Dear Parents and Carers,
We wish you a happy bank holiday break. Let’s hope we get some consistent sunshine to warm us up; it helps to make all the uncertainty in the world a little easier. Certainly for me, seasons, the springing of nature and sunshine always fill my soul and make me feel more hopeful!
So, we have plenty to share with you at the moment, and at last it’s not all Covid related, so please read on!
Nursery Babies
It’s been the year of staff babies at St Pauls. Alice (Nursery School) is now celebrating the birth of her baby boy Percy, and Nicky (Early Years 2) has welcomed her baby girl Evie.
We send them all our love and wish them joy in spending precious time together, before they get back to working with your babies!
New Teacher
As you know Louise Scott is also leaving Nursery to have her baby, due in June. Louise is a teacher and brilliant leader in our nursery school, she particularly leads on personal, social and emotional development, but from the start of next term she will be working out of the classroom.
Louise will always be hard to replace, but we are SO excited to tell you that despite the recruitment crisis in Early Years, we have been able to appoint a wonderful temporary teacher for Nursery School Room 2, whom we already know!
Her name is Ella, and this is a message from her to you and your child:
Hello to all my new friends at St Pauls Nursery School and Childrens Centre.
My name is Ella and I am going to be teaching and leading in the nursery school, working with the children in yellow group and team in nursery school, Room 2.
I love being outside. I like going for walks and having picnics on the beach or in the forest with my family.
At Nursery I enjoy playing in the garden in the mud kitchen, jumping in muddy puddles and playing games like duck, duck goose! I love singing and dancing. Also, I enjoy reading and creating stories.
I am super excited to meet you and to learn all about you and your family.
We are really looking forward to welcoming Ella onto our team and learning about her some more!
Now onto requests, we need your help!
Music, Music Everywhere
As you will know we value music highly in St Pauls, It’s a common language, teaching children about sounds, rhythm, pattern, language, expression, physical contrail and response, and feelings….and so much more! It helps children to self-regulate, and can very often support a tricky transition.
Because of this, we are turning our music burner up!
We would love to bring more musicians into nursery to engage in performance and model musicality to our children.
If you play an instrument and want to join in with us, or just hang out…please can you email Robin, our assistant Head, who is arranging this enrichening experience for our children and families.
Robins direct email is : robin.taylor@bristol-schools.uk
Woodwork
We now have our outside woodwork area up and running for the children, and the staff team are quite inspired! Please expect some extraordinary sculptures to find their way home to you! The children get SO absorbed in this learning experience.
It makes this part of our continuous provision but we do need your help please…WE NEED LOTS OF WOOD!
If you have any old soft wood kicking about your house – like old pine shelves or boards, please could you bring them into nursery for the children to use.
Mini Bus Driving
We are still looking for folk who might want to help us with our ‘out and about’ experiences – to the woods or galleries etc. We have a wonderful mini bus sitting in our car park which is not always used, as we do not always have extra capacity within our team for outings.
Please can you email Eva at : eva.gossan@bristol-schools.uk if you:
- Have a mini bus driving license and time to spare
- Would like to be trained up (at our expense) to drive a mini bus
- Can commit to a regular window of support (eg half day a fortnight or more!)
- Want to get outside and explore Bristol
- Want to bathe in the delight of being with a group of fascinating thinkers! Our trips out provoke the most interesting conversations and communication! (equally, you could go for a peaceful walk by yourself or sit in the van for some quiet time if you didn’t want to be with the children?!)
Charges
I am well aware that you are all struggling with the challenge of the cost of living right now, so I share this with a heavy heart. From 1st September we will be slightly increasing our hourly rates. This was a planned increase and does not take into account the huge increased costs of utilities, which we will not be adding to rates this time. Daycare users will receive more information re charges over the next couple of weeks.
Apprentices
We still have unfilled apprenticeships at St Pauls.
These are a fantastic way of gaining a qualification whilst you are on the job – and particularly suit 16-20 year olds who don’t want to go down the school/college route.
Our available apprentices are for:
- Early Years Practitioner (working with children from 6months – 3 years)
- Care taking (working to keep our site safe and dynamic)
Our apprentices are at the heart of our team, we invest hugely in them, as they are our workforce of the future. What we are looking for is interest and commitment, and a positive work ethic.
If you know anyone in your family or community who you think might like this opportunity, please tell them to get in touch and we can signpost them to the application process.
Finally… COVID
The virus is still very much out there, alive and kicking, and still causing considerable challenges to maintaining a fully staffed and safe environment. Every day/week throws us a new challenge, and unfortunately I cannot guarantee we are over the sudden temporary room closures or shortened days.
Because of this please can I remind you again:
- Please keep your child at home is they are displaying any of the symptoms associated with Covid – you will see the governments check list has now included many more to look out for
- Please let us know if you have Covid at home
- We ask you to kindly wear a mask when coming on site
Can I finally thank all of you again for your support, understanding, positive feedback and commitment to St Pauls. I continue to be SO proud of this learning community. The children, you and your family, and our staff team make it a very special place to be.
Kind Regards
Ms Lucy Driver
Headteacher and National Leader of Education
