Nursery/Reception 2022 - 2023

Welcome to Early Years

Here in Nursery and Reception we aim to make learning fun and encourage children to become independent, make choices and become confident, self-motivated learners. We have a dedicated and motivated early years team who work hard to achieve the very best for every child and to ensure that the children feel happy, safe and secure. We recognise and value the support parents/carers provide as important partners in their children's education and we will provide many opportunities for parental involvement. By working together this will allow our children to thrive and to 'Dream big'.

Our Team

Miss Whitehead

I am the Class Teacher. I am an ECT (early career teacher) having completed a degree in primary and early years education. I absolutely LOVE the early years foundation stage, I am a strong believer that the EYFS is an incredibly important stage in any childs educational journey and is so important in developing a positive attitude towards school life. I believe that if we can support children in developing a love for learning from a young age, children can reach their potential and achieve anything that they wish! I am particularly passionate about reading with children. Reading not only improves many key skills for children but nothing beats the quality time spent when enjoying a story together.
When I am not teaching I enjoy 'all things mum', I have 2 wonderful children, Finn who is 7 and Evie who is 4.
This year I am looking forward to working hard, laughing lots and having fun with you all!

Mrs Speck

I am one of the teaching assistants in Early Years and I work every afternoon in Early Years. I am also a Teaching Assistant in Year 5. Previous to working at Bredbury St Mark's, I was a Nursery Manager in Stockport and Derbyshire. I have a son called Eddie who is 10 years old and a dog called Harry. Outside of work I love to spend time with family in the fresh air. My favouire thing about working in Early Years is watching the children smile and grow in confidence. 

Mr Clayton

I work full time within Early Years as a Teaching Assistant. I began working at Bredbury St Marks six years ago but have been working in Early Years for the past 6 years. Before working with children I worked within the building trade and this means I am great at making things for our classroom. I am a dad to four lovely daughters, three of them are now teenagers. In my own time I enjoy going out on my motorbike or going on my push bike with my dad. I am a big Manchester City fan and love going to watch the football when I can.

Mrs Kay

I am one of the Teaching Assistants in Early Years and work every morning within the classroom. I have worked in the Early Years field for 17 years. I am qualified to level 5 foundation degree in Early Years Leadership. Over the years, my main role has been to manage private day nurseries. I have worked with age ranges from babies to age 5. I have 2 children, aged 9 and 3 and have a step son who has been in my life for 15 years and he is now 16 years old. I have worked at Bredbury St marks in the Early Years department for a couple of years. Outside of work, I love spending time with family. I particularly enjoy baking which I have done for many years and also enjoy walking in my spare time.I look forward to working with your children and their families.

Mrs Oldham

Our Classroom

In Nursery, we are passionate about learning through play. The classroom environment is planned for alongside different carpet times and activities using the development matters document to ensure that learners have opportunities to develop all of their skills. Topics are carefully selected to ensure that learners are provided with exciting and stimulating experiences that they can access both indoors and outdoors. Learners also have short adult-initiated teaching sessions throughout the day. The focus of these sessions are; phonics- exploring Phase One. Tales Toolkit story sessions which develop learner’s story telling skills and experiences linked to our topic. 

In Reception we follow a number of different schemes that allow us to challenge our children. We teach early reading in Reception following ‘Read Write Inc.’ this builds on any prior knowledge that children may have. Writing is taught based on our half-termly theme, books are selected depending on the theme and explored using Tales Toolkit and using skills from Read Write Inc. The children are able to learn a story or a piece of text and then using taught skills, draw pictures and write labels, captions and sentences. In Maths we follow the scheme Power Maths, this is an exciting interactive scheme that we use during carpet time to teach children specific skills, we then provide the children with opportunities in the classroom to apply and experiment with the skill.

Home Learning

Talking to children about what they have been learning helps them to make connections, reflect and develop their communication skills. Every week we will send home ‘Home Learning Activities’. These are just some exciting activities for you and your child to do at home together.

Keeping in touch

You will receive communications from school via our Class Dojo app. This may be photographs, what learning has been taking place or any general notices for parents/carers.