Welcome to Early Years! We have 5 expert teachers, Miss Pateman, Mrs Stagg, Miss Griffin, Miss Graby and Miss Smith, 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

Home learning ideas:

• We use Tapestry to share work that we have done in school and share ideas for learning beyond school. Speak to one of our teachers 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. 
• Talk about favourite things with different people in your family, helping your child to understand what ‘likes’ you share - and to realise that we don’t all like the same things.
• 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:

• Reception had a fantastic day out at Audley End, We travelled through the woods on the miniature train, enjoying the beautiful surroundings and spotting fairy houses on our journey. After that, we set off on foot to explore the forest. We loved the fairy walk, with magical houses, clearings, water features and tunnels around every corner. There were lots of opportunities to practice our writing and letter formation as well, labelling some of the things we found and writing messages to leave for the fairies!  
 

 
• We rounded-off the term with our end-of-year celebration, when our parents and carers joined us in class. We shared a presentation that reminded us of all the exciting things we have done this year, before making cakes together and showing them all of our favourite areas. 
 

 
• Nursery had a brilliant day out at Ardley Church Farm. We met the lambs, goats and guinea pigs, explored the fairy trail and played in the woodland. We all had a lovely day out and learnt loads about the lives of different animals.
 

 
• We loved getting involved in Sports Week, taking part in Sports Days and being introduced to lots of new games and activities.  
 

We have been learning about... 

In maths we’ve been learning to order numbers, starting with 1-5 and then progressing to 10 and beyond. We have made number lines to help us to count forwards and back, and have been introduced to part- part-whole models.

We all develop our phonics in small groups every day, learning initial sounds, practising writing letters, and blending and segmenting the sounds we know to read and build words. 

During Science Week we explored floating and sinking, met some amazing animals in our Teaching Talons session and made our own ’egg drop’ contraptions - and we really enjoyed watching these being dropped off the roof with real eggs inside!

This term's topics

Communication & Language - We will be using chatter bags to encourage our children to talk about their family, places they have visited and their favourite things. During circle times we will be developing our speaking and listening skills by asking questions and sharing experiences. We will develop our ability to take turns and build on the ideas of others. Throughout the term we will be learning lots of new nursery rhymes, using actions to help us remember them. Throughout the day, we will be encouraged to build confidence when sharing our ideas and asking for help.

Personal, Social & Emotional Learning - To help us settle into our new environment we will be playing lots of ‘getting to know you’ games as well as learning class routines and rules. We will be playing turn-taking games to help us get used to playing with others, and will be introduced to different challenge areas within our classes.

Physical Development - We will be learning to use lots of classroom tools safely and correctly, including scissors and climbing areas. We will also explore our outdoor areas and agree what we need to do to use them safely as well. We will begin to develop our fine motor skills through cutting, colouring, painting and mark making, as well as dough disco sessions. In our PE sessions with Mr Butler, we will work on improving our spatial awareness, finding space, travelling and stopping with control.

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