News and Events
Wellies Nurseries Class of 2025
10th April 2025
Here are some suggestions to help prepare your child for starting school in August 2025: - Do they recognise their own name? If not make a sign together for their room and where they hang their jacket at home so that they are used to seeing it. - If you are going to teach them to write their name, please only teach the first letter as a capital. If they learn their whole name in capitals, it then takes time for them to unlearn it. The capital / upper case letter is the “name” and the lower-case letter is the “sound”. - They will not have the same child: staff ratios as in nursery. One teacher could have up to 30 / 33 children. Encourage them to be as independent and resilient as possible, from now on. - Remember school is different from when you went, they will be unlikely to have their own desk but they will be very used to the set-up as it’s similar to Nursery. - Label EVERYTHING! - Encourage them to open their own snacks so that they are able to do it at playtime and lunchtime. - Velcro shoes are best! - Don’t share your concerns with them and don’t talk about how they are your baby and they aren’t ready! They are taking their lead from you! - Can they put on their own jacket and zip it up? If not, start encouraging them now! - Can they use the toilet independently and wash and dry their hands independently? Now is the time to work on this. - When you find out their gym days, it’s best not to put them in shirt and tie on these days. - In Scotland all P1-P3 gets a free lunch. When you get a menu, pop it somewhere in the house and let them know what the choices are each day and decide what they will have together. - P1 teachers are angels in disguise, we promise you can trust them with your baby! P1 Transition We have around 45 children who will be leaving us in July/August to go to P1. These children will come from Wellie Beans, Wellie Jellies, Wellie Bees and Wellie Badgers. We have lots planned to make this transition process as easy for them (and parents) as possible. This is a very exciting time for them and we ask all parents to be positive and enthusiastic. Activities include: • Visits to their own schools (schools to provide dates) • Visits by their new teachers to Wellies Nurseries • Visits to Kingswells School and Playground • Practicing how to line up, get our own coats on and zip them up, change our shoes, pack our bags and eat our play piece independently • Can we write our own names? Can we recognise our names? Can we hold a pencil? • Developing our independence and resilience • Can we use the toilet independently and wash and dry our hands by ourselves? • Working with our extra-curricular teachers to develop lots of new skills • Completing our Wellies Life Skills Awards • Bus journeys and lots of community visitsRoad safety and stranger danger talks • Focus on Literacy, Numeracy, Health and Wellbeing • School Uniforms and changing independently for PE • Rules, Routines, Boundaries and Friendships • Looking at our school websites with our friends • Wellie Beans, Wellie Jellies, Wellie Bees and Wellie Cubs spending lots of time together to discuss P1 and preparation for school • Individual Learning Journeys sent to each school before the end of term • Lots of “School” stories and “School” topic activities • Key Workers to contact each school to pass on all relevant individual information • Parent meetings with our Key Workers / Supervisors (school leavers) • Stay and Play dates for parents to join us • Learning Packs / bags and libraries available to take home • Parents invited to visit each school (schools to provide dates) • Environmental print walks • Graduation!! We can’t wait for our Graduation committee to start planning the party of all parties! Please let us know if we have missed anything. Have you got any other ideas as to how we can make this exciting process as easy and as smooth as possible?
Parent Engagement Events
10th April 2025
We would like to invite our parents to join us for a variety of parent engagement events this term. Please also be reminded that all parents can request a meeting with your child’s Key Worker / Supervisor at ANY time. Please just contact our Admin team who will arrange this for you as a matter of priority. We will also be asking all of our P1 parents whether they would like to book in a meeting prior to their child leaving to attend school. Please let us know asap so that we can get these in to the diaries for you. 14/6/25 – Class of 2025 Graduation Party Stay and Play dates for June for KingsWellies: Monday 9th June – Tots Tuesday 10th June – Jellies Wednesday 11th June- Beans Thursday 12th June – Babies Queenswellies Stay and Play- 04/06/25 West End Wellies Badger Easter Egg Hunt – 23rd April West End Wellies Cubs Planting Afternoon – 24th April West End Wellies Summer Sports Day – Date to be confirmed nearer the time.
Staff Training Update
10th April 2025
All staff continue to work through our Collegiate and Continual Professional Development Calendars and are also able to access a great number of courses and training opportunities through digital formats. Training which is ongoing during this term includes: • Funding follows the child • Understanding child development • Neglect – children and young people • Leadership at all levels • SSSC Leadership Badges – ALL SMT and Supervisors • Practical management skills and expectations • Effective Interactions • Outdoor learning • Learning through Play • Azillo Training • SVQ Training – Children and Young People • Child-led play • Curriculum for Excellence • Realising the Ambition: Being Me • Children’s Panel Training (ongoing) - Emma Melvin and Kerryn McRae. WELL DONE Ladies! • Child Protection and Safeguarding
What will we be learning and thinking about in term 4?
10th April 2025
Over the next few weeks, we will be focusing on a variety of topics in our playrooms. These will include: • KINDNESS – Are you a bucket filler or a bucket dipper? We will be working on promoting Kindness • Writing our names and learning lots of rhyming words • Improving our outside environments • Improving our inside environments • Developing our Enterprise in Education skills • Working with our amazing Extra-Curricular teachers – Gym Bunnies, Moo Music, Kids Rock, Chef Lisa, Flashdance, French, Yoga Kids, Rugby Totts. Please contact our Admin team if you would like your child to join Gym Bunnies, Flashdance, Yoga Kids or Rugby Totts. These are all AMAZING additional experiences for your children to enjoy within their nursery day • Child-led improvement groups – Our Eco Group, Kindness Group, Playground Improvement Group, Bucket Filler Group, Charities Group and Graduation Group will keep working hard to improve our nursery. • Allotment planting, wellie planting, planting our pots and hanging baskets – would any parents or grandparents be willing to come in to help us with this? • Life cycles • 2D and 3D shape – lots of junk modelling letting our imaginations run wild. Please give us your household junk! • Seasons, Spring, Summer and sun safety – please remember your sun cream! • The Scottish Daily Mile - we aim to jog, run or walk for up to 15 minutes every day! • LOTS of Reflection Time in our interest / colour groups; talking about our learning and what we would like to learn with our key workers then reflecting this is our floorbooks • Working on our floorbooks, talking tubs and thinking trees • Outdoor play – outdoor classrooms, barbeques, pizza oven, mud kitchens, sensory walks, environmental print walks, visiting nature reserves, water walls, minibeast hunts, dens, forest schools, Eco Schools, Mount Everest, parks and lots more • Grow well choices – making healthy decisions • Makaton – we are getting good at using this sign language! Simone is an amazing teacher! • Transport and Road Safety • Reading and studying our books from our Book Bug Bags • Visits out and about in the community – using the bus • Visits from our new P1 teachers • Visits to some of our schools • Rules and routines Getting ready for school • 3RD April – World Autism Month • 10th April – National Siblings Day • 12th – Space Flight Day • 13th April – KingsWellies 10th Birthday Party – a week of celebrations! • 22nd April – Earth Day • 23rd April – St George’s day (England) • 25th April – World Penguin day • 27th April – Tell a story day • 29th April – International dance day • 30th April – International jazz day. • 30th April – National honesty day • 1st May – World Laughter day • 1st May – Mother Goose day • 7th May – Space day • 10th May – National vegetarian week • 14th May – World migratory bird day • 15th May– International day for families • 20th May – World Bee day • 21st May – KW Quality Assurance Visit from Aberdeen City Council • 23rd May – World turtle day • 24th May – Scavenger hunt day • 25th May – National tap dance day • 29th May – National biscuit day • 30th May – Bike week • 31st May – No tobacco day • 1st June – World milk day • 1st June – Say something nice day • 5th June – National environment day • 6th June – QW quality assurance visit from Aberdeen City Council • 7th June – National food safety day • 8th June – Global day of parents • 8th June – World ocean day • 13th June – Healthy eating week • 15th June – Nature photography day • 15th June – Father’s day • 19th June – National picnic week • 20th June – Longest day • 21st June – International day of yoga • 21st June – World giraffe day • 21st June – Make music day • 29th June – Children’s art week • 29th June – International mud day • 1st July – International joke day • 16th July – World Snake Day • 21st July – National ice cream day • 29th July – International tiger day • June – Class of 2025 Graduation party. More information to be sent • Literacy, Numeracy and Health and Wellbeing – LOTS of exciting learning opportunities.
Staffing Update
10th April 2025
Welcome to a number of new staff who have all recently joined us as support staff and practitioners within our rooms. Staff photos can be seen up in our reception areas. We are delighted to welcome such dedicated staff to our teams. Please also see our Facebook posts where we keep you abreast of staffing changes and all that is happening on a day-to-day basis across all rooms within Wellies Nurseries. At KingsWellies we have welcomed some new friendly faces to our growing team! Lois who has joined us in the baby room. Lois has settled into her new room well and has been enjoying getting to know all of the children! We have also welcomed Carol, our new Kitchen Assistant. Carol has been enjoying working in the kitchen alongside our chef and has settled into her new role. Good luck to all the staff who have left us in the last few months, we will miss you. QueensWellies have welcomed some new faces to our growing team Demi, Enya, Fran and Lauren. Demi has joined our Bees room and Lauren has joined our Bumbles room. Fran and Enya will work between both rooms. With the numbers in WestEnd Wellies continuing to grow, we have expanded our team with 3 new lovely members. Chloe Fraser has been with us since December last year, she has successfully completed her Working Rite placement and is now with us full time. Demi and Jade have also joined us from other nursery sectors, and are settling in nicely. Please look at our staffing board to familiarise yourselves with our growing team.
KingsWellies 10th Birthday
10th April 2025
We are so proud to say that KingsWellies will be 10 years old on the 13th April 2024. We can hardly believe it! A LOT has happened in the past 10 years! A huge thank you to all of our amazing staff. We really cannot underestimate how hard they all work to ensure that our Wellies children are safe, happy, nurtured and learning. A very special thanks also goes to Laura, Marcia and Emma who have all been with us from day one when we opened on 15th April 2015. That level of commitment and loyalty is almost unheard of. Huge thanks to these very special ladies. We are planning a whole week of celebrations to treat our lovely children and staff. Look out for our birthday celebrations on Facebook.
Book Fairs
10th April 2025
Huge thank you to everyone who purchased from us. The children are all busy choosing and ordering their new books, as we speak. KingsWellies raised £207.13 in our Scholastic Book Fair!!! BIG thank you to everyone who bought books. We will be using the funds raised to purchase brand new books for our children to enjoy. Queenswellies Book Mama Book Fair made enough sales for us to choose 12 books for our nursery. The children enjoyed looking at the books helping us choose which ones to get for their story corners.
Outdoor Education
10th April 2025
Our Outdoor Committee will be working hard with David and AJ to improve our outdoor education areas. This is an ongoing project. Managers in each setting, have lots of exciting ideas for our outdoor areas so will be working hard to ensure that they are awash with lots of literacy, numeracy and health activities. Please give us your feedback on how we can continue to improve these very important areas. If any parents, grandparents or friends would like to support us with our Spring / Summer planting projects, please let us know. We will be planting up our old wellies, hanging baskets, pots and allotments. We are really excited to get going with this. In KingsWellies garden, we are looking to develop our old sandpit into a new teepee area for the children to enjoy all year round. AJ and Dave will also be looking to expand our new sandpit.. watch this space! Queenswellies are looking forward to Dave coming in to help us with our allotments, hanging baskets and sensory herb garden. Wellie Cubs will be hosting a planting afternoon on Thursday 24th April (weather dependant) where parents/carers can plant a flower with their child to be displayed in our front patio.
Health Month 2025
10th April 2025
During our upcoming Health Months, will we be busy learning all about road safety, kitchen safety, bus safety, stranger danger, how to brush our teeth properly, good hand hygiene, healthy food choices, what to do in a Fire Drill, how to phone 999 in an emergency, our families and friendships, respecting rules and routines, being GOOD bucket fillers, talking about our emotions and keeping ourselves safe. We will also be taking part in our Grow Well Choices project where we will be learning all about making healthy life choices. If anyone would like to come in to support us with some learning and teaching activities during health month, please contact our admin teams. We would LOVE to add you to our timetables. At KingsWellies we have lots of exciting things planned for our Health Month in May, including a visit to the dentist and our local gym, Chef Lisa will be in baking some yummy healthy snacks with the children and we have LOTS more planned to help us to develop our skills and knowledge about keeping a healthy mind and body. Queenswellies have lots planned for Health Month to help develop our knowledge of how to keep our bodies healthy and safe. Health Month will be happening over the month on June at WestEnd Wellies. Each week we will be focusing on a different aspect of staying healthy and safe, these will be as following: Healthy Eating, Keeping fit, Mental Health and Staying Safe/People Who Keep Us Safe.
National Down Syndrome Day
10th April 2025
We LOVED having Megan in to work with us at QueensWellies and to tell us all about National Down Syndrome Day. We had great fun sorting and matching odd socks, making sock puppets, designing our own trendy socks, counting socks and learning why it is good to be different! We have also loved meeting up with our Aberdeen Friday Friends Group and developing excellent partnership working across our communities. If any parents, grandparents or friends would like to come in to talk to us about their families, cultures or memories; we would LOVE to welcome you with open arms. Please just get in touch with our admin team. Megan, the children and staff had a great day indoors and outdoors wearing our jazzy odd socks. We are looking forward to seeing Megan and her friends at our Easter Party.