Other Rooms

Reading

The Rumpus Room

Named after Max’s room in “Where the Wild Things Are”, this room gives children the opportunity experience a variety of different activities including sensory based play, to enhance their experiences of touch, taste, texture and smell, and messy play. There is also a good and constantly updated selection of resources to help develop their fine motor and social skills.

The Sensory Room

The Sensory Room is a little oasis of peace and tranquillity, where children are taken in small groups to listen to stories, read books or play games. The room has recently been re-fitted with top of the range sensory equipment including bubble tubes, projectors and auditory tapes, and provides a haven for the senses. Children of all ages are able to use this room at different times of the day.

The Undercover Area

When we added our extension to create the Bananas room in 2015, we also added a covered area to our garden.  This has become a lovely place to play at all times of the year and means that the children can enjoy the outdoors and get some fresh air even in poor weather conditions.  All of the rooms have the benefit of the Undercover area and they access this area and the garden on a rota so that all children can use it. The resources in the Undercover area are changed every day so that in addition to the continuous provision of sand play and water play, the children will have different role play activities to enjoy each day.  

Babies engage in various physical experiences as they explore their environment using a wealth of resources.

Ofsted

Nursery Staff

The management team take immense pride in the staff. Their knowledge, attitude towards our children and their loyalty are the backbone of our nursery. Monkton is a happy place to be and the stability of seeing the same familiar, smiling faces has a hugely positive effect on the emotional wellbeing and security of the children.

The staff at Monkton are carefully selected for being highly motivated, friendly, enthusiastic and professional in their approach, either holding or working towards qualifications in either NNEB or the NVQ Level 3 equivalent. Each individual is highly valued by the management and the nursery consequently benefits from a very low staff turnover. Most members of staff have worked at Monkton for over ten years, and many have over twenty years service!

All of our staff members have a current Paediatric First Aid certificate, which is renewed every 3 years.   We regularly access training, both internal and external, to ensure that all staff maintain and extend their skills. Having years of experience with many hundreds of children, the Early Years Practitioners are used to dealing with some of the more negative aspects of children's behaviour, and it is practice to discuss any worries or concerns over individual children. The staff work in a sensitive and positive manner with the children and their families.

They are here to help your child develop intellectually, physically, emotionally and socially, and a number of educational theories are taken into account in planning for this, such as those of Froebel, Montessori and Piaget, all of which acknowledge developmental progression in each aspect of the child's life. Staff are trained in the management of children, and provide them with a framework of acceptable behaviour. Children feel more secure when they are provided with firm boundaries. The love, affection and friendship felt by the staff toward the children is implicit in the individual attention and interaction which takes place every day.

Cherries

cherriesCherries is a natural progression from Apples. Our babies are beginning to move onto the next stage when, as well as enjoying the care, hugs and fun of their first room, they are starting to show a greater sense of adventure, a need to explore and the start of the social connections which turn into friendships as they progress through nursery. They will build on the activities they started in Apples; using different materials to mark make, exploring sand and water and joining in with and starting to dance to stories, songs and music, some which are familiar and others which will become familiar. Their grasp of hand/eye co-ordination will become stronger and the garden will provide plenty of opportunities to develop physical abilities while they are having fun in the fresh air. The children are encouraged and supported throughout the day. They are talked to and listened to; they are helped and encouraged in their journey towards independence, learning to wash their own hands and faces, and showing growing pride in their ability to feed themselves. A developing empathy towards others is strongly encouraged with an emphasis on turn taking and sharing and the boundaries that are in place, with encouragement and support, help to make good behaviour the norm.

Apples

AppleThe Apples room is the first experience of nursery for many children. A safe place to explore, where lots of hugs and physical affection create strong relationships between nurses and 'their' children. In this room they will start to experience group singing, dancing, finger rhymes and regular story times to encourage concentration. Toys and activities are frequently changed in order to provide constant stimulation and variety, whilst daily art and messy exploration activities extend the children's experiences of texture. Early applications should be made for this room, as many children are registered before their birth!

 

Bananas

bananasBananas is a purpose built room, completed in Summer 2016 as part of our extension. The area is light, bright and airy and is capable of being sectioned off to allow different activities to take place at the same time. It has also given us a glass-roofed outside play area which allows free-flow activity from the room and is readily available for the other rooms to use.

When children progress to Bananas, they will learn to identify colours, shapes, and to enjoy books. Activities such as threading and colour sorting, peg jigsaws, construction bricks and counting games are ongoing, together with the larger play equipment, farms, fire stations, and the Home Corner. Whilst they are in this room, children will be introduced to the potty training routine, and they will be taught bathroom hygiene and independence in self-care. 'Birth to Three' helps to plan a day which encourages younger children to develop across four areas; the healthy child, the strong child, the skilful communicator and the competent learner. The theme based work of the older children is adapted for this age group in different areas of knowledge, number and alphabet. Children will experience various paint techniques, sand and water play. Their developmental progress will be monitored by their key worker alongside the 2 year progress check in consultation with parents.