Our Nursery environment is characterised by the formation of extremely positive and influential relationships between the school, pupils and their parents. We aim to support the development of the whole child, including their upbringing at home. Our curriculum is rich and varied teachers are encouraged to dream big in their curriculum choices to inspire and engage pupils. In preparation for learning musical instruments further up the school, we invest in specialist music learning throughout the school – sport, drama and other enrichment activities also benefit from our all-through setting.

King Solomon Academy Nursery moved into a purpose built new nursery building in April 2021 at our Younger Years Site at Crompton Street, which houses 2-4 year olds. The site includes significant outdoor space for learning about plants, water, and materials and involve a great deal of activity and movement. Part of the provision in nursery is to use the outdoor space and wooded area to provide Forest School actitivites, building, working with and learning from the woodland area.

Learning is structured to allow opportunities to learn formally including the foundations of phonics learning where the initial sounds are learnt in a fun and interactive way. We are keen that when pupils move into reception they are familiar with all the sounds needed to start reading quickly. In addition we introduce pupils to numbers and a rich vocabularly, so that they confident learners in reception. These short formal moments fall within a broader open and flexible learning environment where there is space to spread out and take part in a range of pupil activities to allow pupils to gain confidence and build on their curiosity.

The timings of the nursery provision for 3 year olds matches the school day. As well as being convenient for parents and giving us time to have an enriched curriculum for all pupils, it means that pupils are well prepared to be successful and confident when they enter Reception. 3 year old provision runs from 8.30am to 3.30pm (2.50pm on Mondays) without charge (except for lunch, which is £2.00 per day for those who do not qualify for free school meals).

New starter places are available in the 3 Year Old provision each September in addition to those children moving up from the 2 year old provision. The first new starter places are reserved for those families eligible for 30 hours funding, but there are also a large number of places for pupils who are not eligible for this funding. We believe that providing a full day provision, we can support out families and allow our pupils to develop and learn quickly.

Admissions

We have 64 places for 3 year olds available in September 2023. We expect about 30 of these to be filled by pupils who are already in our 2 year old provision, and about 35 places to be pupils new to King Solomon Academy. Please submit this electronic form by Friday 21st April 2023 at 9am. We will inform you of the outcome in writing by week beginning Monday 8th May 2023. Any applications received after Friday 21st April will automatically be placed on our waiting list.

Our Nursery admissions information is detailed here.