Nursery
In our Nursery at Tolworth School, we provide a safe, stimulating and language rich environment. We support all our children in their development to go on to be successful learners. We strive to excite children’s imaginations, be creative and allow them to lead their learning. We follow the children’s interests and build on their previous knowledge to equip them to be successful learners in Reception and throughout the rest of their school life.
Our curriculum is carefully planned and has a balance of topic led learning and child led learning. We expose the children to new vocabulary and work hard to develop the children’s thinking and ideas. Talk in nursery is our focus; we are role models to the children and support them to develop their language and communication skills through careful questioning and conversations. We value parental contributions and develop successful parent partnerships. We send learning diaries home to celebrate the children’s learning in nursery and parents add photo’s, comments and pictures to share with us in nursery.
The nursery has a morning session (8.45am-11.45am), an afternoon session (12.30pm-3.30pm) and children who stay all day (8:45am - 3:15pm). We also have places for 8 two year olds: four morning children and four afternoon children.
A typical day in nursery consists of three parts:
- Children arrive at nursery, hang up their coats and put away their belongings; this encourages the children to be independent.
- Children access free flow learning, where adults support the children in their play to develop their vocabulary, maths skills, role-play and imaginative ideas.
- Children have a chatterbox session once a week with the nursery teachers or lead practitioner for the two year old’s. These sessions focus on language and vocabulary, developing their listening and turn taking skills, early maths concepts and early phonics. After this session, the children continue their free flow learning.
Activities and opportunities both inside and outside are carefully thought through and planned by all adults in nursery and are informed by children’s interests and observations made by the nursery staff. Children are encouraged to help at tidy up time and come to the carpet for a short focussed learning time. The children have a focussed rhyme of the week, which the children learn and sing all week to embed the language from the nursery rhyme.
The nursery children at Tolworth School are happy and excited to learn, this provides a first positive experience for the beginning of their learning journey.
2025-26