AUTUMN 2023 NEWSLETTER

And another academic year comes to an end.  We have had a really great summer holiday so far this year despite the rainy weather with visits to the farms, pirate park, playing tennis, making cakes, little street, Wisley, mini golf, Brooklands Museum, Lookout Discovery Centre and lots of fantastic days at home with assault courses, camping in the garden, crafts, painting, paddling pool, seaside activities and even a reverse day where I was the child and the children were in charge!

We had a really lovely FUN DAY on Sunday 6 August, and it was great to have so many families having fun in the garden and on the bouncy castle. 

Schools go back on Monday 4 September 2023 and lots of the children are moving up a year with one or two starting big school for the first time.  We have been doing lots of activities to get the children ready for transitions such as counting to 10, spotting their names, getting dressed all by themselves and sitting nicely to listen to stories.  We also have 3 new children joining our setting from September and I think they will fit into our crazy household really well.

At some time between September and December a lovely new childminder will join us, working from my home.  We will work together but she will be independent and take on her own families.  Her name is Lauren and she has a level 3 in CACHE Diploma in Childcare and Education and a Level 2 certificate in Understanding Children and Young People’s Mental Health.  She has mainly worked as a private nanny but also as a childminding assistant and in a pre-school nursery.  She has two children and lives with her partner Dan in Rowtown.  She is registered with Ofsted and holds the relevant First Aid qualification.  Lauren will work from 9am-3pm Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday during term time only.

For children under 5 years old Lauren and I will still be working with the Early Years Foundation Stage; which was reviewed and updated again in July 2023 and comes into effect from 1 September 2023.  For more information click here Statutory framework for the early years foundation stage (publishing.service.gov.uk)

Our topic for the Autumn term is Transport and we will find out lots of interesting things about different types of transport including cars, trains, boats, rockets, tractors, construction vehicles, unusual forms of transport such as hot air balloons and caravans, motorbikes, rescue vehicles, aeroplanes etc.  If you have any pictures using any of these types of transport or if you have any ideas of unusual types of transport that we could include we would love to see and hear about them.  We will also be looking at worldwide festivals during this time such as Halloween, Remembrance Day, bonfire night, Diwali, Children in Need and Christmas.

The children and I have been discussing which charities we would like to support this year and we have decided to continue to support our two lovely dogs through The Dogs Trust (Boris on the left and Cheeky on the right).  We get pictures and letters from them each term so if any family member 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.

And this year for the first time we have decided to support an endangered animal at the request of some of the children who come to our setting.  We will be adopting a penguin through WWF and we will let you know when this happens.  Here’s to another great year of childminding x