIn/glow

Bank Holiday and In-Service Day
Please be reminded that the school and nursery will be closed on Monday 1st May (Bank Holiday) and Tuesday 2nd May (in-service) and will re-open on Wednesday 3rd May- thank you.

Have a wonderful long weekend.

Yvonne Donaldson (HT) and Jennifer McCann (PT)
Netherlee Primary School & Nursery Class

NNC Friday Newsletter 21.04.2023

Hello everyone

It has been lovely welcoming back our children and staff after the holiday break. We have loved spending lots of time outdoors in the beautiful weather.

On behalf of the school, nursery and Netherlee community, we would like to wish all families who celebrate Eid a very happy Eid Mubarak. We hope you have a wonderful time with friends and family.

Family Focused Gold Award Questionnaires (School and Nursery) – now live!
We are hoping to achieve our Family Focused Gold Award on Friday 19th May. Questionnaires for both nursery and the school are now live. As part of the Gold Award Accreditation, parents and carers are required to complete a questionnaire containing a series of reflective statements about our school and nursery. We need at least an 80% return rate, so we would be very grateful for your responses- thank you.

Please click here to complete the nursery parent questionnaire

The questionnaires will close on Friday 12th May 3pm. Thank-you for your continued support.

Foodbank Donation Drive

We are joining other establishments in East Renfrewshire to support the East Renfrewshire Foodbank, The Trussell Trust. More information can be found in this letter.

Self-Evaluation Forms: Getting It Right for Every Child (GIRFEC)
You will also have received a Gathering Parent views paper form, which asks you to give your views of the nursery in relation to GIRFEC. Your views will help us to create our School and Nursery Improvement Priorities for next session. We kindly ask that you return these paper copies to our main school office or to either of our nursery buildings by Friday 28th April. If you did not receive this, please ask a member of staff at the nursery.

Care Plans and Special Books
Each child has a ‘Personal Care Plan’ which focuses on the wellbeing indicators (Safe, Healthy, Achieving, Nurtured, Active, Respected, Responsible and Included) from Getting it Right for Every Child. Our Personal Care Plans allow parents to share information to identify next steps to support children’s learning and wellbeing within nursery or at home. These are sent home every six months. If you have recently received your child’s personal care plan to complete, please ensure these are returned to nursery as soon as possible- thank you.

Also, we kindly ask that children’s special books are also returned as soon as possible. We hope you enjoyed reading through them and discussing your child’s progress.

Sun Safety
As we approach the summer months, we ask that you provide your child with sun cream (in-date) and a sun hat (e.g. cap or similar) in bags please. These items should be labelled with your child’s name please. On particularly hot days, it would be helpful if you could apply sun cream to children before entering the nursery if possible. We will keep your child’s sun cream in nursery for re-application and safekeeping.

Learning Links
Please click here to view the Acorns and Saplings Learning Links. The song of the week this week is ‘5 Little Ducks’ which can be listened to and enjoyed by logging on to your child’s google classroom https://sts.platform.rmunify.com/Account/SignIn/glow

Have a lovely weekend.

Yvonne Donaldson
Head Teacher
Netherlee Primary School & Nursery Class

NNC Parent News 31.03.2023

Hello everyone,

Wow- what a busy and exciting term we have had! Diversity month was a great success. A very special thanks to those who visited our Nursery to talk to our children and staff about different countries, including Sweden, Spain, Italy and Africa. It was so interesting! The children also learned all about Sikhism from the Gurdwara and danced along to the beat of a Dhol drum played by Mrs Kaur’s son. Check out our pictures on our nursery and school twitter @sand_nc

Family Focused Gold Award: Update (School and Nursery)
As stated in last week’s Friday Bundle, we are hoping to achieve our Gold Award Accreditation on Friday 19th May.  As part of the Gold Award accreditation, parents and carers are required to complete a questionnaire containing a series of reflective statements about our school and nursery. We need at least an 80% return rate, so we would be very grateful for your responses. Please click the links to access nursery parent and carer questionnaire and school parent and carer questionnaire. If you have a child in both school and nursery, we kindly ask that you complete the nursery questionnaire only if at all possible. The questionnaires will go live from Monday 17th April and will close on Friday 12th May 3pm. Thank-you for your continued support.

Breastfeeding Policy
We provide a warm and welcoming environment for breastfeeding families in our school and nursery. Our Family Room, situated near the front door of the school, provides a comfortable and quiet space where breastfeeding can take place without interruption or intrusion. Our staff are trained to offer support to breastfeeding parents and are aware of the aims and principles of our School and Nursery Breastfeeding Policy. Please note that this policy is available to view on our website too. You can access this policy, and others, through clicking on this link.

If you require to use our Family Room to enable you to breastfeed, please don’t hesitate to ask, our office staff will be able to help by showing you where the Family Room is.

Next Parent Council Meeting – Wednesday 19th April at 7pm in the school Hub
The next meeting of the school and nursery parent council will be at 7pm on Wednesday 19th April.  This will be in the hub in the school.  We hope to see as many parents and carers as possible and as ever will hear from the school leadership team on a number of issues, with the opportunity for free and open discussion.  If there is anything you would particularly like us to raise at the meeting then please email netherleeparentcouncil@gmail.com.  We look forward to hearing from you and seeing you after the holidays.

Have a brilliant and well-rested Spring Holiday with friends and family.

Yvonne Donaldson (HT) and Jennifer McCann (PT)
Netherlee Primary School & Nursery Class

NNC Parent News 24.03.2023

Hello everyone

Today we said goodbye to the wonderful Miss Jade Toner, who worked alongside Mrs Fiona Daley as a keyworker of the Green group in the Saplings. Jade has secured a post a Maidenhill Nursery Class and we wish her all the very best. We will all miss you so much- good luck Jade!

We are very excited to welcome back Mrs Amanda Hicks on Monday following her maternity leave. Amanda will take over from Jade and work with Mrs Daley and the Green Group. We are delighted to have her back!

Family Focused Gold Accreditation: Update
As you will already know, we are hoping to achieve our Family Focused Gold Award on Friday 19th May.   A key focus of the Family Focused Gold Award is the creation of a Charter. The school took part in a challenge to come up with a design for our School and Nursery Charter. Well done to Freya in Primary 6 who came up with this fantastic design, which will also feature our nursery teddy bear.

We worked alongside our parent group to create the charter statements.  These statements underpin the award itself and reflect the values and ethos of Netherlee. Our Family Focused Charter’s will now be created and situated within the school and nursery entrances, so keep your eyes peeled next time you are in for a visit!

As part of the Gold Award accreditation, parents and carers are required to complete a questionnaire containing a series of reflective statements about our school and nursery. We would be very grateful for your responses as having a high response rate is part of the accreditation. The link to complete the questionnaire will be sent in next week’s Friday Bundle and will go live from Monday 17th April. Thank you for your continued support.

Nursery: What to Bring
At Netherlee, we understand the benefits of allowing children to engage in risky play outdoors. This includes building resilience, managing risks and knowing their limits. Our children play outdoors in all weathers, so they can get a little wet or muddy sometimes! In order to support this, we kindly ask that children bring wellies and a change of clothes with them to nursery each day.

Infectious Diseases
If your child has an infectious disease e.g. chickenpox, scarlet fever etc, please contact our school office 0141 570 7260 or email SchoolMail@netherlee.e-renfrew.sch.uk to inform us of this. Thank you.

Learning Links
Please click here to view the Acorns and the Saplings Learning Links. This enables you to have fun doing some similar experiences at home if you would like to. This week’s song of the week is ‘Sleeping Bunnies’ which can be listened to and enjoyed by accessing your child’s Google Classroom: https://sts.platform.rmunify.com/Account/SignIn/glow

Comic Relief
A huge thank you for your generous donations, the school and nursery raised a total of £850.30 for Comic Relief.

Bookbug Sessions
A new fortnightly Bookbug session will be starting this week in Netherlee Pavilion library. Details are in the poster attached.
Bookbug poster

Easter Break
The Nursery will remain open until 6pm on Friday 31st March, and reopen on Monday 17th April.

Diversity Event
We are looking forward to a lovely event sharing the culture of our Netherlee community. We still need volunteers to help make it all happen. Please click on the following link to sign up to help us with setting up, tidying up, or to help in the refreshment area.  Thank you.

Have a nice weekend everyone.

Yvonne Donaldson (HT) and Jennifer McCann (PT)
Netherlee Primary School & Nursery Class

NNC Parents News 17.03.2023

Hello everyone,

Our Book Bug sessions were a great success this week! The children just loved listening to the rhymes and stories and joining in with the actions. Thank-you so much to our fantastic Book Bug leaders in the nursery, Joanne Greig and Lynne Morton. They did a wonderful job leading the sessions and making them fun and engaging for all the family. You can also check out local Book Bug sessions in East Renfrewshire libraries.

Working in Partnership with Families at Netherlee
At Netherlee, we value working in partnership with our parents and carers and welcome your feedback. Our recently updated Nursery Parental Involvement Policy, along with some others, can now be viewed on our nursery website. We would love to hear your feedback with regards to this policy in order to evaluate our practice. Please click here to submit your views. We kindly ask that responses are submitted by Friday 24th March 3pm.

Stay and Play

Please be reminded of our Stay and Play sessions next week. Sign-up sheets are still available so if you still require a slot, please let a member of staff know at the door when dropping off or collecting.

Parent and Carer Volunteers
Do you have a particular skill or interest? The children and staff would really love to learn from you!

We are welcoming parent and carers who would be willing to volunteer to come to the nursery to carry out an activity with our children based on particular skills or interests you might have, such as sewing, playing a musical instrument, dancing, gardening or woodwork.

Also, it is always interesting for the children to find out about professions such as any emergency or health care services so if you have a profession you think you could share with the children please do let us know. For example, this may include a visit from a dentist to talk to children about looking after their teeth.

If you are interested, please complete this form. In future, we will include this form on the last Friday of every month and add to our nursery website. Thank you!

Also, we are still looking for volunteers to enhance the children’s learning in traditional cultures, languages, traditions and religions from all over the world as part of Diversity Month. We would love to welcome volunteers into the nursery If you were born in another country, have lived, worked, volunteered or have family members who live in another country, we would love to hear from you! If you think this is something you could help with, please drop us an email on nurserymail@netherlee.e-renfrew.sch.uk or give Jennifer McCann (Principal Teacher) a call on 0141 570 7260 to discuss in more detail.

Special Books
We’re really looking forward to sending home your child’s Special Book next week, week beginning Monday 20th March.  Our Special Books are a fantastic way of sharing your child’s learning journey during their time at nursery. We hope you thoroughly enjoy looking at the book together.

Personal Care Plans
Each child has a ‘Personal Care Plan’ which focuses on the wellbeing indicators (Safe, Healthy, Achieving, Nurtured, Active, Respected, Responsible and Included) from Getting it Right for Every Child. Our Personal Care Plans allow parents to share information to identify next steps to support children’s learning and wellbeing within nursery or at home. These are sent home every six months. If you have recently received your child’s personal care plan to complete, please ensure these are returned to nursery as soon as possible- thank you.

Learning Links
Please click here to view this week’s learning links for Acorns and Saplings. This week’s song of the week is ‘Rain, Rain, Go Away’ which can be listened to and enjoyed by logging into your child’s Google Classroom: https://sts.platform.rmunify.com/Account/SignIn/glow

Recycled Donations
Thank you so much to everyone who has kindly donated items to our nursery so far. This week we would gratefully receive any items to support both our Cosy Corner areas and Literacy experiences from our wish list below. If you have, and are finished with, any of these types of items below, please hand in to either of the nursery buildings. Many, many thanks.

  • Empty cereal boxes
  • Children’s non-fiction, fact books
  • Cosy cushions
  • Rugs

Living Streets Active Travel Parent survey
On Monday 15th – Friday 19th May, we will be taking part in the ‘Walk to School Week’ led by Living Streets. We will share more information about planned activities nearer to the time. In the meantime, we would like to gather more information about how our children travel to and from school and nursery to support us with compiling our School and Nursery Travel Plan. We would greatly appreciate it if you could complete the parent survey below. This information will help us to encourage more of our children and families to walk to school and nursery and support our families to be active each day.  Thank you for your support.  https://forms.office.com/e/buxVJWa1H7

Have a lovely weekend.

Yvonne Donaldson (HT) and Jennifer McCann (PT)
Netherlee Primary School & Nursery Class