Welcome to Early Years! We have 3 experienced teachers, Miss Pateman, Mrs Stagg and Mr Lester, 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 Nursery - September 2022 
• Starting out in Reception - September 2022 
• Our 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. 
• Go to places where you can see or meet different animals - the park, pet shops, woodland, friends with interesting pets… What animals can you see? Do you know all of their names? What sort of things do they like to do? Can you find out what they eat or where they sleep? There are loads of questions to ask, and it’s fine to not know all the answers (understanding that you don’t know is definitely a Learning Superhero skill!)  
• 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.  
• Have a go at some of the fab art activities on the Tate Kids site: www.tate.org.uk/kids/make

Our latest news:

• Thank you to all of our parents/carers who took part in our Easter Stay and Play session. We created bunny hats and foam eggs, threaded Easter eggs and made our own paper chains. We also took time to learn about the real meaning of Easter and how Christians celebrate this. We also learnt about Lent and thought about what we could give up that means something to us (after enjoying delicious pancakes on pancake day of course) We finished our Easter learning by writing signs for the Easter Bunny to see - and he did in fact leave us some eggs the next day for an exciting Easter egg hunt! Some of us have also been celebrating Ramadam, so we have been sharing stories from Islam and thinking about fasting. 
 

 
• We visited the theatre to watch The Tales of Acorn Wood. We loved getting on the coach and sitting in our special theatre chairs. The story was told by such amazing story tellers using fantastic props. When we returned, we acted out the story and told our own versions. 
 

 
• We got very excited when we watched a video of our baked Gingerbread Men running away from our classrooms! After this we created Wanted posters and looked for clues. We also innovated the story and changed the character to ‘Pizza man’ and we were also visited by a wolf. We have also learnt the story Jaspers Beanstalk, planting our own broad beans, keeping a bean diary and learning what seeds need to grow. 
 

 
• We have absolutely loved sharing our Tapestry journals this half term! It has helped develop our speaking, listening and communication skills. In class, many of us have been really excited to share what our parents have been putting online, and this has also helped our development. We also enjoy talking to our friends about what has been put online via the app and this has helped develop and strengthen friendships and connect us through common interests and experiences. 

We have been learning about... 

Maths - This term we invited all our families to come and see how we learn during our Maths Stay and Play. We were able to share lots of the resources and activities we use to develop our maths skills in EYFS.

Phonics - In Ladybird class we have been learning a new sound each day as part of our phonics scheme. In Butterfly Class, meanwhile, we have been working very hard to record our own sentences, and are now trying to do this independently.

This term's topics

Communication & Language - This term we will be spending lots of time discussing our learning and getting ready to move up to our new class in September. We will be encouraged to talk to our new teachers about our hobbies and interests, and to tell them as much as we can about what we have learnt and enjoyed doing this year. We will be listening to a range of animal stories as well as reading and acting out our core story, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, using puppets and story sacks - and this, in turn, will introduce us to lots of new vocabulary, using words like squelch, stumble, trip, squishy and squashy.

Personal, Social & Emotional Learning - We will spend lots of time talking about our transition into Reception and Year 1 over the next half-term, so that we are ready for the changes when we move up. We will be meeting our new teachers, and getting to know our new classrooms and learning spaces, as well as talking about our emotions. 

Physical Development - In our PE sessions we will be developing our running and coordination, as well as learning the rules of some simple events, getting ready for our exciting Sports Day. In class, we will be tackling obstacle courses as we complete our bear hunts (going through the forest, over rivers and around muddy puddles). We will also continue to develop our fine motor skills through daily activities and challenges.

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