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 - Foundation Stage Teacher and EYFS lead

Miss Hey - Foundation Stage Teacher

Mrs. Sutherland - Foundation Stage Teacher

Miss Boyce - 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

Miss Hey - ashleyh@spmillend.herts.sch.uk

Mrs Sutherland - hannahs@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 - 21st October 

I hope you have all had a lovely weekend. We look forward to seeing you on Wednesday at Parents' Evening. If you haven't booked an appointment yet or you can not make the evening please do let me know.

Thank you to those who came to the stay and play last week. The Powerpoint can be found at the bottom of the class page. 

Literacy 

Next week F1 and F2 will be looking at the story, 'Leaf Thief '.

This story is funny picture book all about seasons. Squirrel is very cross because yesterday there were loads of beautiful leaves on his tree but today squirrel is convinced that someone has stolen them. Squirrel is on a mission to find the culprit, and he meets many animals on the way.

The children will be looking in detail about seasonal changes and we will be going on a walk around the local area.

Phonics 

F1 will begin phase 1 phonics listening to different sounds around them.

F2 - This week the children will be reviewing all of the sounds we have learnt this half term. The children will be completing the Autumn 1 assessment.

Please practise these sounds and forming these letters at home, you received a form on Friday which explained all the sounds and letter formation rhymes.

Maths

F1 - This week F1 will be learning all about number 1. They will be subitising, counting and writing the number 1.

F2 - This week, the children will be making comparison of quantities. The activities this week will focus on developing this innate skill as children are encouraged to look carefully and use the language of comparison to describe sets of objects that they can see. The children will be using the language ‘more than’ and ‘fewer than’ to describe how many objects there are in each set. ‘Fewer than’ is used rather than ‘less than’ because the focus is on countable things.

Makaton

Makaton sign of the week - help me 

Continuous Provision 

Prime areas 

Roleplaying - home 

Sand - Can you make a track for the vehicles to drive through the sand?

Fine motor - Can you thread the beads onto the string?

Gross Motor - Riding bikes, obstacle course, prams, water painting 

Library area - Books all about home, family and school 

Sharing a story - Responding to and asking questions 

Learning new vocabulary related to our core book

Mark making - Making marks using chalk

Fine Motor outdoors - Can you punch holes in the leaves?

Playdough - What can you make with the playdough using the resources?

Specific areas 

Writing area - Can you correctly write the letter using the rhyme

Creative -Can you use the resources provided to make a hedgehog?

Painting area - What can you paint using the sticks?

Technology - whiteboard - painting   

water - Can you fill the ice cube tray using the syringe?

Topic table - leaf rubbing 

Topic table F2 - Measuring the height of classroom objects using bricks     

F1 Maths - Eye spy number 1 

I hope you all have a fantastic week

Mrs Harvey and the Foundation Stage Team