22 Street Lane Nursery - August 2025 Newsletter

Nursery Newsletter August 2025 Play • Discovery • Growth

August Newsletter

Dear Parents and Carers, Welcome to our August Newsletter, and as always, we would like to welcome our new families who have recently joined us. A big congratulations to our Swans children who had their Graduation last month; we are all so proud of them and everything they have achieved during their time at 22 Street Lane Nursery! They all looked very smart in their uniforms and graduation hats when they went up to receive their certificates and books, and the celebrations continued into the afternoon with a special garden party for the children and their families. We wish all of our leavers the best of luck at ‘Big School’, and we will really miss them all To find out more, please read on...

August Newsletter STAFF NEWS

Welcome Back Connie! As you may be aware, Connie left the setting late last year to spend some time travelling; however, she is now back in the UK and will be returning as a member of our bank staff team. We’re really looking forward to her being back!

Congratulations Ellie! We would like to say a huge congratulations to Ellie on passing her driving test! Ellie has been learning to drive over the last year and has tried so hard, so we’re so pleased for her!

Congratulations Laiba! We would like to say a huge congratulations to Laiba, who recently achieved her Level 3 Diploma! Laiba has worked so hard over the last year and has built fantastic relationships with the children and families. Well done again - we love having you as part of our 22SLN team.

August Newsletter

NEWS

Welcome Kat! A warm welcome to Kat, who has joined our Bank Staff Team. Kat has already started working closely with all the children and is enjoying getting to know everyone: “I am eager to join the team at 22 Street Lane Nursery and continue to grow as a childcare provider. I have always been passionate about working with children and I am excited to support their development in any way that I can! As I am also a dance teacher, I strive to foster imagination and self-expression through movement in the learning environment. In my spare time, I enjoy reading, taking dance classes, and calling my friends and family from back home in America.”

Country of the Month, August 2025: Brazil Throughout July, we learnt all about Greece, as many of our families have enjoyed holidays there recently! The children enjoyed creating the Greek flag, learning about the volcanoes in Greece, the Greek gods and goddesses and tasting some yummy Greek food! Some of the older children also learnt how to write various numbers in the Greek alphabet, known as ‘Ionian Numerals’! During August, we will be learning all about Brazil, linked to our Carnival celebrations at the end of the month (W/C Monday 25th). If you have any resources or books linked to our Country of the Month or Carnival Week, please feel free to bring these in for the children to share. Did you know? Brazil is the largest country in South America and home to a big portion of the Amazon rainforest!

August Newsletter NEWS

Children’s Room Transitions Throughout August, the children will start their transitions to their new rooms! Each child will have at least two settle sessions, and you will be advised when these are by your child’s Key Person on Tapestry. There will be more information to follow, but the room changes are as follows:

• Chicklets to Goslings • Goslings to Cygnets • Ducklings to Cygnets • Cygnets to Swans

Cygnets and Swans Nursery Uniform If your child is moving into the Cygnets or Swans Room in September, they will be required to wear a nursery uniform. Please note that this is compulsory; however, you can purchase a plain navy and white uniform, rather than the branded uniform, if you prefer. There is a winter dress, a unisex jogging suit, jumpers, cardigans and navy and white polo shirts.

The Nursery uniform can be purchased from Rawcliffe’s Uniform Shop (617-619 Roundhay Road, Leeds LS8 4AR): 22 Street Lane Nursery - Rawcliffe’s Leeds. If your child is leaving the nursery, we would be most grateful for any uniform donations. We will be holding a second-hand nursery uniform sale week commencing 18th August between 4pm-6pm each day in Reception. We politely ask for a minimum donation of £1 per item, and all proceeds raised are donated to a local children’s hospice.

August Newsletter NEWS Funding Information From September 2025, the Government’s new 30-hour working families funding will be extended to all eligible working parents of children from the age of 9 months to 3-year-olds. For more information and to apply for this and Tax-Free Childcare, please visit the Government website: https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk/ You should apply for the funding now and forward your eligibility code and NI number to kate@22streetlanenursery.co.uk The HMRC final deadline for funding applications for the Autumn term is 31st August 2025, any codes generated or received after this date will not be valid for the Autumn term. If you already have funding in place, please ensure that you are reconfirming your details with HMRC when they ask you to do so.

Football Day: Friday 25th July To celebrate the England women’s team making it to the final of the Euros, on Friday 25th July, the children enjoyed coming into Nursery in their favourite football kits and the colours of the England flag! We also made a huge poster to show our support for the lionesses, and were even more thrilled to watch them win on Sunday! Well Done England!

August Newsletter NEWS

Sponsored Walk Week: W/C Monday 14th July Starting on Monday 14th July, everyone at 22SLN participated in Sponsored Walk Week to raise as much money as possible for Forget Me Not Children’s Hospice. All of the rooms got involved, and by Friday 18th July, we walked over 7 miles altogether! We are so pleased to announce that in total, we raised a huge £635 - which will make a massive difference to an absolutely fantastic charity!

The Gruffalo Week: W/C 4th August From Monday 4th August, the children will be focusing on one of our core stories, ‘The Gruffalo’, as they have been particularly enjoying reading it at the nursery recently! Throughout the week, the children will be able to participate in lots of activities linked to the story, including creating their own character puppets, learning the Makaton signs to retell the story, and lots of themed tuff trays too. We can’t wait to share what we get up to on Tapestry!

August Newsletter

NEWS

Swans Graduation: Class of 2025 Thursday 10th July marked the Swans ‘Class of 2025’ Graduation from 22 Street Lane Nursery, and what a fantastic celebration it was! We were so lucky with the weather and all the children did so well! It was so lovely to see how much the Swans’ children have blossomed as they are now ready to embark on their next exciting venture to ‘Big School!’ We wish all the children so much luck in September, and we will miss all of you.

August Newsletter

NEWS

Yorkshire Day Celebrations Ey Up! The children had lots of fun on Friday 1st August celebrating Yorkshire Day. We explored the beauties of our county and created the Yorkshire Flag using different natural materials. Everyone also enjoyed some yummy Yorkshire Puddings and had fun exploring Yorkshire tea-themed tuff trays and activities.

August Newsletter

Carnival Week: W/C Monday 25th August

As we know that many of our families attend the Leeds West Indian Carnival, we will be supporting this by holding our very own Carnival Week at 22 Street Lane Nursery! The children are invited to wear bright colours and carnival decorations to join in with the festivities. We will have lots of carnival music, dancing, mask-making activities, and children will be able to create their own headdresses with colourful decorative resources too. We will also be learning all about Brazil throughout the month to link to the festivities too!

August Newsletter

Dish of the Month

Harissa Spiced Lamb Meatballs with Couscous

See our past selections on: 22streetlanenursery.co.uk/dish-of-the-month/

Ingredients • 500g of good-quality butcher’s lamb mince • 1 small pack of jumbo couscous • 1 lamb stock cube • 1 white onion, finely diced • 1 clove of smoked or regular garlic, finely diced • 1 tube of Harissa paste • 1 bunch of basil • 1 tin of chickpeas, washed and drained • 1 roasted red pepper, diced

• 5g of salt and pepper • 5g of ground coriander • 5g of ground ginger • 2 cartons of passata

Method 1. Start by adding your diced onions and garlic to the lamb mince in a large bowl. Add all of the dried herbs and 5 sliced leaves of basil, then mix well. Begin to make your meatballs. Make small or large balls and add them to a baking tray. Cook to above 75°C at 180°C. 2. On the heat, add your passata sauce and chickpeas to warm them through. Then add the Harissa paste to your taste. Roughly slice the roasted red pepper and add it to the sauce. Continue to cook on a slow simmer, then, following the packaging instructions, add the lamb stock and the cooked meatballs. 3. Following the packaging’s guidelines, cook the jumbo couscous to serve. 4. We have chosen to finish our dish with an extra virgin basil oil. Made by blending basil with olive oil in a blender.

August Newsletter

Chicklets Room News

We started the month off by celebrating Beach Week! The Chicklets all enjoyed making some fruity beach smoothies, where they used their fine motor skills to chop all the fruit together. The Chicklets then mixed all the fruit in a bowl, put them in the freezer and enjoyed them at snack time. The Chicklets also enjoyed a trip to the local shop - all the children walked so nicely and were spotting lots of different things in their environment on the way. The children enjoyed putting the food items into the shopping basket and paying the shopkeeper at the till. We have also been enjoying trips out with some of the older rooms. The Chicklets have enjoyed going to the local bakery on the bus and taking lots of walks to Roundhay Park to see the Cygnets and Swans! We have also introduced our home learning challenge for this month, which will be posted on Tapestry to share with parents. The Chicklets have taken a lot of interest in our baking sessions at nursery, so we have introduced our own Home Learning Chicklets cook book! We have put in 3 of our favourite recipes that we enjoy making the most in the Chicklets Room, such as healthy banana flapjack, orange zest loaf and yummy healthy fruit smoothie! We would like all of our parents and children at home to pick one recipe each and see if you can make this at home with your mummy and daddy!

CHICKLETS ROOM

August Newsletter

Ducklings Room News

We had such a fun start to our month, we celebrated ‘Beach Week’ at nursery, which was amazing as the ducklings love anything beach themed and water play! The Ducklings got their swimsuits on and headed into the swimming pools to splash with their friends; we also had some exciting beach setups filled with sand, foam and sea creatures for our Ducklings to explore! Our chef Oli also made fish & chips in a cone, which was so yummy! Throughout the month, we went on a lot of walks! We had an exciting trip to the bakery. We hopped on the bus and made our way to Street Lane Bakery to buy some bagels, we relaxed on the benches and had some water and tried the bagels. We also went to Roundhay Park to see the ducks, pick some flowers in the flower garden and take a stroll through the tropical world gardens. Our Ducklings love baking! We made flapjacks and oatmeal raisin cookies, and the Ducklings always do such a great job at mixing all the ingredients together and waiting for their turn, well done Ducklings! Zoo and farm animals are a huge interest in our room; the ducklings love to explore our setups with cereals, flour and natural resources in. All of our Ducklings have amazing speech and can pronounce animal names confidently, such as ‘tiger, roar’, ‘elephant brrr’ and ‘pig, oink oink’. For Football Day, we recreated a football stadium with footballs, England flags and mini goals. The Ducklings were using their fine motor skills to score goals with their fingers. We played football in small groups at group time as the Ducklings shouted ‘kick’, ‘pass’ and ‘goal!’

DUCKLINGS ROOM

August Newsletter

Goslings Room News

This month, we have spent some time exploring transport around the world, as well as continuing to think of ways we can improve our carbon footprint. The children have enjoyed sharing photos from home of their bikes and scooters, and have also enjoyed using the iPad to look at different forms of transport from different countries too. We have also been exploring our natural environment more; the children are all showing an interest in the mud kitchen, and they currently enjoy picking leaves and sticks from around the garden to add and mix into our mud pies! We show our support for the Lionesses, the children participated in lots of themed tuff trays and enjoyed coming into Nursery dressed in their football kits too! We had a group game of passing the ball back and forth in the garden, and the children enjoyed cheering one another on during this. We’ve had lots of new babies over the past year in the Goslings Room, and so a huge interest throughout the year has been baby role play! The Goslings have been enjoying pretending to change the baby’s nappies and making lots of yummy meals too! It has been so lovely to see such a compassionate and nurturing side develop in the children. Throughout August, we will be focusing on supporting the children through their transition periods into their new rooms and will start getting ready to say goodbye to children before they move across to their new room. We are going to miss the Goslings so much!

GOSLINGS ROOM

August Newsletter

Cygnets Room News

We’ve had a busy and engaging July in Cygnets, filled with plenty of outdoor play, creative activities and opportunities to learn. Our key focuses this month have been Beach Week, Greece as our Country of the Month, and taking part in Sponsored Walk Week. We also explored Greece as our Country of the Month. The Cygnets loved making leaf crowns, painting Greek patterns, and tracing Greek letters in the sand. They even crafted their own clay pots and mixed up a very messy (but fun!) Greek salad in the tuff tray. As part of Sponsored Walk Week, the children proudly took part in two local walks, exploring the streets near the nursery and spotting local landmarks, including charity shops and gardens. They showed so much enthusiasm and teamwork, helping to add to our group’s walking total and raising money for a good cause along the way. Throughout the month, the Cygnets have also done a brilliant job learning Makaton. We’ve been signing along to songs, learning simple greetings, and even using signs for different foods. The children have really impressed us with how quickly they’ve picked it up! We’ve also been focusing on key skills to support the children as they prepare for their transition to Swans. This has included self-serving food at mealtimes, practising pencil control, and learning new circle time songs with growing confidence and independence.

CYGNETS ROOM

August Newsletter

Swans Room News

Throughout July, the children have been on multiple fun trips. Linking to our Sponsored Walk Week, some of the Swans children joined Cygnets on a few walks around Roundhay Park to get some miles in! Later on in the month, some of the children went on a trip to Tesco on the bus to buy some new baby clothes for our dolls. Some more children then went on another special trip on the bus to Pets at Home, where they brought some new accessories for our fish tank as well as two new fish! To show our support for England heading into the Euro final, we had a fun Football Day at nursery. To start the day off, some of the children made some delicious smoothies, which gave them lots of energy to take part in lots of exciting football activities in the garden, where we practised kicking, passing, dribbling and scoring goals! The children have also been busy starting a new project in woodwork! We have now started to make a birdhouse! The children have been practising skills such as screwing, sawing and using a hammer safely, whilst taking part in these sessions. We can’t wait to see the end result! In July, the Swans’ children had their special Graduation Day. All the children did a fantastic job at performing their songs and dances that they have been learning and practising so well! After the ceremony, the children and families enjoyed an amazing BBQ as well as playing some garden games, dancing with their friends and having their faces painted. Everyone was so proud of the Swans, and we wish them the best of luck in their new adventures at Big School!

SWANS ROOM

August Newsletter

2025 Events Calendar *Dates subject to change - Please check the website for the latest calendar

Friday 1st

Yorkshire Day

August

Summer Bank Holiday, Nursery Closed

Monday 25th

W/C Monday 25th

Carnival Week

TBC

Macmillan Bake sale

September

W/C Monday 22nd

Rosh Hashanah

Wednesday 1st

Black History Month

W/C Monday 20th

Diwali

W/C Monday 20th & W/C Monday 27th

October

Halloween Stay & Play

Team Training Day, Nursery Closed

Thursday 30th

Friday 31st

Halloween Fancy Dress Day

August Newsletter

2025 Events Calendar *Dates subject to change - Please check the website for the latest calendar

Wednesday 5th

Bonfire Celebrations

Monday 10th

Chicklets, Goslings, Swans Parents Evening

Tuesday 11th

Remembrance Sunday

Thursday 13th

World Kindness Day

November

TBC

World Nursery Rhymes Week

Friday 21st

Children in Need

Wednesday 19th

Cygnets and Ducklings Parents Evening

Thursday 27th

Thanksgiving

TBC

Christmas Jumper Day

TBC

Swans Christmas Nativity

W/C Monday 15th

Chanukah Celebrations

December

W/C Monday 15th

Christmas Party Week

Wednesday 17th

22SLN Christmas Dinner Day

Christmas Eve, Nursery Closes at 12pm

Wednesday 24th

August Newsletter

*ATTENTION* Important Information - Please Read Birthdays Unfortunately, we do not allow parents to bring in birthday cakes/ treats to celebrate birthdays. If you would like to bring something in, we can suggest stickers, bubbles and other party bag fillers. If it is your child’s birthday, please tell us so that we can celebrate with a class disco! Thank you. Absence Please note that we are unable to swap days or offer an alternative day if your child is absent from nursery. We are now extremely busy, and it is impossible for us to do this for all children. This is stated in our terms and conditions. Thank you for your co-operation. Labels in Clothing To avoid items being lost, please can you ensure that your child’s uniform is clearly labelled including their coats, hats, scarves and wellies. Sun Cream and Sun Hats Please can we kindly ask that your child has sun cream and a sun hat which is clearly labelled with their name.. Tax-Free Childcare Tax-free childcare accounts are also available and can lead to savings of up to £2000 per child per year. These accounts can also be used alongside funding. For more information, please visit: https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk Drop Off and Collection Can we kindly remind you that we open at 7.30 am and close at 6.00 pm and any parents who pick up after this time will be charged a late fee.

CONTACT US 0333 043 22 22

www.22streetlanenursery.co.uk info@22streetlanenursery.co.uk