Story Sacks: an approach to sharing and enjoying books

Sarah Dray, Placement Officer

The ‘Snuggle up with a story’ blog by Katie Crouch highlighted the power of books. Children have a natural love of stories with their inquisitive minds and endless questions. Where ever I worked in a nursery, the book corner was always my favourite spot– cosying up with the children to read a story, making the characters come to life and using the time to engage and ignite children’s imagination, confidence and language; story sharing was always quality time. It was wonderful to observe the quiet, shy children slowly build confidence and become involved with the story that we shared. At nursery or home, any time of day can be filled with a story, the book shelf should be stacked to the brim with books about wild beasts, dancing giraffes, lions that loved, ketchup that went on my cornflakes, dinosaurs and machinery – everything and anything that captures children’s imagination. It is important to remember (and there is plenty of research (Van Bergen et al. 2017) to remind us) that children need to be surrounded with books to be able to appreciate literature – just like us!

Celebrating Heritage Day 2018 with Set 39

On Wednesday 9th May 2018 we held our Heritage Day celebrations at the Assembly Rooms in Bath. The annual event allows final year students to display the best of their Norland Diploma work to their fellow students, friends and family. 

Snuggle up with a story

Katie Crouch, Early Years Consultant
Twitter: @crunchiekatie

The 21st World Book Day is fast approaching on the 1st of March. This celebration of books and the love for literature can be a great opportunity for you to connect with children through a joy of reading and story-telling. We asked our alumni/Norlanders (graduated nannies in practice) about how they celebrate books with their charges.

Being a Norland College student with a feeding tube

Author: Imi Giles, Set 40

My name is Imi and I’m a second year student at Norland College in Bath. I want to share my experience of being a higher education student with a feeding tube and the journey I have been on.

The Power of Hug

Katie Crouch, Early Years Consultant
Twitter: @crunchiekatie

Hugs and cuddles can mean so many things: a greeting, a farewell, an act of love or affection or a reassuring embrace. Hugging and cuddling our children is one of life’s pleasures which can often diminish in occurrences as the child gets older. As humans, we can instinctively reach out to those who are hurt or distressed to give them a hug and an emotionally sensitive hug can be an important part of social bonding. Hugging can bring joy and a sense of calm to both people involved in the hug and, of course, it is extremely difficult to give a hug without receiving a hug in return.

9 top tips for a stress free family Christmas

Claire Burgess, Head of Research, Consultancy & Training

Twitter: @belles28

Katie Crouch, Early Years Consultant

Twitter: @crunchiekatie

Christmas Day is the one day of the year which can be the most exciting day but also one of the most stressful. We all want the festive period to be one of fun, happiness and just like we see in the movies… however it doesn’t always turn out that way! In the same way that we are writing lists to make sure that we don’t forget anything and to help us to be fully prepared, we need to think about how we are preparing our children. We often think that children will just accept the changes and surprises (which can actually translate into shock for children) that the festive period can bring, but, very often, it can have the opposite effect to what we had planned.

The connection of communication

Katie Crouch, Early Years Consultant

Twitter: @crunchiekatie

Learning language and communication is an exciting journey, which children first embark upon whilst still in the womb. Through sounds, in our environment and our spoken words, children slowly begin to absorb the meanings of noises and verbal communications. Communication is a fundamental life skill, which we all need to connect us to our social world. We use connections to build relationships with others and in order to carry out tasks. Early childhood is widely seen as a critical period for forming language and communication strategies, and is therefore, a golden time for us to get to know our children and their developing personalities.