Redcliffe Nursery School

We were proud to host the Bristol Men in Early Years Network a couple of weeks ago—such a positive session full of open discussion, shared experiences, and support

We’re excited to be hosting the next meet-up and would love to welcome even more people into the space.

This network is open to anyone working in early years who is interested in supporting and championing the role of men in the sector—all genders and identities are welcome.

Join us on Tuesday 23rd June 4-5.30pm by booking your place - https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bristol-men-in-early-years-network-tickets-1988472580015?aff=oddtdtcreator

Looking forward to seeing you there!

🌈 Help us enhance our sensory room

We’re fundraising to purchase a bubble lamp for our sensory room — a calming, engaging resource that supports children’s sensory regulation, communication, and wellbeing.

If you would like to support this project, you can donate via our JustGiving page below. Any contribution, no matter how small, would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for helping us continue to create an inclusive and nurturing environment for our children 💚

https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/redcliffesensoryroom

We're celebrating World Culture Day all week!

World Culture Day will take place on Thursday 21st May. From Monday 18th May to Friday 22nd May, we will be celebrating World Culture across both our Blackbirds and Seagulls rooms.

This is a wonderful opportunity for the children to learn about and celebrate the many cultures, traditions, languages, foods, clothing, music, stories, and experiences that make our nursery community so special.

Throughout the week, our staff team will also be planning and setting up a variety of activities and learning opportunities for the children to explore different cultures from around the world in fun and engaging ways.

We warmly invite parents and carers to come into nursery during the week to share something meaningful from your culture with the children. This could include:

• A story or traditional tale
• Music, dancing, or songs
• Traditional clothing or artefacts
• Food or snacks from your culture
• Photographs or celebrations
• Simple crafts or activities
• Words or greetings in another language

If you would like to take part, please speak to your child’s key person or a member of staff in either Blackbirds or Seagulls so we can help arrange a suitable day and time.

We are very excited to celebrate together and give the children the chance to experience and appreciate cultures from around the world.

Easter Holiday Club

Thank you to everyone that joined us!

Here is a little insight on what we got up to over the two weeks.

- Fruit Kebabs
- S'mores
- Pizza Making
- Garden Play
- Arts and Crafts
- Playdough and creating fossils
Plus lots more!

Thanks for hosting us again for another lovely visit and telling us about your bubble lamp installation.

We would love to get secure bubble lamps and mirrors installed in our rainbow room, ours are homemade and not as robust.

As always, the children had a great time visiting and exploring your space.

We hope we can come and visit again!

New Year wishes

This week we are acknowledging Khmer New Year (Choul Chnam Thmey), which celebrates the traditional New Year in Cambodia, and Bangla New Year (Pohela Boishakh), which marks the beginning of the Bengali New Year.

We value the many cultures, traditions and experiences that make up our nursery community, and we wish a joyful and hopeful New Year to any staff, families and community who are celebrating.

See the new ''What's On'' poster for April from Bristol Parent Carers, this includes information about their upcoming sessions and support services, which are free!

See their website for more information.

https://www.bristol.gov.uk/bristol-local-offer

Join us on our next Family Forest Walk!

Hugo will be leading a family forest walk on Saturday 25th April 9.30am - 11.30am.

Meet at Leigh Woods main car park (access via A369)

Available to all families, current and previous. Everyone is welcome!

Transport available to current families - sign up in reception as we have limited seats available.

We hope you will be able to join us.

We love to sing at nursery, we have songs for transitions, songs alongside play, singing groups and singing at key group times. Songs really ignite some brains and help children to engage in instructions, feel joy and connection and can be so playful.
Here are some lovely links to song based practice that can work well for brains who process through the auditory sense:

Makaton Signing Classes - Singing Hands - link in bio

Jbrary - Tune in for Storytime Success Link in bio

Neurodiversity celebration week

Anna works at Redcliffe every other Wednesday. One of things she helps us with is supporting and promoting our children's varied ways of communicating. Some of the children that Anna works with are autistic.

Autistic language development by our Speech and Language Therapist, Anna Chimenti

Autism is a different way of being and experiencing the word. As part of this, language learning can look different for autistic children. At home and nursery we can help our autistic children to share their message and enjoy interacting with us, both in English or in your home language.

Things you might notice include:
knowing some or lots of words but not necessarily using them to share a message with you e.g. letters, numbers and shapes
using “scripts”, “gestalts” or “delayed echolalia”. These are terms for phrases learnt as a whole from another person, book, song or TV programme.
communicating with sounds or by taking your hand
knowing and using lots of single words but not combining them to make their own phrases
using fewer or shorter phrases or sentences than other children of their age
How can we help?
For all children, we know that language develops best when we:
follow what they are interested in doing
allow plenty of time for them to initiate or respond
look out for motivating opportunities for communication e.g. that match their particular play or sensory interests, or are a favourite topic of conversation
accept all forms of communication as valid e.g. spoken language, gestures, signed or using pictures
model a variety of forms of communication e.g. spoken language, signs or picture-based
back up our spoken language with visual information e.g. objects of reference, photos and symbols

For children who aren’t using words to speak yet we can also:
imitate to build connection e.g. their noises, actions or play
model useful phrases not just single words
interpret their message by saying what we think they mean (when we can guess!)
model alternative means of communication by pointing to pictures on communication boards (paper or app versions) while we talk
use simple and repetitive games and songs to build anticipation and connection