Welcome to the Foundation Stage 

We are delighted to welcome you to our Foundation Stage class and look forward to working with you and your child.

Foundation Stage staff
Mrs Harvey - F2 teacher and EYFS lead

Mrs Jeffery - F1 teacher

Miss Chapman - Foundation stage practitioner

Mrs Sutherland - Foundation stage practitioner

Mr Punio - Foundation stage practitioner

If you have any queries or concerns across the year please contact a member of the Foundation Stage team.

Mrs Harvey - lauraw@spmillend.herts.sch.uk

Mrs Jeffery - samanthaj@spmillend.herts.sch.uk

Foundation Stage Vision

For children; pupils who are happy, enthused, curious, safe, have a love of learning. We cater for our diverse demographic by giving all children what they need including a range of experiences, books and vocabulary to develop the breadth and depth of their knowledge. We want our children to leave Early years as well-rounded individuals with an understanding of our school values, SMSC and British values as well as strong social skills and confident in their wellbeing.

For staff; we want our staff to be skilled and confident to carry out our vision through having a passion for Early Years and wanting the best for our pupils. We want our staff to feel confident to have some autonomy to try new ideas and get involved in decisions and planning around the children’s learning and interests. Staff should be knowledgeable about all areas of learning to enable them to push learning forwards ensuring all children make good or better progress. 

For environment; We want our environment to offer a wide range of resources to support the development of cultural capital, awe and wonder and learning opportunities. Our environment is enticing, reflects the various cultures within our community. We have a strong focus on communication so our environment is print rich, interactive, engaged, changes regularly to reflect the children needs and interests as well as promoting independence.       

For standards; We aim to offer the best standards possible in early reading and maths supporting all children to make good or better progress. We have designed our curriculum to ensure we are striving for the best for all children based on their start points through regularly challenging and scaffolding their learning to enable them to be ready for next stage in their education.

Foundation Stage Aims

• To provide an opportunity for children to reinforce skills, reflect and build upon their learning in the classroom.

• To further foster the partnership between home and school for the benefit of your child

• To involve parents (and other adults) in pupils’ work

• To encourage the development of independent study

• To encourage the development of pupils’ organisational skills, self-discipline and confidence

Our expectations

Please note: These expectations will be added and built on throughout the year as and when the children are ready for them. 

• Children are encouraged to find out information, bring in books or object of interest or a similar related task pertaining to the focus topic being carried out.

• Library  – All the of the children in our Foundation Stage will be bringing home library books on a Friday to be returned the following week on a Wednesday

• F2 (4-5 year olds) - In Autumn 2 your child/children will be bringing a reading book to enjoy at home. 5 – 10 minutes daily practise. This will be sent out on a Friday and to be returned on a Wednesday.

• Tapestry – sharing with you what the children do at school as well as you sharing with us what you do at home together.

• Independence -encouraging the children to do things independently is really important as they move through the school. This includes getting dressed, cutting food, and putting coats and shoes on.

Foundation Stage Learning 

Week beginning - 4th December   

This weekly blog will give you an overview of some of the exciting activities that your children will be getting involved with over the coming week.

This week we are continuing to focus on the Christmas Story. Our Nativity rehearsals are in full swing and we look forward to seeing as many of your there on Thursday and Friday morning. The performance will begin at 9. You are more than welcome to drop off your children and wait in the hall for the show to begin. 

On Tuesday we will be holding our grandparent arts and craft session. This session will begin at 9am in the school hall. If you are not staying at drop off then please come for 9 via the school office. 

Literacy

In the Foundation stage our core book for the week is: Christmas Story

This week we are beginning our Nativity rehearsals in class. The children will begin learning the songs and actions. On Monday and Tuesday the children will be listening to the Christmas story, looking at and talking about the characters. This is to help them understand the story behind our play, 'A Little Bird Told Me'. This is just an introduction to the core text and in a few weeks we will explore this in more detail. 

Phonics 

F1 - Over the next term the children will be playing games with Mrs Jeffery to support their phonemic awareness. 

F2 - This week the children will be reviewing the sounds and tricky words they have covered so far in preparation for the end of term assessment. In our daily lessons the children have started reading sentences and questions and they complete daily spellings. The children will also take part in 3 guided reading lesson throughout the week and on Friday they will bring this book home to share with you. 

Please continue practising the tricky words we have covered so far. A copy of all the words were sent home last week in your child's bookbag. If you need another copy of these please send me an email and I will get a copy to you.

(You will find additional phonics support and handouts under the parent workshop section on the class page). 

Maths

F1 - This week F1 will be learning about weight. They will begin the week by comparing the weight of objects using the mathematical language heavy and light. Later in the week they will using a balance scale to compare the weight of objects. They will be exploring resources to consider the question, Does the size make a difference to the weight?

F2 - This week F2 will continue to engage with activities that draw attention to the purpose of counting – to find out ‘how many’ objects there are. They will be focusing on the number 5. They will continue to focus on the concept of 1:1 correspondence by making sure that they match collections of objects to their representations. They will develop their understanding of the concept of cardinality – that the last number in the count tells us ‘how many’ things there are altogether – and begin to apply this concept to count more abstract things, such as claps and jumps. They will also focusing on number formation and begin learning rhymes to support the correct formation. 

Makaton

Makaton sign of the week - This week we are going to revisit the signs we have learnt so far and try and use these in the classroom.

Continuous Provision 

Prime areas 

Roleplaying Christmas post office 

Playdough - Making Christmas cookies and decorating them 

Fine motor - Using tweezers to move pompoms - decorate a Christmas tree, fill and egg carton, tracing and cutting patterns 

Joining different construction resources to make a Christmas tree 

Riding bikes, obstacle course, prams, water painting 

Library area - Books all about winter and Christmas 

Floor writing - chalk, water and large rollers/paintbrushes

Sharing a story - responding to and asking questions 

Learning new vocabulary related to our core book

Large construction  

Performing in front of an audience 

Specific areas 

Writing area - Creating a Nativity book

Creative/painting area - Christmas stamps and decorating a Christmas tree 

Sand - Using a brush to reveal a hidden picture - tick off the characters you find hidden in the sand. 

Construction - making a Christmas sleigh  

Maths area F1- Exploring balance scales and making heavy and light playdough balls

Maths area F2 - Threading beads to match Numicon numbers, 5 frames - counting objects and sorting dominos by quantity shown. 

Small world - Making a Nativity scene 

Mark making - Christmas pattern cards 

Adult Led

This week F1 and F2 will be continuing to learn all about the Christmas story. The children will decorate and cut out the different characters and place them onto their Nativity scene.

Who are you going to put into the stable?

Where is baby Jesus?

In the Nativity story, what did the Wise Men do?

Who else came to visit Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus?

As they complete their Nativity scene, encourage the children to talk about the Christmas story and what they can remember about the characters and story. F2 will be asked to retell the story and label the characters. 

I hope you all have a fantastic week

Mrs Harvey and the Foundation Stage Team