Nursery Curriculum Newsletter Spring 2026
Joy Excellence Service For behold, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.
Song of Solomon 2:11-12
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION In RE this term, we are focusing on the visit of the Magi to baby Jesus and the importance of spreading His word to the rest of the world. We will be working on sharing what we have with others like Jesus did. We will pay special attention to the prayer ‘The Glory Be’, listening to it, understanding its importance and learning the Makaton signs for it. We will get ready for Lent and Easter, celebrating that Jesus gave Himself for us and the example He is for us to love and care for others. We will explore the story of Easter and how it is celebrated in different places.
RSHE ln the Spring term, children will learn and apply names to different family relationships, and will discuss ‘special people’ who they can trust. We will explore the importance of family and ensure that the children know who they can go to for help, if something is troubling them. We will then explore what makes a good friend, using scenarios and role play to help the children to empathise and make good choices with their friends. They will begin to understand how their behavior affects other people and that there is appropriate and inappropriate way of behaving. They will learn to look to Jesus as a role model for being a good friend. Finally, our RSHE lessons will help the children to consider how to resolve conflict in friendships through saying sorry and asking for and receiving forgiveness. They will learn to recognise when they have been unkind to others and say sorry and that we should forgive like Jesus forgives.
COMMUNICATION AND LANGUAGE Our focus texts this term will allow us to extend children’s vocabulary, helping them to learn unfamiliar words and concepts. During this term, we will start working on our NELI program and we will get introduced to stories such as ‘Neon Leon’, ‘Don’t wake up the Tiger!’, ‘When a Dragon goes to School’ and ‘The Boy and the Bear’. There will be many opportunities to develop the children's understanding of questions, as they discover how to give answers to certain questions. Introducing new concepts, we will motivate the children to ask questions and talk about their ideas. We will broaden their storytelling language by modelling more complex forms of language and elaborating on the children's ideas. The children have formed good relationships with each other and are happy to start conversations. We will be encouraging the children to explain things they know well to their peers, to build their confidence in communication and to help them to process key language. We will use activities such as Story Dough to support the children learning and using new vocabulary.
PERSONAL, SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT As the children feel more comfortable in the environment, we will begin to allow them to practise their personal, social and emotional skills more independently and with less adult intervention. Some examples of opportunities we can provide to encourage this are: setting up group games which the children have played with adults before, but allowing the children to now lead the game; reminding children of the language they can use to resolve conflicts and standing back to observe them using it effectively; allowing the children to use sand timers independently, to organise turn taking with toys. We will expect the children to remember rules without needing an adult to remind them. We will also expect them to complete daily routines by themselves for example: putting away their lunch bags, bottles and coats; washing their hands; putting on wellies and aprons. Encouraging independence in these skills, which we know they are capable of, will boost their confidence, selfesteem and resilience.
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT This term, the children will learn about the importance of brushing their teeth. We will read 'Dave and the Tooth Fairy' by Verna Wilkins to support their learning. We are going to work on learning how to brush our teeth and setting up a good routine. We are also going to talk about all of the ways we can keep our mouths healthy. We will use music and dance to help the children to learn sequences and patterns of movements and moving in time with a rhythm. ln Write Dance sessions, the children will use largemuscle movements to wave flags and streamers, paint and make marks.
LITERACY Our focus texts for Literacy this term are: ‘Astro Girl’ and ‘Whatever next’ through which we will be exploring the space. We will also be exploring the traditional tale: ‘The Three Little Pigs’ and ‘Little Red Riding Hood’. These stories will inspire creative storytelling and imaginative role play. As they learn about people who help us, we will use texts like: ‘When you are Fast Asleep’ and ‘Superhero’ to inspire them to retell similar stories as well as creating new role play experiences. We will use the story as the adults scribe the children's role playing and oral storytelling, we will leave mark making tools available to encourage the children to start marking their own stories too.
PHONICS This term, we are going to continue working on environmental sound awareness. We are going to continue tuning into sounds. Through different sound games, the children will continue working on their phonological awareness and will start identifying initial and end sounds.. We are also focusing on oral blending of familiar words. Rhyming and alliteration games will be key to develop phonological awareness, too.
MATHEMATICS During the Spring term in Nursery, children will develop their early mathematical skills through a wide range of hands-on play experiences. They will explore space and movement by climbing and squeezing themselves into different spaces, while building confidence in manipulating objects by stacking blocks and cups, and placing items inside one another. Through play, children will begin to count objects, describe and compare quantities, and notice who has more or less. They will explore shape by selecting appropriate shapes for building, understanding how they fit together, and combining shapes to create new ones. Children will also become aware of patterns in their environment, talking about stripes, spots, and designs using language like “pointy,” “spotty,” and “blobs,” and noticing and correcting errors in repeating patterns. Finally, they will learn how to measure capacity and begin to be able to predict which containers hold more or less.
UNDERSTANDING THE WORLD The children will be exploring the seasons. We will take a look at what is different around us and compare to what it was like before. We will explore the space focusing in the moon and stars and the sun. ln our outdoor play, we will encourage the children to make observations about the sky and the weather and compare what we see in the day to what happens at night. Then, we will learn about different professions. The children will be able to talk about them and describe them. The learning of each of the professions will be approached in diverse ways such as role play and real life experiences. Professionals from different jobs will talk to us about their work and how they help other people. We will also focus on farms; what happens there, what animals live there and what jobs do they take place in the farm.
EXPRESSIVE ARTS AND DESIGN This term, the children will be learning about portraits drawn by Matisse and Picasso and then draw their own self portraits. ln their independent learning, the children will have lots of opportunities to try various process art activities inspired by our focus texts. For example, moon paintings with sand paint, stamping paint with cookie cutters, painting with sticks and marble painting.
JOY EXCELLENCE SERVICE