Summer 2026 Highlights
The children have had a busy few months, and there’s been a real focus on building our enrichment programme for our Rising Reception children. We have continued with two externally provided activities, Diddy Dancers with fun music and movement sessions and Tiny Tekkers which offer action-packed multi-sports sessions that develop the children’s hand and eye co-ordination, and get them moving! We have continued with our visits to Kingsland Care Home and to Lancing Prep Hove for pond dipping in their wonderful science garden. Just after Easter, our third group went along to Coombes Farm to see the lambing season drawing to a close and we also welcomed back the Sherwood mobile farm, who brought along a donkey, goats, sheep, chicks and guinea pigs. The children were also entertained by the visit from The Little Hoof Company, our near neighbours from further up Coombes Road, who bought two delightful Shetland ponies, Digby and Don, to meet them. The children learnt about grooming the ponies and walked them around our Forest School field. Little Hoof Company were very complimentary about the children’s engagement and good behaviour and reported back that the ponies thoroughly enjoyed being brushed and pampered!
Cooking school is now firmly established, and the children have made a variety of dishes, from fruit kebabs to cookies and pizza to a particularly tasty baby potato, broccoli and cheese bake with herbs and spices which was absolutely delicious! The children also grew beetroot, which after harvesting were put out in a box in the nursery foyer for parents to take home and used to make banana and beetroot muffins. They were all gone in one day!
We’ve continued to get all the children out in the fresh air as much as possible; not always straightforward as we seemed to alternate between biblical amounts of rain and then much hotter weather, where we took care that the children were kept safe from heat and UV sunshine. It’s been good to see how much they enjoy being out in the nursery garden, as well as trundling around the local area in our kiddibus and, for the youngest ones, in buggies. The riverside walks are always enjoyed by everyone and the children love seeing the helicopters and light aircraft operating from the airport. it’s so important for the children to be out and about and seeing the world around them outside the nursery.
For our Rising Reception children, it’s been their last weeks at nursery before setting off on the next stage of their early years learning journey. They have followed our school readiness programme, designed to help them gain confidence and a little more independence so to help smooth the transition to this new stage in their lives. We’ve been visited by many of their Reception teachers here and the children have visited their schools ahead of their start in September.
We held our annual Leavers’ Tea Party in the grounds of Lancing College Chapel, with a wonderful children’s entertainer, fun games and tea in the shade of the lower cloister. We ended the afternoon with the presentation of their leaving gifts. We are always a little sad to see the children go, as many have been with us since they were very young babies, and we wish them well as they leave us for their life at primary school.
Looking ahead, we look forward to our two new Rising Reception rooms opening in September 2026. Our expansion plan will enable us to increase our capacity from our current 77 to 114. This will improve the flow and progression of children up through the nursery and as a result we will be welcoming many more new starters throughout the year, which was not previously possible. It’s wonderful to see these plans taking shape and we can’t wait to see the new spaces up and running!
