Early Years - Ms. Lonsdale 2024 - 2025

Welcome to Reception Class

Our Class Teacher is Ms Lonsdale and our Teaching Assistant is Mrs Roddam. We are also looking forward to welcoming our new apprentice, Mr Mitchell in September.

If you need to have a quick word with a member of staff, please see them at school pick up or drop off. There is always a member of staff on duty. Anything that may require a longer conversation should take place in a pre-arranged meeting. Please contact the school office to make an appointment.

What is the EYFS?

The Early Years Foundation Stage is the stage in your child's learning from birth to 5 years old. This is the time in school that we call Early Years. In your child's first year at school we aim to prepare the children for the rest of their school career. Children will have a range of experiences and opportunities to gain everyday skills and develop in a variety of areas of learning. We follow the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework. A link to the parents guide can be found here.

These documents will give an overview of the objectives and development statements we will be working on each term in EYFS. These overviews are not set in stone and, as each child develops at an individual rate, the children may access the development statements at different times to suit their developmental stage.

Our class has an attached outdoor play area which we ill access all year round, whatever the weather!. In our class we enjoy a variety of adult led, specifically selected and child led activities, both indoors and outdoors. 

Our Curriculum

We follow our own Barton St Lawrence EYFS curriculum which outlines the knowledge and skills the children will develop over their time in our EYFS class. This has been developed using both Development Matters 2023 and Birth to 5 Matters 2021. It covers the statutory programmes of study from the statutory framework for early years (updated Jan 2024) and allows staff to plan purposeful and developmentally appropriate activities to enhance and support the children's learning. This document can be downloaded from the files section at the bottom of the page. 

Each half term the children's interests will lead us to a topic to cover as a context for learning. Examples of previous topic webs can be found in the media section at the bottom of the page. Our first topic of the year will be 'All about me'.

Look for 'Curriculum map All about me' in media at the bottom of the page.

You can also view the curriculum map drafted for the year ahead. Go to media and look for Long term curriculum map Reception 24-25.

When planning activities in EYFS, we try to follow the children's interests and experiences as much as possible. Some of our children went to London and saw Buckingham Palace. Back in school we wrote a letter to the King - which we got a reply to! We all signed the letter and took a walk to the post box to send it. We made crowns, patterns with jewels, robes for our dolls from play dough and much much more.

We have a constant focus on developing vocabulary which the children hear and learn to use. You can find a power point attached in the links below which show some examples of how literacy is embedded into different areas of our curriculum.

Look for 'Literacy throughout the curriculum' in media at the bottom of the page.

All of the activities acessed in the continuous provision within the classroom is recorded using Class Dojo. If you would like to see your child's learning journey, and comment on any of the records, please log in through Class Dojo for up to date images and records. You should have recieved a invition already but contact us if not and we will get you set up. 

There will be a  "Meet the Teacher" night shortly after the start of term when you can find out about different aspects of school life, how our EYFS class is run and what you can expect throughout your childs first year at school. 

Phonics 

We follow Red Rose phonics which the children love. To compliment this we build holistic activities into our continuous provision. We might look for soapy sounds or try writing them in glitter. Sometimes we will incorporate dancing, mud play or yoga, making letter shapes and identifying the sounds that we have been working on. As with all areas of learning, we always find a way to take our phonics focus outside too!

Creating with loose parts

We have a well stocked loose parts area. This area is filled with diffent objects such as pebbles, blocks, pine cones, conkers etc. The children can use their imaginations and we find them creating all sorts of things! Look at this amazing fish pond -

 Early Writing   

Our early writing starts with skills to strengthen little hands and fingers - Our 'funky finger activities' as well as outdoor activities and PE sessions are designed to develop core body strength. We also look at the work of different artists such as Bridget Riley, to look at line work and pattern which we recreate in our own unique ways.

Descriptive writing 

Before we start to put pen to paper, we explore text in different ways and practice retelling stories. Here you can see our children using a tuff tray set up to retell the story of 'We're going on a bear hunt'. By doing this we can apply new vocabulary and practice ordering different parts of the story. It is also lots of fun!

To start our topic of Kings and Queens in Spring last year, we thought of as many "wow words" to describe some of the hats that we found after a a visit from the maid of the Queen Consort!

Maths

We follow White Rose maths and this allows a very hands on approach to number and number patterns. Much of the childrens learning will be recorded through photographs rather than written, as the children develop a deep understanding of numbers and their composition. There is no lid on our learning in EYFS, and if the children are ready, we are ready to extend and challenge their knowledge and skills. 

In the first term, our topic is All about me, with the role play area is set up as a home. Within this play is a washing line and a big pile of socks for the children to match and pair up. This is very typical of maths related play. You could find a big pile of sticks outside which the children order from shortest to longest - we like to do this at Christmas time and make Christmas tree's! 

Portrait Study

As part of our first topic of "All about me" we will look closely at our faces and those of other people. We will make portaits of ourselves and our friends in a range of different styles and media. Here are a few of the portraits we made last year. We looked for things about us which are the same and things which are different. We said what we liked about ourselves and our friends and chose colours that we like to use in our paintings. Aren't they wonderful!

Outdoor Artwork

We like to find ways to bring the outside in, especially when the weather is at it's worst! Last years children made some beautiful art. After exploring autumn changes regarding texture and colour of leaves, we used them to make patterns and mixed paint colours which we tried to match to some of the leaves that we found.

This type of activity allows the children to be creative and engage with nature, however it is also good for developing fine manipulative skills, and offers a sensory experience too.

Our Amazing Work

When we start to use Purple Mash, we will upload some of the amazing work that we do here.

• Literacy throughout the curriculum