St Mary's

Catholic Primary School

Foundation Stage

Welcome to Early Years!

A very warm welcome to our Foundation Stage page. I hope you all have had a wonderful Christmas break and are as excited as we are about starting Spring term. Our new Topic this term is...

'Sunshine and Sunflowers'

This seasonal topic provides opportunities for outdoor learning and teaches children how to care for the plants and animals in their local environment and how to stay safe in the sun.

At St Mary's Catholic Primary School, we take a holistic approach to education and encompasses all areas of learning and development. We believe that all children are entitled to the best possible start in their school life, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually to enable them to develop their full potential. Children develop quickly in these early years, so we look to ensure that all children are provided with the highest quality early learning experiences, as we understand that during their first years of education, children form attitudes about learning that will last a lifetime. Children who receive the right sort of support and encouragement during these years will be creative and adventurous learners throughout their lives. We strongly believe that children thrive in an environment where they feel safe, happy and respected. At St Mary's we achieve this through providing children with fun and engaging lessons, forming positive relationships with parents and listening and responding to each individual child’s need.

We have some egg-citing visitors in EYFS. The children have loved learning all about their life cycle and have even helped set up there new home 🐣🐤

Linking with our story 'Handa's Surprise' we decided to make our very own fruit kebabs and acted out the story. They tasted delicious!

Amazon Rainforest.mp4

EYFS have been on a fantastic adventure as they travelled to Brazil on a plane. On arrival, we visited the Amazon Rainforest where we saw lots of animals and found out some amazing new facts. Did you know the Amazon is worlds largest tropical rainforest? We even danced to some Brazilian Music before boarding the plane back home ✈️✈️

Take a look at our learning environment for Summer 1 - Rumble in the Jungle!

All about Bees.mp4

We've had a BEE-MAZING day today learning all about bees and how honey is made. We started the day learning where bees live and how they collect nectar from flowers which is turned into honey. While outside, children made scrumptious honey biscuits, cared for our flowers and even tasted honey from a jar and natural honeycomb which tasted DELICIOUS!! Thumbs up from all the children 👍

Kandinsky Art video.mp4

Eyfs have been looking at the artist Kandinsky and this afternoon made their own version of his famous circle picture 🎨

EYFS have had a fantastic World Book Day. We wrote and performed our own stories, made magic wands and listened to lots of wonderful stories. At home time we enjoyed hot chocolate while we discussed our favourite parts of the day

Foundation stage have been learning about how seeds grow. They made their own cress heads which they will take care of by ensuring they have enough water and sunlight 🌱 They even made predictions as to how long they think it will take for the cress seeds to grow. I wonder if any predictions will be correct!

Mental Health Week 2022

We read the book 'The boy and the rainbow' which tell the story of a boy who experiences different emotions and uses a magic key to enter different coloured rooms. We then made our own monster pets which we can use to talk to at any time🌈

Internet Safety Day 2022

Foundation stage have thoroughly enjoyed celebrating Number Day. We made numicon cookies, played number games and even been on a number hunt 🔢

This week we have been celebrating Chinese New Year! We used our fine motor skills to make paper lanterns. The children also made lucky money envelopes, drew Chinese lanterns and practised using chopsticks to count and match the numbers.

Winter Olympics 2022 - We took part in our own Mini Olympics and completed different activities including: ice skittles, javelin and snowball throwing 🏅

26.01.22 The children were set the challenge of working in teams to plan and make a boat for Gingerbread Man to safely cross the river. We then tested the finished boats in water to see if they would sink or float ⛵

A special delivery has arrived in EYFS! We received a letter, some ingredients and the story 'The Gingerbread Man'. In the letter, Grandma told the children that she had made a huge batch of Gingerbread Men but some had escaped from the oven whilst cooking. She needed the children's help to follow the instructions and to make some more. They tasted delicious!

What makes a good porridge? This morning, we made different flavoured porridges and tested them out with a range of toppings such as banana, raisins and sugar. After taste testing them all, we discussed which porridge was 'just right' and decided on which one we enjoyed the most 🥣

Remembrance Day 2021

Take a sneak peek of our EYFS unit...

Information

Please check on Class Dojo, Facebook, Twitter and of course the school website, to see all the wonderful activities we have been up to.

Notice Board

PE Days - We have PE on a Tuesday afternoon - please bring an outdoor and an indoor kit if possible, as the weather starts to get colder.

Uniform - We have a beautiful uniform at St Mary's and we pride ourselves on our fantastic appearance. Please make sure you attend school in the correct uniform, always looking lovely and neat! Can you also remember to send your child to school with a coat that is fit for the weather and a spare set of clothes in their bag.

Reading - Reading is at the heart of all our learning at St Mary's. To support this at home, please could all children ensure that they read their school reading book every night and that the planner is signed by an adult. Alongside this, it is also key that all children select their own reading for pleasure book which they will also have opportunities to read and share with others in school.

School times

Nursery 30hrs and Reception: 8.45am - 3.20pm
Nursery 15 hours: 8.45am - 11.45am

The Curriculum

In Early Years at St Mary's, we follow the EYFS statutory framework which is based upon four themes and principles which shapes the way in which we teach.

These are:

• Every child is a unique child, who is constantly learning and can be resilient, capable, confident and self-assured

• Children learn to be strong and independent through positive relationships

• Children learn and develop well in enabling environments with teaching and support from adults, who respond to their individual interests and needs and help them to build their learning over time. Children benefit from a strong partnership between practitioners and parents and/or carers.

• Importance of learning and development. Children develop and learn at different rates. The framework covers the education and care of all children in early years provision, including children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND)

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