I would like to say a big thank you to all the parents, children and staff who have made me feel welcome. It’s hard to believe that I have been here 7 weeks already. I am sure I am going to enjoy my time at Bringing Up Baby.
I come with vast experience of working in large day nurseries and in Children’s Centers and have worked in the under 5′s for over 20 years. I am very passionate about childcare and providing a quality service to you and your family. I believe in strong links within our community to enhance the experiences we can provide for your children.

Lisa, the Early Years teacher, is from Heathbrook Children’s Center and will be joining us on Mondays and Tuesdays. She will work with the Pre-school children on Mondays and Older Toddlers on Tuesdays. We have already started to develop the Pre-school room and the computer has been moved into the room for the children to have easy access. Lisa will be working with the staff to d3evelop the areas in line with the EYFS.

This is quite an exciting time of year with lots going on between now and Christmas. We have just had the photographer come in to take portraits of your little gems. These will make wonderful Christmas presents!
We also had the fire brigade visit us recently in line with the children learning about people that help us. All the children enjoyed their visit, even the very youngest.

We are busy planning activities and events leading up to Christmas including celebrating Diwali and Eid in November.

We will also be holding Parents Evenings on the 16th and 17th November. This will be an opportunity to speak to your child’s key worker and receive an updated progress report.

Dates to Remember

20th October Open Morning 9-11.30am
16th & 17th November Parents Evenings
24th November Open Morning 9-11.30am
14th December Christmas Dinner
16th December Christmas Party
Christmas closure will be from 22nd December 2011 – 2nd January 2012 (inclusive)

Painting Faces
Walking through the nursery door parents can see the activities that are taking place for their children’s benefit. Pre-school have been painting self portraits and these have been displayed in the middle floor corridor. It has been made into an interactive display so see if you can match up the name to the child who painted their self portrait.

Gardening Weather
Making use of the outdoor space, a soft surface garden area, pre-school and older toddlers have been planting runner beans and sunflowers into the new tubs and watering them to make sure they survive during all the nice sunny weather we have been having. New equipment has been purchased for the garden including our telephone – fun for children and adults! Please do remember to bring sufficient sun tan lotion and provide suitable sun hats for days when it is hot as although our garden is quite shady during parts of the day the sun does get hot in some areas.

Diddy Dance
The children are continuing to enjoy Diddy Dance our movement and dance activity class to keep the children moving and to show them how much fun dancing can be. If your child has a birthday coming up soon Diddy Dance do parties as well!

Four New Students
We welcome four new students to our nursery on a long term placement and hope you will say hello to them when you see them; a warm welcome goes to Sherelle, Danielle, Rushelle and Gemma who have recently joined us.

Open Mornings
We are holding a series of Open Mornings to allow prospective parents to come to see why our Ofsted rating is GOOD and what we are doing to make sure our nursery is moving towards outstanding. The next available dates if you have any friends who wish to come to visit the nursery are:

Thursday 8th September 2011 9am-11.30am

Thursday 20th October 2011 9am- 11.30am

Thursday 24th November 9am-11.30am

If you are unable to make these dates please email the nursery on email hidden; JavaScript is required or telephone me, Nicolette on 020 7498 3165 to make an appointment to visit the nursery.

Parents Evening
For parents wishing to discuss their child’s progress and well being at the nursery our next parents evening will be on 13th and 14th July, 2011.

Events to Look Out For
We are in the process of planning our Summer Sports Day trip to Battersea opark as well as the pre-school leavers’ trip, photo and party – dates to follow soon.

Nicolette Warnes
Nursery Manager

We are saying a sad goodbye to Florence and Oscar who have been with us for the best part of 4 years. They are moving to Australia.

Congratulations to some of our staff Emily, Holly and Imogen who are all expecting babies in July!

We welcome Alice our new cook and Charity our new pre-school member of staff.

The nursery won an award in February for being ‘exceptionally supportive to learners’ presented by South Thames College.

Congratulations to Tori in the baby room who has just qualified NVQ 3 with distinction.

- Nicolette Warnes, Manager

We welcome Imogen, a former student onto our team, she is working in the under 2’s.

Pre-school were very proud when they emptied their potato growing bag to find lots of new potatoes had grown over the summer – they cooked and ate them.

We have been saying a sad farewell to lots of children who are starting ’big’ school and also those that are starting at the nursery schools attached to the schools they will go to. In September 2011 – it feels sad as some of them we have had at BUB since babyhood but we are happy and excited for them all as they embark on a new chapter of their life.

We have opened our outdoor activity area, indoors on the top floor. It currently has an obstacle course set out as well as the large building blocks and climbing frame. All children can use the room and as the weather turns colder I’m sure they will be queuing at the door!

Congratulations to Emily who married Andrew on Saturday 28^th August.

We are very proud of all our planting – although the slugs have
destroyed the sunflowers we have potatoes, strawberries, courgette and
tomatoes growing.

We had our pre-school leavers trip to the Natural History museum, which
they seemed to enjoy – our babies have all grown up into confident
children who are ready for school- good luck all of you.

We now have our lovely new canopy. This will enable us to play in the garden when it is raining and extend the children’s learning!

We are also planning a session in the garden to put plant pots out and plant sunflowers, beans, strawberries and tomatoes

We have had a new Kingston University student starting with us to work/observe in older toddlers

We are planning a sponsored toddle for Barnardos in the summer

We said goodbye to Keri at the end of March – she is off to be a children’s holiday rep

We have welcomed Michaela to younger toddlers who is NVQ 3 and said a sad goodbye to Kris.

• We are currently having our new canopy built – thanks to Lambeth Council
• We say goodbye to Keri who has been with us since oct 07. Keri is off to become a children’s rep.
• Quite a few siblings due to start with us over the next few months and more on the way!

We have had the police round to visit and over the next few weeks we have other people who help us coming to nursery

A large group of children have started at big school this September – exciting but sad for us as one of them has been with us full time since October 05!

New staff and students have started. Corrinne had a baby girl and Emily returned to work following the birth of her son.

Amongst our staff team we have said goodbye to Sharon and Rajiva and have welcomed Simone and Victoria.

We are very happy to report that our sunflowers and tomatoes have grown as well as our figs.

We had a beautiful picnic in the park, for which the children made biscuits and cakes, a special party tea for everyone full of goodies and treats. It was a great day, everyone had lots of fun. We had face painting and the children made bags and masks, they also decorated salt dough ducks which they had also made.
We had a raffle full of great prizes the proceeds of which will be donated to NSPCC.

It was a day full of laughter, children of all ages played together riding on bikes, running about and playing with bubbles, balloons and balls. Some of our first ever children and parents also attended our party. Parents, children and staff both past and present all celebrating together. The bringing up baby Clapham family.

You can see pictures of the party at Clapham by downloading this PDF.