The Early Years at Sion are a wonderfully exciting time of discovery and exploration. Being the first step on the Sion Journey, it is a delight to encourage inquisitiveness and inspire a spirited response to the world, the self and others.
Session Times
| Morning Session | 08:00 – 12:30 |
| Afternoon Session | 12:30 – 17:00 |
| All Day | 08:00 – 17:00 |
*Nb. If the sessions outlined above don’t meet your requirements, please feel free to ask us about tailoring your session times. Subject to availability.
Our nursery rooms offer activities and resources designed to enable children to explore and investigate the world around them, with access to their own covered outdoor play area.
Preparing for school is an integral part of our day in the Early Years room with resources to challenge children’s thinking and staff to support children during play to extend their learning through questions, exploration and investigation. Independence is strongly promoted, giving children the confidence and skills needed to take them further in their lives.
A day in the life…
| 8.00am – 9.10am | When the children arrive each morning, they have the option to select from a variety of indoor games to kick start their day. |
| 9.10am – 10.00am | Free-flow & Adult Led Activities- Children have a wide range of activities to choose from – both indoors and outside in our covered learning garden. There is also a planned, adult-led, activity that caters to the children’s learning interests and needs. |
| 10.00am | Morning Snack time – Children are asked to sit around the table for snack time, which could often consist of fresh fruit, buttered toast, milk and water. |
| 10.20am-10.45am | Outdoor free play – When exploring outside, children play alone or engage with each other, learn to share, and problem solve. |
| 10.45am – 11.00 | Literacy Time – Children sit on the carpet for our letter of the week. We discuss the sound of the letter, how to read it, and how to write it. |
| 11.00am | Outdoor free play – We believe outside play is an important part of nursery life. The beauty of children playing outside is that they learn so much more and so differently when they’re exploring in the fresh air. |
| 11.15am-11.40am | Numeracy Time – We sit around the table together and discuss our number of the week. We involve it in our counting games, and number recognition activities. |
| 11.45am -11.55am | Tidy up time- We practice good habits right from the earliest opportunity at Sion Nursery School so at the end of an activity, children learn to expect to have to tidy away the things they have been playing with, in a child-friendly and fun way, before we can move on to something new. We often see the beginnings of future work ethics developing during these times! |
| 12.00pm -1.00pm | Lunchtime |
| 1.00pm | Afternoon Registration – at afternoon registration, we welcome the children joining us for the afternoon session. |
| 1.05pm-1.20pm | Everybody Reads in Class (E.R.I.C Time) |
| 1.30pm – 2.15pm | Guided Learning – The children branch off into smaller groups to participate in adult-led learning activities to aid their development. Twice a week, this includes cooking activities while other topics might include: investigating the world, people who help us, dinosaurs and much more. |
| 2.15pm-2.30pm | Afternoon Snack time – Children are asked to sit around the table for snack time, which could often consist of fresh fruit or vegetables, crackers and/or produce from our cooking activities |
| 2.30pm-3.00pm | Outdoor free play – Promoting creativity, exploration, independence, well-being and a sense of wonder. Whether it’s a bug hunt, problem solving, doing an obstacle course, building a fort or having a go at one of the ride-ons, there’s something for everyone in our covered outdoor area. |
| 3.00pm-3.20pm | Physical Activity – The children visit the big playground for an adult lead physical activity |
| 3.20pm-3.30pm | Tidy up time – Not only is tidying a good routine to get into because it teaches responsibility and co-operation from an early age, but it also helps children to mentally transition between one activity and the next. |
| 3.30pm-4.00pm | Arts & Crafts – the children get involved in creative activities such as colouring, cutting and sticking, modelling or painting etc. Creativity goes hand in hand with imagination, but also aids self expression, helps to improve fine motor skills, patience, concentration and organisation skills (amongst many more things). |
| 4.00pm-4.15pm | Tea-time snack – We ask that children bring in one piece of fruit or a vegetable to share. We also encourage all children to try new and different foods but no child is obliged to eat a snack and we never pressure. The children are then encouraged to share their experiences verbally. |
| 4.15pm-5.00pm | Story Time – a story is read aloud to the children and we play games related to what we’ve just heard, such as ‘Guess who i am?’ |
| 5.00pm | At the end of a lovely day, it’s time for children to collect their things, say goodbye and head home to be with their families. |
Ambitious and Creative Learning
The school values its ethos highly and the dedicated Nursery School team has a nurturing approach, teaching by stage not age and allowing each child to develop at their own individual pace. The Early Years is the foundation on which to build a lifelong thirst for knowledge and love of learning. This is the spirit of a Sion education where each child is recognised as being unique and this personalised provision is fitting. With small classes, specialist teachers and an ambitious, yet creative, curriculum, the children will be able to have the best possible start to their education.
Learning within our nursery is centred around creative projects and play, tailored to the individual interests of the children. We endeavour to help children discover and learn things for themselves through an imaginative curriculum and we enrich our learning programme beyond the classroom with our Wild Curriculum and Beach School lessons.
“It takes a village…”
Communication is key to us understanding your children and their needs. We believe an open, friendly approach reflects our passion for collaborative learning; developing our home-school relationship helps us get to know the whole child not just the one we see at school. This is absolutely pivotal to your child’s happiness and success.
