Busy Bears Day Nursery Durham

08/10/2026

📚✏️ Applying for a Primary School Place📚✏️

If your child was born between 1st September 2022 and 31st August 2023, it is now time to apply for their primary school place.

Applications are now open and will close at midnight on 15th January 2027.

For full guidance on the process, please visit the Durham County Council website:
https://www.durham.gov.uk/primaryschoolplaces

National offer day is Friday 16th April 2027

If you have any questions or would like support with the application, please speak to a member of the management team.

Kind regards,
Busy Bears 🐻

05/10/2026

✨ Photograph Day ✨

Last week was our annual Nursery Photo Day, and we wanted to give you a little glimpse behind the scenes at what a joyful day it was for the children! 📸

We always want our photo day experience to feel natural, relaxed and enjoyable. Throughout the day, the children had lots of opportunities to explore and role-play with cameras. They enjoyed pretending to be photographers, taking photographs of their friends and even using electronic cameras to take their own selfies and group photos. There were plenty of giggles, conversations and moments of excitement as they explored the experience from both sides of the camera!

This type of role play also builds on the children's lived experiences, allowing them to make connections with things they may have seen and experienced in their own lives.


📷 Accessing Your Child's Photographs

Each child has their own individual QR code, which will allow you to access their photographs once they are ready. These QR codes are available to collect from your child's nursery room.

Please note that photographs usually take up to two weeks to be processed and uploaded. Once they are live, you will be able to view their photographs and purchase directly through Cotton Socks Photography.

A big thank you to our wonderful children for making Photo Day so special, and to our team for creating such a relaxed, playful and positive experience. ❤️

Busy Bears 🐻

05/10/2026

✨ If you are looking for a place for your little one, come along & see our fantastic nursery during our open morning next week. ✨

Please contact to book your space - we look forward to meeting you!

Busy Bears 🐻

25/09/2026

Nursery Photo Day 📸

Cotton Socks Photographers will be visiting nursery on Tuesday 29th September 2026

If your child normally attends on this day, they will be photographed within their session.

If your child doesn’t normally attend on this day, then you are welcome to pop in between 7:30am-9:00am or 1pm-2pm to have their photo taken.

If you would like to bring siblings along to have their photograph taken together, please call in between 7:30am-9:00am. Please let us know if you plan to do this in advance.

Staff will be happy to change children into a different set of clothes for their picture if you wish to send an alternative outfit in. Please send these in a labelled bag with your child's name.

If you have any questions please speak to a member of the management team.

Many Thanks,
Busy Bears 🐻

21/09/2026

Sensory Sessions 💡🌈👶🏼

Our baby sensory sessions are back!!
A 4-week sensory block starts Monday 28th September! 🧸💛

🌈 9:30–10:15am
👶 Suitable for babies aged 0–14 months (prewalkers)
📅 4-week block

Come along and explore a world of sensory fun, with a different theme each week! 🌟

🎶 Songs & music
💡 Lights & colours
🖐️ A variety of sensory resources
👀 Opportunities to explore, discover & investigate
💕 Lots of lovely time to bond, play and enjoy with your little one

Our sessions are floor-based and designed especially for pre-walkers, providing a safe, secure and comfortable environment for little ones to explore freely at their own pace. 🤍

Each session supports your baby’s senses, curiosity, communication and early development through fun and engaging experiences.

📧 Email us at [email protected]
or 📞 call 01913735500 to reserve your space.

These sessions are open to families who are not currently attending Busy Bears and are free of charge! We can’t wait to welcome you and your little explorers! 🧸✨

Many thanks, Busy Bears 🐻

15/09/2026

🌟 0-2 year spaces available 🌟

Are you looking for a warm, nurturing environment for your little one? Here at Busy Bears we split our 0-2 year children across three inviting play spaces, enabling little ones to develop in their own time and transition at a pace appropriate to them.

Our caring team at Busy Bears provides a safe, stimulating and home-from-home environment where babies can learn, play and thrive.

As we enter our Autumn term, we currently still have some spaces available within our 0-2 year provisions. We would love to welcome you for a visit and show you around our nursery, meet our teams and answer any questions you may have.

📞Contact us on 0191 3735500 or [email protected] to arrange a visit and see what makes Busy Bears such a special place to grow.

🐻

14/09/2026

AUTUMN TREASURE BAGS 🍂

As we welcome the beginning of autumn, we’d love to invite our families to explore the wonderful changes happening all around us! 🍁

Pop into reception and pick up your very own Autumn Treasure Bag to take home. Then head out on an autumn adventure and see what treasures you can discover! 🍂🌰🌿

You might want to look for:
🍁 Colourful leaves
🌰 Conkers
🌿 Twigs and sticks
🌱 Seeds and acorns
🍂 Pinecones
🌼 Fallen flowers
🪶 Feathers
🪨 Interesting stones

But what can you do with your treasures? 🤔

The possibilities are endless! Photos attached are for inspirational purposes. As Autumn progresses we will share our learning photos with you.

🏡 At home you could…
• Sort treasures by colour, size, shape or texture
• Count how many you have
• Make an autumn picture, collage or nature crown
• Use leaves for printing or painting
• Make patterns with your treasures
• Talk about where you found them and how they feel
• Look closely with a magnifying glass
• Compare leaves and notice similarities and differences
• Use them in imaginative play – perhaps making a tiny home for a woodland creature! 🦔

🐻 Bring your treasures into nursery!

We’d love you to bring some of your favourite discoveries back to nursery so we can look, investigate, talk and learn together.

We might use them for sorting, counting, pattern-making, creative activities, small-world play, investigation and lots of wonderful conversations. Children can share what they found, where they found it and what they noticed.

🍂 An autumn treasure can become so much more than just a leaf or a conker… it can spark curiosity, language, mathematical thinking, creativity, investigation and a love of the natural world.

There really are endless possibilities for learning through the simple things we find outdoors. ❤️

Busy Bears 🐻

28/08/2026

🌟Makaton International Awareness Day🌟

Join us to celebrate Makaton International Awareness Day 28th August 2026!

🌟Makaton is a communication programme that uses signs, symbols, and speech to help people communicate effectively, especially those with speech or language difficulties.

🌟Every year on 28th August, communities come together to celebrate Makaton International Awareness Day. It is a special opportunity to reflect on the power of communication and the positive impact Makaton has on people's lives around the world.

🌟Celebrate Together with Makaton

This Makaton International Awareness Day, let’s honour the connections made possible through Makaton and continue to spread inclusion, communication, and understanding across the world.

This year’s theme is: Together

🌟The Power of Together

Makaton helps build connections between people of all ages and abilities. From sharing a smile and signing “hello” in the classroom, to singing and signing with friends at social clubs, Makaton plays a vital role in creating meaningful friendships.

🌟For Further information and to learn more please see the link below to The Makaton Charity website!

🌟Did you know??

Here at Busy Bears we have a number of staff who are trained in both level 1 Makaton and Makaton for Early Years Settings. Staff use this important method of communication with children to support their learning and development, Makaton is fun and also valuable for all children across nursery. From September we are introducing ‘Makaton Sign of the Week’ for all rooms. We will be sharing this with families in our weekly newsletter!

Busy Bears 🐻

https://makaton.org/

Makaton is a unique language programme that uses symbols, signs and speech to enable people to communicate. It supports the development of essential communication skills such as attention and listening, comprehension, memory, recall and organisation

17/08/2026

Ice Cream Van Visit! 🍦🚐

What better way to enjoy a sunny Friday afternoon than with a very special visit from the ice cream van! ☀️

Throughout the day, to get us excited for the ice cream van visit, we had lots of lovely ice cream-themed activities, including sponge painting, and ice cream playdough creations! 🫟🎨

The children also worked together to make special thank-you signs and pictures for the ice cream man to show our appreciation for providing such a delicious treat. 👏🤗

All of the children received a lovely summer treat — an ice cream with sprinkles! The children were so excited to see the ice cream van arrive and, with support from the adults, collect their delicious ice creams. We then all sat together in the garden and enjoyed our treats. 🍦☀️

There were lots of sticky fingers, messy faces and very happy children but it was definitely worth it for a Friday afternoon! 😀

Thank you, Mr Whippy North! 🍦💗🐻

13/08/2026

✨ Environmental Health Inspection - Food Hygiene ✨

We would like to share that we were recently inspected by Durham County Council’s Environmental Health team for our annual inspection and we are delighted to announce that we have been awarded a 5 star rating for Food Hygiene once again.

We would like to say a huge thank you & congratulations to our wonderful kitchen team for their continuous hard work and commitment towards the nursery and helping us to retain our rating.

Busy Bears 🐻