Welcome to the Foundation Stage!

Your teaching staff this year are Mrs Kittridge, Miss Gaskell, Mrs Mellor  and Miss Isa.
The teaching assistants helping us with our learning this year will be Mrs. Woods, Miss Radwan, Mrs Khunti and Miss Palmer.

We are looking forward to an exciting term with some wonderful novel studies and projects ahead!

During the Autumn term we will be spending the first few weeks focussing on settling into our new school environment and demonstrating that we are able to follow our class rules and routines. We will learn how to choose activities within our provision and understand that sometimes we may need to take turns with our peers and wait. We will know that having good manners is when we show our very best behaviour and when we are polite and kind to others. We will also know the importance of good hand hygiene, particularly after using the toilet and before eating!

In our English lessons this term, we will be reading the story of Anna Hibiscus’ Song by the Author and storyteller Atinuke. We shall use this text to explore the differences between England and Africa as a country and how our families can be very different from one another. Later in the term we will be introduced to a range of stories written and illustrated by Nick Sharratt. Some of his books will provide us with a great introduction to rhyming words as well as giving us the opportunity to use our early writing skills to begin writing simple CVC words.

As we begin our journey through the Little Wandle Phonics scheme we will learn our first grapheme–phoneme correspondences (GPCs) — learning the letters that make each sound. We will practice the skill of blending for reading — children practise combining sounds to read simple words, e.g. s-a-t → sat and segmenting for spelling — children hear a word and identify the sounds they need to write it. These skills will support us on our journey to becoming excellent readers and writers! We will also be focussing on high-frequency tricky words — children begin learning words that cannot always be read using the GPCs they know, such as is, I and the.

Once children have establised a secure foundation of early phonics they will begin to bring home a range of reading books with increasing challenge which is directly matched to their phonics knowledge. Reading holds significant importance at our school and to ensure the children have the best chances of success, we kindly request that they read for 10 minutes every night. Each child has a school reading book and reading record, where you can note down their reading progress. The more practice they have reading aloud, the better! Please make sure the children come to school prepared, with their reading record completed each day.

Maths this term we will be introducing the concept of subitising- the ability to recognise how many objects are in a small group without counting them one by one. We will know how to identify, subitise and count numbers 1-5 and know how to assign one number name to each object being counted, using our careful counting rules. We will learn how to find one less and one more than a number and use our mark makin and writing skill sto represent numerals. To begin our curriculum on shape, space and measure we will explore how to identify, sort and match objects into pairs and into sets of colour, shape and size. We will also learn how to copy,create and continue a range of simple patterns.

This term we will be exploring ‘speed, agility and travel.’ We will know how to perform actions which demonstrate changes in speed such as; stop, start, slow down and go faster. We will learn to understand that we must always face the way that we are running to stay safe, and that we should slow down when we are getting closer to somebody. Towards the end of the term we shall start our unit on ‘Dance’ where we will explore the different ways in which we can manipulate and move our own bodies.