Head of School's Message
At Heath Lane Nursery, we are committed to making sure that our families are aware of the financial support available to them. If your family is eligible for Early Years Pupil Premium (EYPP) or other financial support, you may also be eligible for the Healthy Start scheme.
This support can make a real difference. Barnardo’s 2024 research found that 1 in 4 parents (25%) struggled to provide enough food for their child over the previous 12 months, with the charity estimating that this could affect around 3.4 million children across Great Britain. There is also significant unclaimed support locally. Nearly £1 million of Healthy Start funding was reported as unclaimed in Hertfordshire, meaning that money intended to help families with young children was not being accessed.
Healthy Start provides payments every four weeks to help eligible families buy healthy food and milk. For children aged 1–4 years, this is currently £4.65 per week. The payments can be used to buy fresh, frozen or tinned fruit and vegetables, pulses, plain cow’s milk and first-stage infant formula.
At Heath Lane, we want to do everything we can to help families access support that is available to them. A simple conversation or sharing information can make a real difference, so please take a moment to check whether you may be eligible. If you would like support or signposting to other services, please speak to a member of the Heath Lane team. We are here to help.
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Dates coming up:
Friday 23rd October - Inset Day - Nursery is closed.
Week commencing Monday 26th October - October Half Term - Nursery is closed and will reopen on Monday 2nd November.
Reminders:
We are looking for donations of different hats, scarves, costume jewellery for our Home Corner to help enhance role play. If you have any items you would kindly like to donate, please hand to a member of staff.
Join our nursery's social media pages to stay connected
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Language of the week
We are lucky to have a rich and diverse community with lots of different languages. Our language of the week is Hungarian, which is spoken by some of our children and their families.
Please find below links of how to say "Hello" and "Goodbye" in Hungarian. You can practise with your child/ren at home.
Learning At Home
This week, we would love for you to go on a nature hunt with your child! 🌿
What natural treasures can you find? This is a wonderful time of year to collect conkers, pine cones and leaves of different shapes, sizes and colours.
Encourage your child to talk about what they find, noticing the textures, colours and patterns of each treasure.
We would love for you to bring some of your natural treasures into Nursery to share, so the children can explore and investigate them together! 🍁
Healthy Me, Healthy World
As part of our Healthy Me, Healthy World approach, we are introducing a Fruit or Vegetable of the Week, alongside our usual daily snack. This gives children the opportunity to explore a wider range of fresh foods, discover new tastes and textures, and learn about seasonal produce.
This week the children are exploring flat peaches. As we move into autumn, we will begin introducing more seasonal root vegetables, giving children opportunities to see, touch, smell and taste foods such as carrots, parsnips and beetroot.
This is about much more than trying new foods. Exploring food together provides fantastic opportunities to develop communication and interaction. Children can learn and use new vocabulary to describe what they notice – smooth, bumpy, juicy, crunchy, sweet, sour, hard, soft – while sharing their ideas, making choices and talking with their friends and adults.
Success Story of the Week
What a fun-filled Water Week we have had! 💦
The children have grown in independence, confidently putting on and taking off their waterproofs and welly boots. They have explored the properties of water through a wonderful range of hands-on activities, including jumping in puddles, washing windows, planting and watering seeds, washing babies, ice painting and zooming down the water slide!
The children have also enjoyed using large pumps and smaller pipettes to transfer water between different vessels, developing their coordination, problem-solving skills and understanding of capacity. They took part in exciting science experiments and began to explore the water cycle, learning about condensation and precipitation.
It has been wonderful to see the children so engaged in their learning throughout Water Week. Their curiosity has encouraged them to ask questions and investigate, their confidence has grown as they tried new experiences, and our outdoor learning opportunities have allowed them to explore, discover and learn through play.
What a fantastic week of splashing, experimenting and discovering! 🌈💧
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All absences must be reported daily either by leaving an absence voice message or emailing admin@heathlane.herts.sch.uk.
We politely ask that if you plan to take your child out during school time, you notify the Nursery office. For appointments, we ask where possible that these are not during the school day. If this is not avoidable, please kindly share the relevant information for this appointment in order for us to be able to authorise this.
Regular attendance at Nursery is very important, as it helps children build the foundational knowledge and skills they will need as they move through school. Establishing good attendance habits now supports a smoother transition into primary school and helps ensure children develop positive routines that will benefit them throughout their educational journey. Thank you for your continued support in helping your child attend regularly and on time.
