Early Years Foundation Stage

Welcome to the new Early Years Foundation Stage page. This is where you will be able to find lots of useful information about our EYFS at Spurcroft Primary School.

Mrs Rhian Davey, Early Years Foundation Stage Team Leader

Our Vision for Early Years

In the Early Years at Spurcroft Primary School our children are happy.  They are excited and motivated to learn through our rich and challenging learning experiences and by offering opportunities to explore, take risks and enjoy first-hand experiences.

We have high ambitions for all our children and recognise that children have different starting points to their learning. We plan according to children’s stage of development so all can thrive and develop. We aim for children to be well-rounded individuals who are independent, resilient and confident in themselves and with others.

Every day, we provide opportunities for children to come together to share their experiences and to learn lifelong skills through active learning. Our children are happy, proud and feel secure knowing that we celebrate their successes and value their achievements. The curriculum is centred around children’s interests with a balance of child-initiated and adult-led learning.

Our learning environment facilitates child-initiated play and provides children with carefully planned opportunities which allow them to explore, create and learn through exciting, stimulating, interactive and accessible resources.

Additionally, the children have an opportunity to learn through the outdoor environment in our extensive outdoor learning areas, encouraging them to learn in different ways and on different scales, have first-have experience with the natural world and to become physically active.

The role of the practitioner is vital in Early Years, where play-based and child centred learning is at the heart of our practice. The practitioners develop a personal, trusting relationship with each child, enabling them to support their learning journey and their development throughout their time in Early Years.

Routines and Organisation

F1 (Nursery) children attend either morning, afternoon sessions or full time sessions. Throughout their time in Nursery, practitioners support children's develop of communication and language and personal and social skills as well as promoting early phonics, fine motor skills and early maths skills.

F2 (Reception) children participate in daily lessons, which focus on developing knowledge in the Foundation subjects as well as promoting speaking and listening skills , cooperation and concentration. Daily Maths lessons enable children to develop a good knowledge of the number system, including counting, number recognition and addition and subtraction. Each day there are Phonics and reading sessions, that support children's progress to hear, identify and use sounds to read and write words and simple sentences. 

Our Early Years Classes:

Learning

In the Early Years children are taught through themes, enabling them to build up their knowledge within the Foundation Subjects . Children learn through a range of play-based opportunities as well as adult led and independent tasks. The EYFS curriculum promotes independence, communication, self-confidence, determination and the ability to think critically and share children’s thoughts and ideas. The children have independent access to a stimulating environment both indoors and outdoors on a daily basis.

This term our teaching themes are; Winter, Comparing Environments, Chinese New Year and People Who Help Us..

In Science, we will be looking at 'Winter' and how the seasons change. We will also be learning about Forces; how we push and pull and how magnets work. 

In Geography, we will be comparing different environments and discussing similarities and differences between the countryside and the town. We will also be looking at 'People Who Help Us' and learning about how different people help us in our community. 

As part of History, we will be learning about Florence Nightingale and how her role was so important in helping others. 

In Art and Design, we will be creating collages of different environments, emergency vehicles from junk modelling, puppets of 'People Who Help Us' and large class art work pieces of the Tiger for Chinese New Year.

This term in Maths, we will be focusing on numbers 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10. We will be learning to recognise and count amounts for these numbers. We will also be learning one more and one less, as well as addition and subtraction. 

In Phonics, we will be moving on to learning diagraphs (sounds made up of more than one letter; ai, ee, or) and continue to learn to read and write words using the sounds we have covered and begin to read and write simple words and phrases. 

PE Kits

This term we would like the children to wear PE kits for our PE lessons and we ask that they come into school in their PE kits on this day. 

PE Days will be every Wednesday.

 Our PE kit consists of a white t-shirt with or without the school logo, black or navy shorts and trainers that the children can get on and remove themselves. In the colder months children can wear plain, dark tracksuit bottoms and a plain tracksuit top or the school jumper.

PE lessons will begin from next week (Wednesday 12th January). Please start to send your child into school in their PE kit on a Wednesday as soon as you have these ready. 

Guiding Reading

This term, we will be introducing Guided Reading sessions into F2. Children will practise their reading in small group of approximately 6 children and will be led by the class teacher. During these sessions, each child will have an opportunity to read words or sentences and to participate in discussing the book in order to promote comprehension. 

Reading books will continue to be sent home for your child to practise reading and these books will be changed on your child’s Guided Reading day. Children will put into Guided reading groups and a new reading day may be set. If this is the case a new book change day sticker will be put on your child’s reading diary.

Please make sure your child's reading book is in their book bag on this day.

Home-School Learning

In the Early Years, we set home learning tasks to support the children in consolidating the learning that we have done at school during the week and to enable parents to be part of their child’s learning journey

Home school learning in EYFS consists of:

Home School Reading Books – Children are given a home school reading book each week and are expected to share this with an adult at home on a daily basis for at least 5 minutes. We use structured, levelled sets of books that grow gradually more challenging over time and aim to develop phonic and comprehension skills. Children should read this book several times at home over the week in order to gain fluency and confidence, and spend time talking about what is happening in the books.

Common ‘Look and Say’ Words – To support children’s reading development, children are issued sets of flash cards to learn at home. These words are common in reading and when recognised, help the children to read with more fluency.

Tapestry Tuesday – As part of developing children’s speaking and listening skills and their confidence, we set practical, skill based weekly tasks for the children to complete at home. We ask parents to upload the children completing these tasks on our online Tapestry Journal so that we can share these with the class. Every Tuesday we will look at what the children have done and enable some children to talk to the class about this.

Messages

If your child is away from school due to displaying any COVID-19 symptoms or for self-isolation reasons please find all the learning your child will need to access on the Distance Learning Page here. https://www.spurcroft.w-berks.sch.uk/learning-resources/