Early Years Foundation stage
Welcome to Reception!
Our teaching is informed by the Development Matters document.
At Bickley, we believe that the Early Years Foundation Stage is crucial in securing solid foundations that children continue to build upon throughout their school life. Each of our children are treated as individuals, and we support their development through this belief. As educators, it is our duty to ensure that our learners flourish in an engaging environment. Equipping them with;
“Essential knowledge that children need to prepare them for their future success. It is about giving children the best possible start to their early education." - eif.
We are passionate about children being happy, confident, well-rounded individuals with a love for learning.
It is our aim that the children who enter our EYFS develop physically, verbally, cognitively and emotionally whilst embedding a positive attitude to school and a love of learning, creating reflective learners. We do this by ensuring that all children feel safe and happy at school in an engaging and stimulating environment both indoors and outdoors that builds on each individual child’s needs and interests.
Reception children at Bickley have many opportunities. These include visiting the school library on a weekly basis, taking part in the Christmas Nativity, show and tell, visitors to school and going on school trips. We use 'Tapestry' to allow parents to see what their child has been doing and provide a line of communication between them and the EYFS staff.
"Education is the most powerful weapon you can use, to change the world", Nelson Mandela
In Reception, the children learn both inside the classroom and outside, no matter what the weather! We want our children to be happy, confident, independent learners who LOVE coming to school.
We learn through a variety of ways, working together to solve problems and challenges.
We share our ideas, thoughts and feelings through carpet sessions and circle times, as well as learning new and exciting things. We encourage our children to talk with their carpet partners during these sessions, in order to support their ever-growing vocabulary in an environment where they feel safe to express themselves. Children build their resilience by making mistakes, working together and learning from and with each other.
We learn to read and write using the Essential Letters & Sounds scheme.
Children at Bickley love phonics and are encouraged to use the skills taught to independently read and write, from the start! Our love of reading stories means we open our children's eyes to the world of literature by allowing children to explore all sorts of books. This is across the setting, both inside and out. We support our children to engage in phonics in an enjoyable way to ensure a lifetime of reading success.
We inspire children to be independent learners by providing stimulating resources children can access throughout their day.
We are working towards becoming a thinking school!
At Bickley, we believe that Practise makes permanent. This very much connects to our Thinking School values, where we promote opportunities to support lifelong skills that our children can build upon. We use thinking frames to support children to reflect and organise their ideas and learning, through structured questioning.
We have lots of different visitors which means the children experience things first hand.
The children have opportunities to speak with guest speakers linking to our topics, for example: Police officers, nurses, dental nurses, firefighters, representatives of different religions and more...
We go on trips to enhance our learning in school. Our most recent trip was to our local library to familiarise ourselves with what's on offer for us to read at home.
Useful Links! for you and your child to support teaching of phonics and maths
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/shows/alphablocks
https://www.teachyourmonster.org/
http://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/for-home/advice-for-parents/phonics-videos
http://www.busythings.co.uk/play/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/shows/numberblocks
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/topics/numeracy
We also use Apps such as Numbots, Doodle maths, Reading Mate, Active Learn (Bug Club)