Resources for Parents
Early Years Foundation Stage
Our Parent EYFS area has been designed as an opportunity for parents/carers to find out how you can best support your childs learning at home.
The page has many useful guides and links as well as copies of the homework activities we provide for the children.
If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact our EYFS leader Miss E Docherty.
Maths
English
The 7 Areas of Learning
What’s different about the foundation stage is that we have 7 main areas of learning that we think are important; 3 of them are especially important for igniting children’s curiosity & enthusiasm for learning & for setting them up to be able to make friendships & learn more. These are called the 3 Prime areas & include:
- Communication & language
- Physical development and
- Personal, social & emotional development
The other 4 areas are called the Specific areas through which the Prime areas are strengthened & applied. They are:
- Literacy
- Mathematics
- Understanding the World and
- Expressive Arts & Design
We learn in all of the 7 areas every day, often all at the same time! Below is a short explanation of what each area means:
The 3 Prime Areas
Communication & Language
We know how important it is to be able to communicate with each other and share our ideas. We love listening to stories and rhymes together and retelling stories we know. There’s language everywhere you look & all sorts of activities & role play to develop our speaking & listening skills.
Physical Development
We love being active. All our snacks are healthy and we enjoy finding out what happens to us when we exercise with each other. We learn to use our big muscles in order to use our small muscles. Playing games, using the climbing frame and riding our bikes will help us to develop our fine motor skills. This is essential for us, as we need to be able to hold pencils and pens firmly in order to begin writing and drawing.
Personal, Social and Emotional Development (PSED)
Wrekin Class is a very exciting, happy and safe place to be. We love sharing and celebrating our learning together and we can all help each other to explore and grow. We can decide what we want to learn about, select our own equipment and talk about what we are learning to do. We know how to care for ourselves and others, including eating healthy foods and making safe choices. We feel confident to try new things and we make lots of friends. We learn to take turns, think about others needs and talk about what we think and how we feel.
The 4 Specific Areas
Literacy
There are lots of mark-making and writing opportunities in all the activities we explore. We have lots of books and labels that we can choose to read, both indoors and outside. We love to share books and to make our own. Every day, we practise our letters and sounds so that we can become even better readers and writers.
Mathematics
There are so many different ways we love to learn about numbers, shape, size and counting. We explore and talk about our ideas all the time, both outdoors and indoors. We enjoy finding patterns, sorting and matching using lots of different large and small objects. We love singing number songs together and counting with each other. We like to recognise lots of different numbers around us and we can challenge each other with fun problem-solving games, like our pumpkin investigations.
Understanding the World
We are encouraged to ask lots of questions and we get excited finding out about new things or exploring areas. We love everything to do with computers, including taking digital photos, loading our favourite games and tools and using the Beebots. We learn all about ourselves and our families, and what other people think about too. We like to build large models using lots of different materials and talk about our ideas together.
Creative Development
There are so many ways to explore our creative skills and use our imaginations. We love to paint, collage, make junk models, build sculptures, sew and design models. We dance and sing for each other and even create our own bands in class. During cooking activities, we follow recipes and make delicious food to share with our friends and families if they are lucky.
Characteristics of Effective Learning
During our play, we will be exploring the world and learning opportunities around us. We will be taking safe risks, learning to have a go and challenge ourselves with things we are less familiar with. We will be predicting, testing and evaluating our own lines of inquiry. We will learn to explore the process, not necessarily the end result. We will be learning to achieve for ourselves- not just for external praise or reward. We will be trying things using trial and error, looking for ways to improve things or make them different. We will be learning to get involved and developing our concentration skills. We will be learning to persevere when things get tricky. We will learn to make choices and develop our confidence to use the learning environment to be self- sufficient, independent, open minded learners.
Assessment at the end of Reception
Assessment plays an important part in helping parents, carers and practitioners to recognise children’s progress, understand their needs, and to plan activities and support. Ongoing assessment is an integral part of the learning and development process. It involves practitioners observing children to understand their level of achievement, interests and learning styles, and to then shape learning experiences for each child reflecting those observations. In their interactions with children, practitioners should respond to their own day-to-day observations about children’s progress, and observations that parents and carers share. To this end we make systematic observations and assessments of each child's achievements, interests and learning styles. We then use these observations and assessments to identify learning priorities and plan relevant and motivating learning experiences for each child.
Each child’s level of development is assessed against the early learning goals. Practitioners will indicate whether children are meeting expected levels of development:
- Emerging, not yet reaching expected levels of development for age
- Expected
- Exceeding, , beyond expected levels of development for age
Year 1 teachers will have access to the Profile report together with a short commentary on each child’s skills and abilities in relation to the three key characteristics of effective learning. These will inform transition meetings between Reception and Year 1 teachers about each child’s stage of development and learning needs and assist with the planning of activities at the start of Year 1.