Nursery

Welcome to Nursery

Hillside Nursery is a friendly and nurturing environment for children, with a 36-place capacity. We offer morning, afternoon, and all-day sessions to suit the needs of families:

Morning session: 8:30am – 11:30am
Afternoon session: 12:30pm – 3:30pm
All-day session: 8:30am – 3:30pm

During each session, three dedicated key workers support our children, ensuring they feel safe, happy, and cared for.

At Hillside Nursery, children develop a love of learning through play, both indoors and outdoors. We encourage independence, curiosity, and a positive attitude towards learning. Our teaching follows the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum, which guides us in supporting children across seven key areas of learning.

When children join us, we focus on helping them develop essential skills such as sharing, communication, and building strong, positive relationships with both their peers and our staff. Every child is unique, and we carefully plan experiences that meet their individual needs. By looking at each child’s starting points, we help them achieve their next steps in learning and development.

We value strong partnerships with families and work closely with parents to support children’s learning. To help families at home, we create termly curriculum booklets, run parent workshops, and host “Learn Together” mornings in the Nursery.

The Seven Areas of Learning:

Prime Areas

Personal, Social and Emotional Development
Communication and Language
Physical Development

Specific Areas

Literacy
Mathematics
Understanding the World
Expressive Arts and Design

Visit Hillside Nursery
If you would like to see Hillside Nursery, please ring the school office to book a tour. We would be delighted to welcome you and show you around our nursery.

At Hillside Nursery, we celebrate every child’s achievements and ensure that learning is a joyful, exciting journey.

Nursery In Action!

In the Autumn Term our topics are Ourselves and Traditional Tales. When the children first start nursery, we call this the settling period. The children are exploring their new environment and building relationships with the nursery staff and with each other. The children will engage in activities inside and outside, learning the routines and rules, playing listening and attention games and getting used to their new environment. For the next half of the Autumn Term the children will be introduced to traditional tales. Here they will read and learn all about stories, including The Gingerbread Man, Goldilocks and Hansel and Gretal.

In the Spring Term our topics are Transport, Space and Dinosaurs. The children will explore different vehicles (cars, trains, planes, boats, emergency vehicles) to build an understanding of their world, travel, and safety. It covers land, air, and water travel and promoting key skills through play-based activities. The Space and Dinosaur topics offers more imaginative play and they build on early scientific curiosity about day/night, gravity, the solar system, different species, diets and fossil hunting.

In the Summer Term our topics are Growing and Minibeasts. The children will explore life cycles, growth, and change in plants, animals, and humans. Key activities include planting seeds, measuring growth, exploring, and comparing. They will experience exploring the natural world, looking at habitats (under logs, in soil), life cycles (butterflies), and caring for nature. This term also leads into preparing our children for a successful transition to Reception.