Welcome to Early Years! We have 5 expert teachers, Mrs Hosten-White, Mrs Stagg, Miss Black, Miss Griffin 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
• 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 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:

• We have settled into school life remarkably well, growing familiar with daily routines, moving confidently between activities and growing in independence. We have made lots of new friends, and have become confident, enthusiastic learners. 
 
• As part of our Celebrations topic we have enjoyed learning about festivals and special days from other cultures and countries, including Diwali, Thanksgiving, Halloween and Christmas. We have made decorations, tried different foods and discovered why these days are celebrated. 
 

 
• In our weekly visits to the forest, we have been exploring making fairy wands using natural resources, nature faces, listening to nature sounds and much more. 
 

 
• In Reception, we enjoyed our first school trip, visiting the theatre for a fantastic show and buzzing with excitement on the way home. 

We have been learning about... 

In English, we have been introduced to a wide range of books and have enjoyed sharing stories with adults. We have created simple books of our own, using captions, labels, and CVC words to express our ideas. Through blending and segmenting, we are also learning how to hear the sounds in words and use them in their writing. 

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. 

In Reception's maths lessons, we have been practising subitising numbers to five (seeing them in our head and being able to recognise how many things there are in a small group without having to count them). We have explored number rhymes, used number lines to find the difference, and began learning about weight and measure. We are gradually becoming more familiar with numbers to ten and applying our skills through play and problem-solving. 

This term's topics

Communication & Language - We will continue to develop our vocabulary through our words and signs of the week. As part of our ’Think I Like’ topic, we will spend lots of time talking about our favourite places, foods, toys and games, trying to give reasons for our choices. This will also give us lots of opportunities to listen to other people and recognise that it’s OK for different people to like different things! Linked to the stories we are reading, we will also take part in hot-seating activities so we can develop our ability to ask (and answer) questions, as well as working out how characters feel at key points in each story. 

Personal, Social & Emotional Learning - We will be meeting our next learning superhero, Claudia Curiosity, whose powers are questioning, exploring and risk taking. We will learn to complete challenges with independence and use perseverance to keep trying even when things seem difficult - and then celebrate when we succeed!

Physical Development - In our PE sessions with Mr Butler we will continue to develop our coordination and spatial awareness. In particular, we will be focussing on our throwing and catching skills, using balls of different sizes. Back in class, we will continue to develop our fine motor skills, forming letters with the correct size and orientation and taking part in regular Marvellous Mark Making sessions to help us to secure this key skill.

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