Welcome to Early Years! We have 3 experienced teachers, Miss Pateman, Mrs Hosten-White and Mrs Stagg, and are also supported by our fantastic team of teaching assistants. We have a huge learning space to explore and make the most of every day, spread across three classrooms and our outdoor area. We split into smaller groups with specific adults for parts of the day, and learn through a mixture of adult-led and child-led learning.       

• Starting out in Reception
• Nursery's latest curriculum map - more abour what we're learning  
• Reception's curriculum map - find out about our current topics
• Our Early Years Curriculum

Home learning ideas:

• We use Tapestry to share work that we have done in school and share ideas for learning beyond school. Speak to Miss Pateman if you're not sure about how to log in.
• Constant practice of reading and phonics is just about the most valuable thing you can do at home. Try to read with your child as often as possible and talk to them about what they’ve read. 
• We have daily phonics sessions which follow the ReadWriteInc scheme. They have lots of guidance on how you can support your child with phonics at home here. 
• Try out different fruits and vegetables that are native to other parts of the world and talk about the experience. How would you describe the taste and texture? Which other foods are they similar to? Which do you prefer?
• We’ve been practicing our counting a lot in class, so building on this at home would be a huge help - you could count houses on the way to school, footsteps on the way to bed, shoes in the house, players on the team, objects in the shopping trolley, claps, nods... Anything and everything you can think of!
• Support your child in building their imagination and storytelling, building things using big cardboard boxes and pieces of fabric, or dressing up and pretending to be nurse, doctors or parents. 
• Visit the library and see what books you can find that your child recognises already. Are there any they can retell? It’s quick and easy to sign-up, and you can access a huge number of free ebooks and audiobooks: www.hertfordshire.gov.uk/services/libraries-and-archives 
• Have a go at some of the fab art activities on the Tate Kids site: www.tate.org.uk/kids/make

Our latest news:

• One of the big highlights of the term was the delivery of an incubator containing 10 special eggs! We waited patiently and watched 9 of them hatch into chicks. We enjoyed handling them, looking after them each day and watching them grow. We also completed some excellent pieces of writing by labelling chicks and recording simple sentences.
 

 
• This term we have had lots to celebrate, such as World Book Day, Red Nose Day, Science Week, Shrove Tuesday, Easter and Eid. During this time we learnt about how other people celebrate and why they celebrate.
 

 
•  We have also organised two Stay and Play events this term - one completing maths with our grown ups and another celebrating Mothers Day with a Stay and Bake. We loved making crumble, decorating cakes and doing lots of other practical activities alongside our family members.
 

 
• In the lead-up to Christmas, we learnt about Christianity and the story of the nativity. We thought it would be a fantastic idea to visit one of our local churches to find out what they are like. We visited St Joseph’s and met the priest, who showed us around the church and talked to us about what happens there.
 

 
• On our visit to Hertfordshire Zoo, we saw a range of different animals and learnt about what they need to survive in the wild. We particularly enjoyed seeing the zoo keepers feeding the penguins. After lunch, we ventured through the dinosaur park and had lots of fun watching the dinosaur robots move. 
 

 

We have been learning about... 

In maths, we have been exploring doubles, odd and even numbers and different ways to make numbers to 20 and beyond. We have used lots of different manipulatives such as Numicon, counters and tens frames.

We enjoyed learning the story of The Smartest Giant In Town, and were therefore very excited to be given the chance to watch a live version of the show at the Gordon Craig Theatre. Another story we have learnt about is Peace At Last. We created our own story maps and were able to re-tell the story using actions.

We have been learning about the artist Henri Matisse. We looked carefully at several of his pieces and then created our own snail artwork using our collaging skills. Bedwell School News : April 2025

This term's topics

Communication & Language - We will meet lots of new language as we explore our class story, the brilliant Handa’s Surprise, including the names of all the fruits and animals found in the area of Kenya where Handa lives. We will taste lots of these fruits, including mangos, guavas and passion fruits, and develop our use of descriptive language to talk about them in detail. We will also discuss the difference between fiction and non0fiction texts. Throughout the term, we will continue to work on our listening and questioning skills. We will be asking and responding to how and why questions, linked both to our class stories and our independent play. 

Personal, Social & Emotional Learning - We will be developing our turn taking-skills, playing lots of group games and acting out stories together, as well as learning to follow instructions that include several different steps. We will also be building our independence, choosing resources, making decisions and changing clothes on our own.

Physical Development - In our weekly PE sessions with Mr Butler, we will continue to develop our coordination and spatial awareness, finding space, moving in different ways and travelling and stopping with control. In class, meanwhile, we will be developing our fine motor skills, focussing in particular on correct letter formation, and will have lots of opportunities for mark-making throughout the day.

Take a look at our curriculum map for more information on our topics.