Foundation - Rising 4 Yr Olds

Waverley Foundation offers excellent childcare for children moving up to their 4th year of age in a warm, welcoming and nurturing environment. We offer highly flexible childcare provision with a choice of drop-off and collection times. Care is available 07:30hrs - 18:00hrs, either 51 weeks a year or just term-time only. The Nursery has a range of pick up and collections times to enable working and busy families to match their childcare needs to their family schedule.

Waverley Nursery is an educational Nursery providing not only childcare but educating the children through their Early Year’s development. Our goal is to ensure that Waverley children get the best possible start in life and can read, write and spell basic works before they “graduate” onto “Big School” at the age of 4. In addition, our 3- and 4-year olds are very gradually introduced to key events in the main Preparatory School next door in order to prepare then for their next step in their education. Our goal is to make the transition from Nursery to Prep or primary school as seamless as possible.

There are a wide range of additional activities that take place through the week – some of which such as Woodland School, ‘Kickers’ and French are included free of charge and others such as Ballet and Speech & Drama are paid for extras.

Foundation children also benefit from being part of the wider Waverley community and the facilities that this offers. Children eat in our school hall / dining room (alongside our youngest school children, Reception class) and enjoy our library, playgrounds and sports and gym equipment.

Waverley has an on-site kitchen where all food is cooked fresh each day by our own chefs, including daily freshly baked bread, home-made salads and fruit bowls, and desserts and cakes. If your child is in our care for breakfast, lunch or tea then they will be provided a meal.

We are very happy with the care that my child receives at Waverley Nursery. He loves it and we don't hesitate to recommend it as a fantastic Early Years setting. (Mr and Mrs S)

Teaching and Education at Waverley Nursery - Preparing for school...

In our Foundation class at Waverley Nursery, we have two fully-qualified Primary school teachers to help and develop our pupils so that they are well-prepared for starting school.

As well as learning through play with structured sessions covering a wide variety of indoor and outdoor activities, our Primary teachers spend focussed time with very small groups of children to develop their academic skills. Our teachers ensure that this teaching time is always fun, engaging and stress-free whilst challenging those pupils who are academically more able.

For literacy, we use high-standard, engaging children's reading and story books which challenge, focus and develop a child's love of literature as well as developing their vocabulary above and beyond. We also use the Read Write Inc nursery programme of phonics to build a solid base of reading and writing skills. The Read Write Inc programme continues through into our Reception and Year 1 classes of our Prep School.

For numeracy, we constantly use numbers and counting across all activities in the Nursery day. Our teachers also have short, focussed sessions throughout the week with very small groups of children to develop further their numeracy skills.

Extra-Curricular Activities

We offer a number of extra-curricular activities (some incur an additional charge).

Our extra-curricular activities include:

Monday - Ballet

Wednesday - Speech and Drama

Thursday – Waverley Kickers

Wednesday and Thursday – French

Monday – Thursday – Woodland School

Library sessions – Children bring books home weekly having spent learning and discovery time in our school library.

Find out more about our individual activities in our 'Activities' section.

Early Years (EYFS) Development

Foundation Stage 1 provides a modern self contained environment where children are encouraged to explore and discover their world for themselves.

We provide opportunities to engage with mathematical materials, small world play, ICT with an interactive whiteboard and programmable toy as well as magnets and magnifying glasses.

The children can interact with open ended materials to develop their creative and critical thinking. We value and respect the children's theories and allow them the opportunity to test their ideas.

There is also an enclosed garden where children can build constructively with natural materials, dig and plant as well as enjoy a range of wheeled toys. We see the indoor and outside areas as one learning environment and respect both places equally. We also visit the local woodland every week for a "forest school" experience.

We value the children as capable and competent learners and aim to provide a balance of adult led and child initiated experiences to introduce them to key learning opportunities based around the 7 areas of learning within the Early Years Foundation Stage. These include:

3 Prime Areas

Communication and Language
Physical Development
Personal Social and Emotional Development

4 Specific Areas

Literacy
Mathematics
Understanding the World
Expressive Arts and Design

Session Times

Drop-Off Times:

For 15 hours funded children: choose from 07:30hrs, 08:00hrs or 08:30hrs.
For 30 hours funded children: choose from 07.30hrs or 08.30hrs.

Collection Times:

For all children: choose from 15:30hrs, 16:45hrs or 18:00hrs.

Minimum Attendance Per Week

Children in Foundation are required to attend a minimum of 3 days a week 08:30hrs - 15:30hrs if these days include any mid-week days (Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday). We allow children to attend two days a week if these are Mondays and Fridays only.

Our minimum attendance helps children settle into a Nursery routine and get to know their classmates. It also helps our Educators get to know our children so they can monitor that children are developing properly and spot early signs of illness or feeling poorly. What’s Included in Our Fees

Depending on your session time, we offer a hot freshly-prepared meal and pudding by our on-site chefs at lunchtime and tea-time, snacks and cows’ milk. Breakfast is only served to children arriving by 08:15hrs.

Please click here for more information about our fees and information about Government Funding.