Bright Sparks Nursery

And we have our first vegetables 🥒 look at the size of that cucumber!

Lots of tomatoes 🍅 ready to ripen and we can see our pumpkins growing!

A great way to finish an academic year, with our IKB🌈 community receiving recognition from Regional Director Hannah Woodhouse for our achievements these past 3 years.

Thank you all for playing your part.
This.Community.Can.

Graduation day for our IKB Bright Sparks💡 children. It’s great to see them now school ready and celebrating their wonderful achievements.

Thank you to everyone who made it to the event and to Mrs Herrod and her staff team for all of their efforts with children 🌈

The annual (and now world renowned) IKB🌈 water fight. A staple in the school calendar.

Curriculum intent: “To get as many children as soaking wet as you can” 🔫🔫🔫

** IMPORTANT NEWS **

On the 23rd and 24th May, IKB🌈 received its first ever inspection from Ofsted and we are thrilled by the strength of outcomes and comments across all areas. Please find the full report here:

https://www.ikbschool.co.uk/uploads/files/ikb-ofsted-report-2023.pdf

On behalf of the entire IKB school and IKB Bright Sparks staff teams we would like to thank our children, families, governors, wider Trust staff and community members for their continued trust and support since our opening 3 years ago. Beginning a school during a global pandemic and on an alternative site was certainly a challenging experience, however fast forward to present day we could not be prouder of what we have achieved together. Children thriving academically, socially and emotionally in every year group and an ever-growing community of families who are so much a part of everything we do.

To conclude, it should come as no surprise that we have already digested and begun actioning our development points to ensure that we continue to make this school even greater for everyone in it and for those who will be joining us in the coming years. 3 years in and it feels like the ending of a fantastic first chapter and we cannot wait to make the next chapter even better. That's our promise to this community.

Thank you,

Mr Healey

https://www.ikbschool.co.uk/uploads/files/ikb-ofsted-report-2023.pdf?fbclid=IwAR25GZXjgJj8nIAcqopLA-OCTV702lxR76EIhV3Y0k0VY9fEgNLgk5yHpVE_aem_AeqFs4TPpz13eb8fix8L8Alw5-wuf1rhHA8b4hP__ovA-wkSefFqVjTSrbc_h0-O_CI

www.ikbschool.co.uk

WE HAVE BUTTERFLIES 🦋

The children were extremely delighted to see our tiny caterpillars are not beautiful butterflies.

We will be releasing them this week!

WE HAVE CHRYSALIS 🦋🐛

Look how well our vegetables are growing! 🥕🫑🍅

VACANCIES AT BRIGHT SPARKS NURSERY - we have 2 positions within our Bright Sparks Nursery team. Full time 37 hours and part time 22.5 hours - Monday to Friday, all year round. Visit our website www.ikbschool.co.uk for more details or call 01823 795999 to arrange a visit. We look forward to hearing from you.

⭐️New equipment added to our mud kitchen today to help support physical play⭐️

Here are some of the key benefits of physical play in early years:

Builds healthy muscles and bones. Children will build healthy muscles and bones, improving both their fine and gross motor skills.
Aids balance and overall co-ordination. Co-ordination is an important skill to hone in on for early years children. Improved hand-eye coordination will aid children enormously in their day-to-day lives as they’ll improve their pencil control, cutting and sticking, and mark making skills. It even helps cutlery handling to improve their eating abilities!

Improves mental health and wellbeing. It's not only the physical aspects of a child’s body that benefit from physical play - it’s also great for their mental wellbeing. Exercise and movement is proven to be a fantastic way to exercise mindfulness, and this sets children up for healthy mental habits in the future.

Boosts confidence and self-esteem. Physical play is excellent for building confidence as children play and socialise as part of a team, particularly when it comes to sports. Active play with other children often brings about tight bonds and friendships which are long-lasting. Winning games or achieving physical goals during play also boosts children’s self-esteem and self-confidence as they can take pride in their achievements.

Supports cognitive development. Physical play helps develop new nerve pathways and stimulates all sorts of cognitive development while children are still growing. Regular physical play is a great way to set a child up with healthy brain development from an early age.

This week we are supporting Child Safety week with Somerset Council (5th - 11th June). Together we want to improve health in homes and reduce adverse childhood experiences:

- 80% of accidents to under 5’s happen in the home.
- 1 child dies each week from accidents in the home.
- Children from the poorest families are 40% more likely to have a serious accident.
- 2,400 children are badly injured on roads every year.

Please check out these top tips to help improve childhood safety ⭐️

We have been busy gardening 👩‍🌾 🫛🌷

By being involved in the planting and nurturing of seeds and bulbs, children can watch nature in action at first hand. They can learn about the importance of light, water and temperature to plants.

🌷Gardening can be a great way of helping children to feel empowered as they take on a little responsibility for learning about and tending to plants. Having ownership of a plant, however small, can help children to gain in confidence and self-esteem.

🌷Gardening involves a range of fine motor movements, including hand-eye co-ordination, as children water plants or pick fruit. It may also involve the use of hand tools such as trowels and small forks. Children can also be involved in large movements such as carrying buckets of soil and raking up leaves.

🌷 Children’s language development can be supported through gardening as children can spend time alongside an adult chatting without pressure or expectation. In addition, children can learn specific vocabulary such as ‘stem’, ‘compost’ or ‘weed’ that links to the process of growing plants.

Time has flown by and today was the day to release our now froglets into the pond. 🐸

Over the last two weeks we have observed the changes to the tadpoles and watched them develop into froglets.

Our wonderful Bright Sparks Nursery are recruiting a Nursery Practitoner to meet the continued demand from our Wellington parents. Join our fun, passionate and dedicated team as they nurture our 2, 3 and 4 year olds. Call us on 01823 795999 to book a visit to see our wonderful setting and to discuss the hours available.

We are celebrating national Walk to School week this week by promoting walking, cycling, scooting, hopping, swimming, roller blading, jumping (or any other way that benefits your health) to IKB Bright Sparks ⭐️🌈 from Monday 15th May - Friday 19th May.

Getting tea party ready for the Kings coronation 👑

Excitement is building for when 'Strictly comes to IKB' - Saturday 13 May. Don't miss out and book your tickets here:

Jenny Thomas - Solo Charleston Masterclass at IKB School Hall Tickets are now available for Jenny Thomas - Solo Charleston Masterclass at IKB School Hall, Wellington on Saturday 13th May 2023. Click the link for further information and to secure your tickets now!

Say Hello 👋 to our new pets - Tadpoles

This is a great opportunity to teach the children about life cycles and how to care for creatures and animals.

We plan on releasing them in the pond behind our mud kitchen when they have grown into froglets 🐸

Please talk to your children about them throughout the term ⭐️

Community Inclusion Activity team May/ June Calendar ⭐️

We have two exciting nursery vacancies within the Trust. For more information of these jobs and other vacancies, please see the Trust website: https://www.castle-trust.co.uk/

PLEASE SHARE!

To those of you creating your Easter bonnets and hats at home, don’t forget them for our parade tomorrow.

🐰🍫🥚

As a reward to all our IKB🌈 and IKB Bright Sparks💡children for their incredible learning achievements and their daily positive behaviour and attitudes, we welcomed governor Bob Pamplin (aka Bob’s Your Uncle) for an Easter Eggstravaganza hour of magic and fun 🎩🐰🕺🏼

Every.Child.Participates.

Phonics is so important to the early stages of reading and you can support your children by playing great phonics foundations from an early age. Why not try some of these top tips ⭐️

Easter Holidays 🐣 🐰 are coming soon and YET AGAIN, these amazing places are offering cheap or free meals for our children 😀 👏

Hungry Horse IKEA Brewers Fayre

Sainsbury's Premier Inn Morrisons

Asda Sizzling Pubs Bella Italia

& more thank you 😊

Easter Holiday activities in our community at St John's Church, Wellington this Easter.

Nothing says ‘Spring’ quite like our IKB Bright Sparks Nursery 💡 right now. From learning to growing, we’ve got it covered 🌈

Miss Fahy’s maths workshop for parents and carers is on Wednesday 29th March at either 8:50 or 14:45.

Come along and find out all about our ‘Mastery Maths’ approach. We look forward to seeing you there 🌈

Thank you to everyone who so generously donated. We raised £171.47 for Comic Relief!! 🌈 ⭐️

Look what our amazing nursery teachers have painted 😍 🌳

This is going to be our season tree that we can decorate throughout the year for each season - of course it’s already getting some Spring and Easter decorations on 😊

Please see the Health Visitor Termly Newsletter for Spring 2023

Next week is our annual ‘Tri-Science’ event at IKB🌈 and this year we have tied it in with British Science Week.

Tri-Science is 3 days (Monday - Wednesday) where we dedicate our curriculum to the Science aspect of the STEM (Science Technology Engineering Maths) process and every child in nursery and school will be involved.

Here is a clue for the theme of our experiments to get the creative juices (lava) flowing… ❤️🧡💛

A beautiful snowy picture in Bright Sparks garden ❄️⛄️

WORLD BOOK DAY 🌎📚

An exciting opportunity to dress as your favourite book character and tell us all about your favourite stories ⭐️

Every.Child.A.Reader

An exciting opportunity to be part of ⭐️

'Home is where the start is' is an FREE online family festival of fun and learning aimed at parent and carers of under-fives and their children.

We are so excited to be running our first-ever online festival for families!

'Home is where the start is' is an FREE online family festival of fun and learning aimed at parent and carers of under-fives and their children.

The series of free virtual sessions will run from Thursday 16 March to Saturday 18 March, with families free to book onto as many, or as few, sessions as they like.

The festival will include an opening talk from children's television presenter Nigel Clarke, as well as sessions from BBC Tiny Happy People and our own Alliance experts - PLUS every attendee will automatically be entered into a prize draw for a chance to win one of five Tonieboxes worth £79.99!

If you want to support your families to develop positive home learning environments, please encourage them to sign up at: bit.ly/familyfestFB.

You can also download a poster for your setting for the event here: https://bit.ly/FFposter

Here are the Somerset Community Inclusion Activities for the Easter holidays.

Available to all children in Somerset with a special educational need or disability 🌈

Early Help Somerset. A short video that is important for all parents and carers to watch. A little bit of help, at the right time, can make all the difference. Early help is not a service, but a way of working and can support any family who are struggling, for whatever reason 🌈

This.Community.Can.

Early Help - a short video for parents and carers Early Help - a short video for parents and carers

Today we cooked pancakes 🥞 😋

The benefits of baking in the Early Years:

Hands on cooking activities help children develop confidence and skill. Following recipes encourages children to be self- directed and independent, it also teaches them to follow directions and develop problem-solving skills.

It helps strengthen fine motor and eye-hand coordination skills are developing by chopping, mixing, squeezing, and spreading.

Cooking encourages children’s thinking, problem-solving, and creativity. It also allows children the opportunity to use the knowledge they have and apply it by counting, measuring, following a sequence, following directions, and cause and effect.

And

Cooking offers the opportunity to develop language development by linking it to all other areas, including Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, Arts, and Literacy. This is done by encouraging children to talk about what they are doing, counting, and watching materials change color, texture, and medium.