Ashmore Park Nursery

We would like to wish all our families a very happy Christmas and peaceful new year. Thank you for all your kind gifts, we do really appreciate them. We will see you back in school on Wednesday 7th January 2026 🎁

On Monday we had a special visit for Laurie’s children from ‘Big Top’ productions. The ladies brought musical instruments and sensory resources for the children to engage with alongside the music. As you can see the children were very motivated and happy to play with the instruments to make their own music, as well as listen to the songs that Emily and Dalma sang. Thank you for all your school fund donations as it really helps us provide these enrichment opportunities for the children.

In Central and Eastern Europe many families celebrate St Nicholas day. The children leave a clean boot out on the evening of the 5th December hoping that St Nichols will fill it with gifts and sweet treats. The children in Kirstie’s group have shared in the experience of decorating a boot and leaving it out for St Nichols to fill. The children left the boot on Friday the 5th and yesterday (Monday 8th) the children have come into school to discover that St Nicholas had visited and left the boots filled with goodies.

This week Kirstie had her ‘Learning Together’ session with the children and parents in her group. The children and parents were invited to make a healthy vegetable soup with carrots, potatoes and celery. The children were encouraged to use the peelers and knives to help prepare the vegetables and they enjoyed being able to do these ‘grown up’ tasks. Once the vegetables were cooked the children used the potato mashers to smooth the vegetables into a soup. For some children it was the first time they had wanted to taste the vegetables that were in the soup which everyone was really pleased with. We hope everyone enjoyed spending time with their child.

The children in Andrea’s group have been exploring and using what we call loose parts. Loose parts are open ended resources that children can use and explore independently offering opportunities to experiment and think for themselves. One of the reasons for children’s fascination with loose parts is that they aren’t prescriptive; they offer limitless possibilities to use their imagination. Children can turn everyday materials into something new and we can see children’s ideas through the photographs in this post. Children are playing with ideas such as categorisation, symmetry, one to one correspondence as well as making patterns and representing familiar things like faces.

Natalie’s group have been putting their culinary expertise to the test this week by preparing the ingredients to make pumpkin soup. Over this term the children have harvested the pumpkins, spent time investigating them through physical exploration as well as drawing and painting pictures of them and the growing sequence. As part of the children’s work, they have listened to and been inspired by the story ‘Pumpkin Soup’ by Helen Cooper to make their own soup. The children have looked at a recipe, prepared the ingredients by peeling and chopping, and then have roasted the ingredients in the oven. The vegetables were then blended into a smooth soup, and the children enjoyed some bread with their soup. Maybe we have a few budding master chefs of the future here at Ashmore Park Nursery school.

Kirstie’s children have been learning about our pumpkins over a period of time. Through physical exploration the children have been learning about the concepts of size using language like big and small, they have also ordered them which, is another way of investigating the difference in size. The group have also had the opportunity to feel the circularity of pumpkins through the physicality of drawing with the pastels.

On Friday we celebrated Diwali in nursery. We talked about how Diwali is celebrated with special food, dancing, the lighting of divas and the decorating of hands with Mehndi patterns. We watched a video of how one child experiences the festival of light and the children joined in with dancing and trying different foods.
We hope everyone has a restful half term and we look forward to seeing everyone on Tuesday 4 November 2025.

The Governing Board of Ashmore Park and Phoenix Nursery Schools Federation propose to change the age range at Ashmore Park Nursery School to admit children from the age of two, with effect from January 2026. This is to enable the School to initially provide ten two year old places, which will be financed by the Government’s ‘Working Families Entitlement’ or the ‘Terrific for Twos’ funding stream.
If you would like to submit a response to our proposal, please scan the QR code below to access our 'Consultation Form', thank you.

Andrea’s children have been noticing the fruit growing in the nursery garden. They have been looking at the apples and noticing the different colours of the fruit. The children have talked about how the apples grow on the trees and investigated the inside of the apples talking about the seeds, stalk, flesh and core. Whilst looking at the apple trees the children were excited to see some spider’s webs attached to the trees and also the spider that had spun the web. Have you got any fruit trees in your garden or spiders making webs, if you have we would love to see your photos so please send them to us on your child’s team.

During the summer term our children planted pumpkin seeds in the back garden. Some of the children who planted the pumpkin seeds have returned to nursery and along with our new children have harvested the pumpkins. We planted a variety of seeds including Ghost and Turks Turban. Having a variety of pumpkins offers the children a meaningful context to observe and talk about what is different and what is similar about our pumpkins. The children have been drawing and painting the pumpkins, and some have talked about the growing process they took part in last summer. If you have grown anything in your garden, we would love to see some photos on Teams.

Hello everyone, this is our first post of the new school year. We have been very busy welcoming all our new children and families to nursery. Here are some photos to show you how they are getting used to their new environment and making relationships with their Educator and group. We will be sending out the first newsletter of the new school year through the ‘Teachers2Parents’ text messaging service on Monday. Please click on the link in the text as there are lots of important dates and information for you.