We are all delighted to be back at Nursery, sharing our stories about our Christmas holidays and seeing all our friends again.
We are starting our year with a new initiative called Outside In, which allows children who love the outdoors to come straight in to our Playground area and play outside from the minute they arrive. Our playground is the fenced area between the container and the nursery. A member of staff will mark them onto the register and take a note of who is collecting them. They will also note down their choice of lunch, if they stay for Nursery lunch. This is going to be available from 8am onwards for our early birds. and is designed to encourage active, outdoor physical play, immediately they arrive at nursery. It should also make our cloakroom a little less congested at the beginning of sessions. This will of course, be optional and you can always bring your child in through the front door to start their day indoors as usual, if they wish.
We ask that only members of staff open our playground gate. Only our children should come into nursery via the playground. Parents should always access the nursery through the nursery door. Children will always be collected from inside the nursery- to ensure security.
We are hoping that these new arrangements will make nursery drop off much easier for those who choose to use them. We are also excited to see how the children react to this as most of our children really love outdoor play and it will be really interesting to see how many choose to play out on arrival.
Please speak to staff if you have any questions about this, and let us know how you feel it works for your child.
Our lending library is open again for business – we would be very happy if you could return the books you have borrowed before borrowing more. There are some great books to take home and enjoy together!
Our wonderful colleague – Mrs Maureen Kennedy – retired at the end of December. Maureen has been a keyworker in our nursery since it opened in 1997 and has always been a firm favourite with our children. She has been the Purple Group’s keyworker since August. From today, Juliana Conti will take over as the Purple Group’s keyworker. Juliana knows our children really well- she was responsible for supporting them at snack time all of last term. If any parent has not yet met her, please just let us know and we can arrange a time for you to have a chat with her.
Maureen will be visiting the nursery on Wednesday morning for a fun-filled farewell from the children and staff. Boxes of tissues are on the shopping list!
We are starting another 10 week block of SFA Coaching sessions for our pre-school children, from Thursday 16th January. The sessions will be every Thursday between 9.50am and 10.30am and cost £1 per session. If your pre-school child does not usually attend on a Thursday morning you are welcome to bring them along to the infant gym to take part in the sessions, if you stay to watch.
We are looking forward to making 2020 a really great year in Milngavie Early Learning Centre, and would like to wish all our nursery community a very happy new year.