Little Acorns Nursery
St. Gregory’s Nursery Brochure
Welcome
Little Acorns Nursery is a warm, caring and nurturing environment within St Gregory’s Catholic Academy in Stockton-on-Tees. Our nursery is led by qualified teachers and supported by experienced early years staff who are passionate about giving every child the very best start to their learning journey. We are proud to be part of our school community and work closely together to create a safe, happy and inspiring place for children to grow.
Our children enjoy a dedicated nursery space designed especially for early learners, with stimulating resources and engaging activities that encourage exploration, play and discovery every day. From developing independence and communication to building early problem-solving and physical skills, our provision is carefully planned to support all areas of early development.
We welcome children from the age of 3 and provide a gentle, supportive introduction to school life, helping children to settle confidently and build secure relationships. This early start supports a smooth and positive transition into Reception and the next stages of school.
At St Gregory’s, every child is valued as an individual. We celebrate diversity, meet children’s individual needs and ensure that everyone feels included, respected and supported. Through rich experiences and purposeful play, we nurture curiosity, imagination and a sense of wonder about the world.
Our aim is for every child to flourish — becoming confident, independent and caring learners who develop a lifelong love of learning.
If you would like to know more about Little Acorns Nursery, please get in touch. We look forward to welcoming you and your child into our school family and being part of their very special early years journey.
Mrs L Ashley - Teacher
Mrs A M Wilson - Teacher
Miss A Stott - Teaching Assistant
Mrs K Thomas - Teaching Assistant
charge for this.
We ask that parents bring children to the nursery door, where you will be greeted by nursery staff and collect children at the same place at their finish time.
Snacks, Drinks and Lunchtime
Children are provided with snack every day which is a piece of fruit or raw vegetable such as carrot or sugar snap peas and milk or water. Every week we also have Toast Tuesday!
Our school uniform supplier is lollipops https://lollipops-middlesbrough.co.uk/
For further information on our uniform, please scan the QR code.
What Will Our EYFS Curriculum Look Like?
In Nursery, much emphasis is given to personal, social and emotional development, especially across the first term but continually across the year.
Children will be nurtured to feel happy, safe and confident in school, ensuring good progress across all areas of learning. They are encouraged in forming good relationships with peers and adults in school and becoming familiar with new routines.
Our EYFS Curriculum
Our curriculum has been designed to be stimulating and fun and to build upon interests the children already have. Their confidence will quickly develop and they will be supported, stretched and challenged appropriately.
The children will have access to continuous provision, indoors and outdoors, throughout the day. This will also be enhanced by a range of structured play activities stemming from our topic or children’s interests. The children will have regular experiences to develop their social awareness. These will include trips and welcoming visitors to school. Children will have daily group times to support maths, pre-phonics skills, understanding the world and mark-making.
Our EYFS Curriculum
Reading is a fundamental priority within the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), and in Nursery we create a rich environment that nurtures early literacy skills.
Children are provided with frequent and varied opportunities to engage with books and develop a love for reading. As part of our daily routine, they are read to at least twice a day, enjoying stories, rhymes, and poems that spark imagination and language development. In addition, we model effective reading strategies, demonstrating how to handle books, recognise print, and understand that text carries meaning. Through these experiences, we aim to build strong foundations for reading confidence and comprehension.
The Early Years
There are many opportunities for learning across our continuous provision, both indoors and outside. Not all learning is structured so the children have opportunity to explore using loose parts and natural resources. Our areas across the provision are changed and developed regularly in order to embrace the children’s interests and to inspire learning. Inside the develop their love of reading.
An outdoor reading area complete with benches and toys to match the stories for children to further develop a love of reading.
Maths Zone
A fun space to develop understanding of numbers.
Writing Zone
The place to explore a range of mark making equipment and try some new writing experiences.
Role Play
Role play where the children can explore their own ideas, develop vocabulary and take on any role they choose.
Creation Station
A messy area where the children can explore with paints, glue and anything else messy!
Construction Site
An area for our little engineers.
The Early Years Environment
In our provision, the children will also have access to the following:
Water play
A fun area where children can make a mess with water and explore volume and capacity.
Sand Play
A sand pit full of diggers and tools to help build and enjoy sensory learning.
Mud Kitchen
A very messy area to have fun with mud.
Building Zone
An area for our little engineers to build even bigger projects.
Outdoor Art Zone
A creative space where the children can explore art and design using bigger scale resources.
Theatre
A creative area to explore singing and dancing and be whoever we want to be.
Help Prepare Your Child for Nursery
These are just a few ideas of how you can help to prepare your child for Nursery. You will be doing lots of these already!
✔ Share books and stories.
✔ Go to the public library and share a range of books.
✔ Sing nursery rhymes with your child.
✔ Play turn-taking games such as snakes and ladders; make sure your child learns how to win and lose as well.
✔ Have play opportunities with other children, especially over the summer holidays.
✔ Talk about numbers and teach your child to count objects accurately; you could involve your child in helping around the house by counting out the bowls or spoons needed to lay the table, counting steps up and down the stairs, look at house numbers or numbers on cars or buses as you go for a walk.
✔ Talk about mathematical concepts such as: taller, shorter, heavier, lighter, full, half-full, empty, less than, more than, higher, lower.
✔ Let your child handle money and learn to recognise coins.
✔ Talk about shapes and colours.
✔ Encourage your child to dress and undress themselves, including using buttons and zips and putting on their own shoes.
✔ Encourage your child to use the toilet by themselves, including flushing the chain and washing their hands afterwards. We will be encouraging your child to be as independent as possible with this. Please have a chat with us if your child needs any support in this area.
