As spring blossoms across Bristol, children at Redcliffe Nursery School have been engaging in rich, varied learning experiences that support their development across all areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) framework.
Blackbirds Room: A New Space for Exploration
April brought exciting developments to the Blackbirds Room with the arrival of their “amazing Blackbirds extension,” a canvas tent building that has transformed their learning environment. This additional space has enabled the team to extend and present more sensory activities, such as water and sand play, in a sheltered outdoor setting.
The extension has proven particularly valuable as spring weather emerges, allowing children to have outdoor experiences even during cooler mornings. Blackbirds staff have observed significant development in children’s independence, confidence, and relationships with peers, noting the joy in watching “children immersed in their friendly collaborations and games which are so often filled with joyous laughter.”
Alongside this environmental enhancement, regular forest trips have remained a highlight of the nursery experience, supporting children’s Understanding of the World in line with EYFS guidelines.
Seagulls Room: Key Group Learning Highlights
The Seagulls Room has been buzzing with diverse learning opportunities tailored to each key group’s interests and developmental needs. This child-led approach exemplifies how Redcliffe Nursery School plans “in the moment, in response to, and collaboration with the children.”
Orange Group
Orange Group has been focusing on literacy development through name recognition and letter shapes, with many children now recognising their own names and noticing letter shapes in friends’ names. Their learning has extended to pattern exploration through movement, voices, and body percussion, supporting both Mathematical Development and Expressive Arts and Design. Block play has reflected children’s interests in princesses and Power Rangers, while social development has been supported through puppets, stories, and turn-taking games.
Yellow Group
Yellow Group has been exploring various art techniques including marbling and creating collaborative collages. Their curiosity about plant growth led to meaningful scientific investigations when children noticed cut plants in the garden and questioned “can a cut plant or flower grow… how? Why not?” This sparked further learning through planting cress and basil, supporting Understanding the World through firsthand experience of plant life cycles.
Blue Group
With a strong interest in animals and the natural world, Blue Group has been engaging with non-fiction texts about forests and researching how to make bird feeders. Their forest visits have prompted thoughtful questions such as “Can mango grow in our forest?” and “What could we grow here? Why/why not?” Mathematical development has been supported through varied counting activities and pattern exploration with buttons, shapes, and counters.
Green Group
Green Group’s love for “Gruffalo Woods” has inspired rich literacy experiences, including building small worlds with characters from Julia Donaldson’s beloved story and creating their own maps. After forest trips, children have been creating their own stories, which staff scribe, demonstrating how children use their knowledge of “The Gruffalo” to inspire their ideas. Mathematical learning has focused on number composition, with children exploring addition and subtraction through self-registration routines.
Purple Group
Purple Group has been developing listening and attention skills through group games, exploring rhythm, and participating in group discussions. Their increasing confidence is reflected in growing independence with self-care tasks. Mathematical development has focused on understanding numbers 1-5 through songs, counting, and number recognition, brought to life through playful shop role-play scenarios.
Whole-School Initiatives
Alongside key group activities, whole-school initiatives have enriched children’s experiences. The popular “Pancake Café” offered opportunities for food preparation, social interaction, and practical mathematics as children counted coins to pay. Forest visits have been extended to allow deeper exploration and a slower pace, with packed lunch forest picnics enhancing the experience.
Regular food sessions in the kitchen have continued with specialist staff support, while cultural awareness has been promoted through Ramadan and Eid celebrations. The pride shown by Muslim children when sharing their traditions has been “a joyful thing to witness,” supporting the Understanding the World aspect of EYFS through cultural awareness.
Looking Forward
As the spring term concludes, Redcliffe Nursery School continues to develop its learning environments in response to how children use them. The addition of canvas walls to create a sheltered outdoor space has provided a “calm, quiet, sheltered space for conversation allowing us to focus on communication and language skills, listening, and taking turns to speak.”
Redcliffe Nursery School is also excited about their “Forest Experience” project, which has been selected for the Tesco Stronger Starts community funding initiative. This project aims “to enable children from all walks of life the opportunity to experience the natural world beyond our urban community through forest exploration.”