The Investigation Hub at Sidney Grove

Week beginning 5th January 2026

Characteristics of Effective Learning

The children have displayed curiosity about the icy and frosty weather conditions. It has been exciting to venture out each day and to explore the wintery weather conditions. The children have been collecting ice, describing how it looks and feels, finding ways to smash it and using sticks to mark make into the frost. To further develop understanding around melting and freezing we explored some frozen objects in containers and asked the children to problem solve to free the objects. “We can leave it outside for a long time and it will melt away” “We need water… lots of water to melt it”

Parents as Partners

It has been lovely to welcome children into their new groups this week in the Investigation Hub. We have been highly focussed on settling the children back into routine and helping our new children to feel safe and secure in their new environment.

Please could you help us to make a really good start with our morning learning by dropping the children off as promptly as possible at 9am.

For children leaving at 3pm or 3.45pm we will always open the door at this time to welcome you for pickups so there is no need to ring the doorbell to let us know you are there. Thank you for supporting us in helping to keep the children in Nursery settled and calm during their session. If you do need to collect your child outside of the usual session hours, please let their key worker know so that we can be prepared for a handover. Many thanks for your ongoing support!

We will continue to change reading books every Wednesday (unless your child does not attend that day) For our new children in the Rising Three group we will start reading folders in a few weeks time when the children have settled!

Staffing Updates

We welcome Georgia to Bensham Grove this week. Georgia will be working alongside Janine in the office. On Monday for whole staff inset, we had training around safeguarding, trauma informed practice and conflict resolution.

Have a lovely weekend and stay safe in the cold weather conditions!