News and Events
Aberdeen City Council Pre-School Funding – Session 2022/23 – 1140 hours
17th June 2022
As per my previous emails, KingsWellies Nursery will continue to provide the increased 1140 FREE hours from September 2022. This equates to 30 hours per week over 38 weeks of the year. I will send out more information about this, very soon. We have NOT yet received the funding application forms or funding information from ACC. As soon as we receive these, we will pass these on to parents to complete and return asap. Please ensure that you read ALL the 1140-hour funding information that we send you. We are constantly inundated with queries around this, despite sending it out on numerous occasions across the session. We provide you with this so that you can adequately plan your finances. There should be no surprises. Regardless whether we work a 38-week model (which we do), a 46 week model or 50 week model - you ALL receive exactly the SAME amount of free hours and funding across the year. It is up to you to choose the nursery that suits you best. Thank you.
Nappies and Toilet Training
17th June 2022
We are making a plea to ALL parents to please support us in ensuring that your children are fully toilet trained by the time that they move into the pre-school rooms (aged three years). Whilst we fully appreciate that all children are individuals, the toddler stage is the most appropriate age for this training milestone to happen. Once in the older rooms, children become much more aware of themselves and others and wearing nappies can lead to embarrassment. We also really want to focus on lots of high quality learning and teaching with our older children and nappy changing takes staff away from this very important part of their job. Our staff are ALL here to help you with this very important milestone. Please don’t hesitate to discuss with us and we will provide our full support.
Stay and Play and Parent’s Night
17th June 2022
These events were all a great success. It was really lovely to welcome parents back in to nursery. Many thanks to everyone who attended. Through consultation, some of our parents asked us to change times (so that working parents didn’t have to leave work early) and to provide a wider range of dates for parent’s nights. I am sure that you will appreciate that staff have lots to do at the end of every day, therefore it is impossible to make our stay and play times any later. Staff also work very long days (average 9.5 hours per day) so to offer a range of parent’s night dates would mean that they would be working for 13 hours plus in any one day. We will most certainly continue to offer annual parent’s nights and to offer a range of visits to the nursery for parents and friends over the course of the year.
Parent Training Opportunities
17th June 2022
Michael is very keen to plan a wide variety of training sessions for parents and staff. He has planned sessions for a Wednesday evening at 8pm (to let you put children to bed, get a wine and be ready). Please see the attached timetable below. Please let us know if you would be keen to attend. These will be held via zoom. This is a great opportunity to get all of your child development questions answered. HUGE thanks to Michael for planning and facilitating.
Thank you from the bottom of our hearts
17th June 2022
Some of our children have already started to leave us and I have to say that all of the emails, messages and cards have really brought a tear to my eye. The very kind words mean such a huge amount as it proves that we have achieved what we set out to do. We genuinely only want the very best for all of our children and families.
P1 Graduation
17th June 2022
This year we have 40 children leaving us to go to school. We have all been very busy planning our Graduation party and ceremony which we will hold on Thursday 7th July. Our Graduation Group have been busy organising everything themselves. We can’t wait to wear our graduation gowns for our official photos and to have a real knees up at our party and ceremony. Marcia will be sending more information out as we continue to plan. Only our school leavers will be invited to attend (no other leavers) as this is a special and important next step for them.
Best of luck to our boys and girls who will be leaving us to go to P1 and school nursery
17th June 2022
We will miss you ALL very, very much but know that you are all ready for P1 and that each and every one of you will go far! Remember to send us photos of you in your school uniforms!! We have been very busy speaking to your new P1 teachers and also to your parents at parent’s night. Good luck everyone!
Children’s Attendance and Registers
17th June 2022
Please let us know by 10am if your child will not be attending nursery on that day. Staff will contact parents after 10am to ascertain the whereabouts of your child. This is in line with our Child Protection and Health and Safety Policies. Please also let us know if you have any holidays booked and your child will be absent. This saves us from bothering you when sunbathing by the pool! Many thanks.
Staffing Update
17th June 2022
As always, we have some Summer staff who will be helping us out this year. Sisters Eve Cummings and Nadia Cummings have returned to us for a third year. We are delighted to see them back. We are delighted to welcome Liga Jirgins as our new catering supervisor. Also Molly Van Tebberen, Hollie Corsar and Eliza Ghiaorca who have joined us as support staff within our playrooms. You may already have met some of our new team. I am sure that most of you have already met Michael, our new nursery manager. Michael has been with us for a month already and is making great strides in improving all aspects of nursery provision. Staff photos are up outside each room so that you can put names to faces. We are very sad to say goodbye to Lilly who has moved to work in the catering industry (but is still with us on a zero hour contract), Milli Yule who is going to study Business at university and Emma Gilmour who has secured a job as a trainee accountant. Keep in touch ladies. You have all been excellent members of our team and we will miss you. Karla, Rachael and Lauren will all also be returning from maternity leave. Welcome back everyone!
What have the Wellies Gang been up to so far this term?
17th June 2022
We have been very busy celebrating the Queen’s Jubilee, fundraising for Befriend A Child, Child Safety Week, supporting the RSPB, Happy Body Healthy Me Campaign, sun safety, visits from our P1 teachers, Eco Schools and sustainability, planting our garden and hanging baskets, planning our graduation party, improving our playground, picnics at “the hills”, getting ready to go to school, learning Makaton, learning all about minibeasts, farm animals, watching our tadpoles turn into frogs, caring for our caterpillars as they go through their life cycle into beautiful butterflies, lots of outdoor play, road safety, reading our book bug bags and LOTS more……