Autumn 2025 Newsletter

Here we are about to start another new school year.  We have had a brilliant summer with some really hot weather.  We did some wonderful activities and visited some amazing places over the summer such as water experiments in the garden, soft play, park visits, science centre, visiting the farm, picking fruit and baking delicious muffins, walks along the canal, library and charity shop visits, experimenting with chalk art and making jewellery and using air drying clay to make our own creations, climbing trees and generally having lots of fun.

We had a great (and very busy) FUN DAY on Sunday 17 August with a record number of our families coming for bouncy castle and BBQ fun, to get to know each other and chat.  Some lovely connections were made, and we also had some past children and families visit which was so lovely (although did make me feel a bit old!). 

Schools go back on 4 September 2025, so we are getting ready to see our big children move into nurseries and schools to meet their new teachers and learn exciting things.

We have some new children joining us in September which we are very excited about.  I will continue to follow the Early Years Foundation Stage, which has been reviewed (again) and will become effective on 1 September 2025.  Childminders have our own document and if you would like to know more just follow this link  Early years foundation stage statutory framework for childminders

Our topic for the Autumn term is Fabulous Food and we will find out lots of interesting things about different types of foods including those that grow on bushes, food that grows underground, what foods we are grateful for, what our favorite foods are, how food grows, what happens to plants when the fruits and vegetables are all picked, shopping for food, baking and cooking as well as learning about worldwide celebrations such as bonfire night, autumn, thanksgiving, St Andrews day, children in need, remembrance day, road safety week, Diwali, international sign language day to name a few.  If you have any suggestions or ideas for things we can do, we would love to incorporate them into our topic.  Also, if you have any surplus fruits or vegetables that you can bring in for us to look at and try, we would be very grateful.

We will continue to support two of our current charities this year.  We send money for two dogs at the Dogs Trust, and we get pictures and letters from them each term so if anyone would like to have a look please just ask. 

We will also continue to support children who can’t hear very well through a charity called The National Deaf Children Society.  They give support on childhood deafness, raise awareness and campaign for deaf children’s rights.  We decided to support this charity because one of our mums (and subsequently her son) has some loss of hearing.  They also send a quarterly magazine which is available for anyone to read.

Last year we reviewed our house rules, and we have done this again over the summer.  The children agree with what we wrote last year so we will keep them active again this year.

Be kind to one another

Share our toys and games

Look after our toys and tell Ilana if something is broken

Sit on the sofa and run in the garden

Use nice words when speaking to each other

Eat together at the table and help each other by passing things when needed

Be safe at home and when we are out

Tidy toys away when we are finished playing with them

Love our animals and look after them nicely

No running downstairs, just walk

I also wanted to take this opportunities to thank all my families for your continued support and encouragement, positive words and for feedback and communication via WhatsApp, email and when we discuss the termly summative assessments.  This really helps me to focus on next developmental steps for the children and plan exciting and fun things for us all to take part in.

My daughter Zoe has just purchased her first flat so she will be moving out in September or October.  This is an exciting time for her and an emotional time for both of us.  She is moving to Woking so not very far away and she will still come over a lot and interact with the children, but she won’t live here anymore.  I will let Ofsted know when she moves out so that my official records and fully up to date.

Here's to another wonderful year of childminding!