This year we are supporting the DfE Hungry Little Minds campaign.  Have a look at the website: https://hungrylittleminds.campaign.gov.uk/
It is a three-year campaign to encourage parents and carers to engage in activities that support their child’s early learning and help set them up for school and beyond.

All the little things you do with your child – like everyday conversations, make-believe play and reading together – make a big difference to their development.

The Hungry Little Minds campaign provides lots of ideas that can help boost your child’s learning. You can slot them into your routine and your children will love them. Such as:

• Play ‘I spy’ on the bus with them and you can see their imaginations light up
• Talk to your child about what has happened so far in the day – for example; “We went to the shops this morning, didn’t we? We bought some apples.” And talk about what is going to happen next – “After lunch we’ll do the washing up”
• Look at picture books together. With each new page, give your child time to point out things to you and talk about what they can see

Search Hungry Little Minds for simple tips and activities, or to find out what’s available where you live.

In April 2017, our brand new Sensory Garden and yard was completed for us, funded with support from the Big Lottery Fund.  The design was led by our teachers, with the aim to provide a range of sensory experiences for our children.  We were particularly keen to ensure our SEND children and youngest children had lots to see, smell, touch and try out. 

There is a water area, a sensory table, various planters with different sensory plants and herbs, a large mirror, gross motor number balancing area and posts for awnings and weaving area, as well as lots more!  There are some photos here on the website.  We are delighted with the new area and the children are too!

Stories Alive! was a creative project, supported by the Arts Council and working with 4 other nursery schools in Lancashire.

The project started with a visit with the children to Burnley Youth Theatre on Wednesday 28th January.  The children went by coach and met all of the artists who would be working on the project with the schools and some of the children from the other nursery schools involved.

All of the children got the opportunity to work with one specific artist, ours was Hannah from In-SItu, and explore some new art and ideas over several months.  The children also got to work with Ben from More Music and explore rhymth through a drum workshop and with Gordon around story telling.  You can see some of the photos on the website.

Parents and carers were invited to be involved in the project and some booklets were completed from all of the artists' work with the schools which were provided to every child and are available on Gordon's website (as project leader) http://creepingtoad.com/out-and-about/stories-

Rockwood works hard to engage the children and families with the local community.  This includes working with other local schools, services and facilities, and also encouraging the children to value and respect the local environment and in particular Towneley Park, which is opposite the school.  Rockwood Nursery School is fully committed to the Race Relations Act and as such achieved the Lancashire Race Equality Mark in 2012.

Lancashire Race Equality Policy

School Legal Requirements

The Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 places specific duties on schools in terms of promoting good race relations and this has been statutory for all schools since May 2001.

Under the legislation schools, along with all other public institutions, have a positive duty to:

• Eliminate discrimination
• Promote equality of opportunity
• Promote good relations between persons of different racial groups

Specifically, schools need to have a Race Equality policy in place with arrangements for its implementation, along with arrangements for monitoring and assessing the impact of the policy on staff, pupils and parents.

Little Me Project and Awards

As part of our Community Cohesion work and Race Equality Mark we are engaged in projects with four other local Nursery Schools.

This has included projects such as the Little Me project for which we have been awarded a Learning Excellence Award 2014: Innovation Award for this project and a Creativity bid for our Stories Alive! project to support work with families between these nursery schools and to engage in Personal, Social and Emotional Development and Communication, Language and Literacy activities.  The Burnley cluster of nursery schools have now successfully bid for support to improve the knowledge and creative teaching of Mathematics through engagement with the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM).

Little Me's

As part of our welcoming process, each child is given a wooden 'Little Me' figure, a small version of themselves.  We ask families to dress and play with the figure so that it becomes part of the family.  With the figure is also a book.  We encourage all families to record things that they do at home with the Little Me - trips out, games they play, holidays, etc by writing and/or putting pictures in the book.  When these are brought into school, the Keyperson uses these to share in their group time and to plan additional activities for the children.

Creative Project

In 2013, we successfully bid with the four other partner nursery schools, for a Creativity project.  The aim of the project was to raise the attainment in the People and Communities strand for Understanding the World area of the curriculum through engaging children and parents in creative activities.  This involved a special puppet show of "The Mystery of the Sock Snatcher" and involving parents in helping their children make sock puppets.  It focussed on supporting parental engagement with children's learning, and in particular, provided parent/carer training for those with children who had speech and language difficulties.  Joint parent/carer and staff training was provided to provide speech and language activities in February 2014.