The Crescent Academy Nursery Review

A school pond, a pop-up veterinary surgery and letters posted during a local walk give The Crescent Academy’s nursery learning a practical flavour. Children have things to investigate, make and talk about. Nursery and Rising 3’s provision sit within the academy in Meir, Stoke-on-Trent, with stories and themed activities connecting different parts of their learning.

Emergency! shows how a topic becomes more than dressing up. Children take on medical and emergency-service roles, build model vehicles from discarded materials and explore words connected with those jobs. The veterinary role-play space gives them a reason to practise conversation while caring for pretend patients. Jack and Jill supplies the nursery rhyme focus, linking storytelling with practical play.

Early literacy has distinct activities for the two groups. Nursery children practise Set 1 sounds through Read Write Inc., use name cards when labelling their creations and make missing posters. Rising 3’s take part in daily phase 1 phonics activities, including a listening walk around the school and using instruments to accompany stories. That gives younger children opportunities to notice and explore sounds before the more formal sound work described for Nursery.

Number learning also takes a practical form. Packing a doctor’s bag involves matching a written number with the right quantity of equipment; sorting letters involves counting stamps for Ten Town characters. Children investigate how much a bucket holds and practise recognising quantities up to 5 without counting each item. These activities connect number language with a task children can understand.

Outdoors, the school pond becomes a place to study animal development. Nursery children have collected tadpoles, cared for them in the classroom and returned the resulting frogs to the pond. The activity connects observation with responsibility for living things. Inside, vehicle modelling requires decisions about wheels, sirens and colours, while Rising 3’s use threading, foil painting and Write dance activities to practise hand control and larger movements.

Physical learning extends beyond the classroom activities. For 2025/2026, the school planned a block of swimming lessons that included Nursery children. The planned lessons would add a different setting for movement alongside the making, listening and role play.

Familiar family experiences have a place in the learning spaces. During Winter Wonderland, children contributed family photographs to a Family Tree display in the role-play area, giving them something personal to discuss. New nursery children also begin learning classroom routines, making the everyday pattern of school part of their early experience.

Health and safety appear in concrete activities. Rising 3’s have begun Brilliant Brushers, cleaning their teeth at school each day. Nursery children also learn to pause and tell an adult when something on a device worries them. Families have access to the school’s on-site Wellbeing team, whose activities include Walk and Talk groups and help connecting parents with other organisations.

Nursery attendance does not guarantee a Reception place. Families must make a separate Reception application through the normal admissions process by the applicable deadline. Choose the nursery for the experience it gives your child now, and treat the later school application as a separate decision.

The academy is on Pinewood Crescent in Meir, Stoke-on-Trent, ST3 6HZ. Enquiries go through the academy office on 01782 318 145 or by email to crescent@thecrescentacademy.org.uk. Rising 3’s children have worn Crescent uniform.