Foundation Stage

Welcome to Foundation Stage

Class Teachers: Miss Jowitt, Mrs Hawcroft and Miss Wright

This page will contain class newsletters, photos of interesting activities and useful links.

Stay and Play sessions

every Thursday morning

9.00am - 9.30am

Week Commencing 22nd May

We have had lots of fun this week in Nursery and Reception. The children in Nursery have been practicing repeating patters and made chick art using forks and paint.

In Reception the children have been representing numbers to 5 on giant paper, using their art skills and have been painting pictures of flowers with watercolours. 

We have embraced the warm weather too this week and spent a lot of time outside. The children were keen to take part in water play and made dens with loose material. 

Our caterpillars have now made their chrysalis and we are looking forward to them hatching after half term!

Have a lovely break and we will see you after the holiday!

Week Commencing 8th May:

We've had another short but busy week in Early Years! To celebrate our minibeast week,  we had some special guests come to stay, caterpillars! The children had lots of fun naming them and watching them grow over the week. They've been busy munching on their food and have grown a lot already! We can't wait to see them turn into butterflies. 

In Nursery we have been practising writing our names. The children counted out the number of letters in their names to create a caterpillar. They then wrote a single letter of their name on each circle. In maths, we have been continuing to learn about shapes and this week's shape of the week was the rectangle! We've been busy using pieces of ribbon and paper to make rectangles, and went on a rectangle hunt!  

Reception have also been busy in maths learning and practising their number bonds to 10. They also read the story of The Hungry Caterpillar, and had a go at retelling the story. 

The weather has been getting warmer so we've been able to spend more time in our outdoor area. The children have enjoyed digging for worms, going on minibeast hunts, building pretend classrooms and playing games. 

We are now on our 2 week countdown till half term with lots still to look forward to in the next couple of weeks! Have a lovely weekend 

Week Commencing 1st May:

We took a small break from our animal topic this week to learn and celebrate the coronation of King Charles! We learnt all about what a coronation is, what happens during the ceremony and why its so important. Reception class were inspired by looking at photos and portraits of King Charles to draw their own! Their drawings were excellent and look just like the new King! In Nursery we decided to draw our own royal portraits, focusing on our facial features by looking into a mirror. In provision, we discovered castles, made crowns and coloured lots of flags to make bunting! Outside, the children found sticks to tie red, blue and white ribbons around to make coronation streamers. 

The weather sadly was not on our side for our Coronation picnic but we still managed to enjoy our lunches inside with family and friends. We hope everyone has a lovely, restful long weekend and enjoy all the royal celebrations!

 Our well done certificates went to Elisa, Miley A, Vito and Issac T

 Our always people were Kyle and Tobias 

Week Commencing 24th April

This week we have started learning about pets. The children were good at talking about what pets need and how we look after them. The reception children wrote about their own pets and pets they would like to have. It was great to see how well they applied their phonic knowledge. Our vet role play area has been very popular and we welcomed some new dogs, cats and a horse to our pet collection. The children voted for a name for the horse and the winning name was "Love heart" 

In Nursery the children have been sharing stories about pets and made some pet pictures and collages. 

This week we have been learning about Ramadan and Eid. We have shared stories and watched videos about how people celebrate Eid.

We have welcomed new children in to Nursery and spent time settling everyone back into school. In Reception our writing this week has been all about what we did during the school holidays. It was lovely to see how busy all our children were out and about in the local area. Our maths activities have been about how numbers up to and including 10 are made.

 Our well done certificates went to Ella, Kyle and Zeren

 Our always people are Darcey-Leigh and Mylie

Week Commencing 27th March:

What a final week we have had! We started the Easter celebrations early this week making yummy chocolate cornflake cakes. The children enjoyed helping to put the mixture into bun cases and topping them off with mini eggs! We also had a very exciting visit from the Easter Bunny. He left his footprints behind and hid lots of eggs in the outdoor area. The children enjoyed hunting around to find an egg which they swapped for a special Easter bag. Following the children's interests, Reception role play area turned into a teacher's desk allowing the children to model taking it in turns being a teacher. This afternoon Cobden's Got Talent took place and both Reception and Nursery performed for the whole school. Reception did an excellent dance to the song Dance Monkey and Nursery did a performance to Baby Shark. It was lots of fun to watch all the acts and a perfect way to end the term. Well done to everyone for another great term in Early Years. Enjoy your 2 weeks off and I hope the Easter Bunny treats everyone well! Next term our topic will be Pets and Vets! 

 Our Pupils of the Term went to Archie, Mylie CM, Louis and Emily 

Week Commencing 20th March:

This week was the final stage of our journey in Space, and what a journey it has been! All the children have loved this topic and everyone has fully engaged in the learning and activities we have done. Reception read the story "The Smeds and the Smoos" and created excellent pieces of writing and drawings of either a Smed or a Smoo! In maths the children enjoyed using hammer shapes to create pictures of their choice. They used their shape knowledge to put their creations together and used their fine motor skills to very carefully hammer the tiny pins into the shapes. 

In Nursery we read the story "How to catch a star" and found a star of our very own in the outdoor area! The children came up with some great ideas to try and reach it but in the end we used wooden bricks to build a ladder. The children drew pictures of what they thought they would see on a journey in Space and created more sparkly space artwork. 

In Stay and Play we used empty bottles to make jetpacks and chicken headbands getting into the spirit for Easter! We have been very lucky with the weather this week and have had the opportunity to spend lots of time outside. The children made the most of this playing with dinosaurs in Geli Baf, building houses and riding the bikes. 

We hope everyone has a lovely weekend, ready for our final week before the Easter holiday! 

 Our well done certificates went to Darcey, Oliwia and Phoebe 

 Our always people were Robyn and Brodie 

Week Commencing 13th March:

This week our focus question was "How do you travel in Space?" Reception class discussed what they would take to Space and wrote lists of their ideas. In Nursery, we explored rockets and created lots of exciting, Space themed pictures. We also made our own rocket using a large cardboard box. The children chose to paint it purple and had lots of fun using it in their play. In the maths area, the Nursery children showed off their excellent counting skills, ordering numbers from 1 to 20 in a rocket. 

All the children also created a special bookmark to celebrate Mothers Day on Sunday. 

In Stay and Play on Thursday, we created shamrocks to represent St Patricks Day today. The children were very excited to see all the green around the classroom! We hope everyone has a lovely, restful weekend ready for our last 2 weeks on the run up to Easter . 

 Our well done certificates went to Harry, Nandini, Elisa and Kelsie 

 Always people were Issac T and Miley A 

Week Commencing 6th March:

This week our question focus was "Who lives in Space?" focusing on people and potential creatures (aliens?) that travel and live in Space. Reception learnt all about different famous astronauts like Tim Peake, Neil Armstrong and Mae Jemison. They chose an astronaut to draw a portrait of and create a piece of writing using their phonics. The children put a lot of effort into this and created amazing pieces of work. In maths, Reception have been using numicon to represent 10 in different ways. 

In Nursery, we read the story "Man on the Moon (a day in the life of Bob)" and enjoyed spotting the aliens hiding in the pictures. We discussed if we thought aliens were real or not, and had lots of different opinions! The children then used different 2D shapes to create their own shape aliens! We stuck lots of eyes on to give the aliens personality and they looked great. The children enjoyed using the addition of straws and eyes to the play dough area to create their own aliens. 

On Thursday we all got very excited when it started to snow. After watching it come down all morning, before lunch we decided to brave going out in it! The children said it felt "crunchy", "slimy" and "freezing cold". Unfortunately overnight on Thursday the snow continued to come down and school has been closed on Friday. We hope you all enjoy the snow today and please post any pictures you may take on tapestry for us to see! 

Week Commencing 27th February

This week in Early Years we have been continuing our journey through Space with a focus question of "What is the moon?" In Nursery, we read the story "Whatever Next" and listened to Baby Bear's adventure to the moon! We especially liked the page in which he packed his rocket of what he needed for his adventure. We discussed what we would take to the moon and draw lovely pictures of it. Reception class discussed how far away the moon is and created moon artwork using foil. They have also been working hard on their number bonds to 10, showing different ways to represent it. 

We've had a very active week. Reception got a Real Dance workshop on Wednesday in which they got to practise their dance moves. Nursery enjoyed doing lots of Cosmic Yoga videos, practising our balance, posture and strength. 

On Thursday we celebrated Wold Book Day with a class reading swap. Children were invited to bring their favourite book to share with a Year 3 and 4 child. We had lots of fun reading and the children showed how responsible they are working together. 

 Our well done assembly awards went to Tobias Miley A and Lucca

 Our always people were Harper-Rae and Melissa 

Week Commencing 20th February: 

We have had a very busy and exciting first week back after half term! This half term our topic is SPACE! The children were excited to see the new space station in reception and play inside the rocket tent. In Nursery, the children enjoyed exploring the planets and rockets on our space mat. The children used their creative skills to make paper mâché planets. We can't wait to paint them next week and hang them up from the ceiling! Our question focus of the week was "Where is planet Earth?", and we read the story "Here We Are" to inspire our learning. Reception did some wonderful writing all about what they can find on Earth using their phonics. On Tuesday we all celebrated Pancake Day with delicious pancakes of course! They were especially yummy with chocolate, syrup, strawberries and sprinkles :). 

 Our well done certificates went to Sarina, Oliwia and Hunter 

 Our always people were Kyle and Benas 

Week Commencing 6th February

The children have had a lovely week making valentines day crafts. We talked about people we love and people who are special to us. The children were good at listening to each other and taking turns to talk. 

In Nursery we have created a hair salon, we have been modelling role play language and the children have stepped into the roles brilliantly!

Thank you to all the children for a fantastic half term, we will see you after the holidays when we begin our brand new topic, SPACE!!

 Our always people are Hunter and Felicity

Our well done certificates went to Emily, Zeus and Lucca

Week Commencing 30th January

This week we have continued our Winter topic in Foundation Stage, and have enjoyed making the most of playing in the outdoor area as much as possible (despite the windy weather!). In Nursery, the children made excellent polar bear pictures. They explored mixing different blue paints and sticking white pieces of paper together to make collages. They look great hung up in our Nursery! Reception created excellent Winter pieces of writing using their phonics. On Thursday, we celebrated Storytelling week with a reading class swap. The children got the opportunity to share books and read with children in Year 3 and 4. It was a lovely afternoon, and we all really enjoyed it. 

Our well done certificates went to Miley A, Felicity and Harper-Rae 

Our always people were Kelsie and Vito 

Week Commencing 23rd January

We have had another lovely week in Reception and Nursery. Although we are continuing with our winter topic, the children had exhausted our igloo so we decided to create a cafe in reception! It as been wonderful to see and hear lovely role play language and the children playing co-operatively. Some children used their phonic knowledge to write on the menus, whilst others took the roles of waiters and customers. 

In PE the children have been practicing ball control. We played the game of head, shoulders knees and toes with a balls whilst balancing a beanbag on our heads, this was very tricky and very funny!

Stay and Play was also a success this week, the children made polar bears and winter hats with their parents. 

 Our Well Done assembly certificates went to Brodie, Kyle and Benas

Our Always people are Sarina and Emily

Week Commencing 9th January

We have had another super week in Early Years this week. The children have been learning about animals that live in cold places and have produced some wonderful Polar Bear Art!

On Wednesday we watched a video about Antarctica and the children were really good at talking about the cold environment. They observed that animals had thick fur to protect them from the cold and some huddled together to keep warm. We also talked about our own favourite animals during circle time. Our challenge was to extend our sentence by using the word "because", Kacper said he likes Dolphins, because they jump out of the sea!

In Nursery the children have been learning about the story of Stick Man. They did some science experiments and found out which objects floated like Stick Man and which objects sank. 

Thank you to all the parents who attended stay and play this week. We really appreciate your involvement and enthusiasm!

 Our Always people are Lucca and Kyra

 Our Well Done Certificates went to Kacper, Ella and Darcey

Week Commencing 3rd January

Happy New Year and a big welcome back to all our Foundation Stage children. We've had a very busy week, welcoming a few new starters in Nursery and getting straight back into our school routines. In Reception the children wrote letters thanking Santa for their Christmas presents. They used their phonics to create excellent pieces of writing! They were all very excited to see the addition of an igloo in the role play area and have enjoyed exploring inside. The children all enjoyed the new addition of dressing up clothes to the Home Corner in Nursery. We saw lots of Anna and Elsa's! We made some handprint 2023 posters and lots of collages using different colours. Well done for everyone settling back in so well! 

 Our well done certificates went to Zendaya, Star and Milan 

 Our always people were Zeus and Lia 

Week Commencing 5th December

We have had a very Christmassy week in Early years this week. The children have continued to enjoy wrapping presents in our role play area and we have seen lots of lovely mark making too. We also had a musical week and recorded our Nativity songs, we cant wait for you to see how well your children performed and remembered all the words, they were FANTASTIC! (and very cute) ...... watch this space on Tapestry as it will be uploaded very soon!

The children have made their Christmas cards and I was impressed to see how well they used their phonic knowledge to write in them. 

We made the most of the icy weather today and talked about the changes in the weather and why there was ice on the ground. 

Have a lovely weekend everyone and we will see you on Monday for our final week before the Christmas holidays 

Week commencing 28th November 

This week in Foundation Stage we welcomed the start of December and the arrival of Christmas. The children were excited to see the Christmas trees up and enjoyed helping to decorate them. Lots of presents were wrapped and cards posted to Santa in the North Pole. We enjoyed exploring the North Pole in our small world area and creating snowflakes to decorate the windows. In Nursery, we saw the return of Jingle the kindness elf. I wonder what he will get up to over the weekend....  Reception look at how they can keep warm in the Winter, and what clothing they should put on to keep warm outside. Outside in our digging area we found lots of worms and used the magnifying glasses to examine them closely. The children helped to defrost all the blocks of ice to reveal all the animals frozen inside, turning the ice to water. 

 Our always people were Nellie and Tobias 

Week commencing 21st November 

This week in Foundation Stage we learnt about the importance of brushing our teeth and how we can keep them healthy. In Nursery and Reception, we looked at our teeth brushing routines and had a go at sequencing pictures in the correct order. During a circle time activity in Nursery, we looked at lots of different foods to create a healthy, balanced lunch bag. We all agreed to keep in a chocolate biscuit as our favourite sweet treat! Reception have been learning about shapes this week, and used different resources to create squares. 

Week commencing 14th November

This week we read the book "My first day at school" we used the book as a starting point to talk about how to be kind at school, the children gave some super ideas about how to help others and kind things we might do and say. We introduced "Respectful Roxy" and "Responsible Robbie" I was amazed at how well the children understood these words and were able to offer suggestions at how to be responsible and kind at school and home. Miley said we must "follow instructions" Melissa said "we keep our hands to ourselves" Felicity said "tidy up" Phoebe things we should "tell a grown up when someone is hurt" and Ella said "its important to look after our toys"

Following on from this the children began independently creating pictures for each other in order to be kind. Phoebe made Brodie a picture for his birthday and Tilly drew me a picture of "you and me holding hands" Well done everyone for all your fantastic ideas this week!

Week commencing 7th November

This week we talked about bonfire night and the children pretended the sit around the fire with hot chocolate and toasted marshmallows. We also created some lovely firework art with paint splats.

In Reception the children learnt about the Gunpowder Plot and ordered the events in the story. 

At our stay and play sessions the children enjoyed making some name rockets and crafty fireworks and on Friday we made some collage poppies and talked about remembering people from the past.

We finished the week off with a visit from Tim the stick insect, the children were very brave and enjoyed holding him.

Have a look at the pictures below to see some of the other things we have been doing this week. 

See you next week!

Week commencing 31st October

A warm welcome back to Foundation stage! We kicked off the week by making some delicious pumpkin soup, the children were really keen to be involved in making the soup and enjoyed tasting it when it was finished. 

Outside we explored jelly in our tough tray and the children found some spooky surprises inside! We also created an obstacle course and the children were encouraged to tackle it on their broomsticks. 

Our focus book was Room on the broom and lots of children chose ingredients for their own potions, some even tried hard to label their ingredients. Well done for a super first week back everyone!

 Our well done certificates went to Zeus, Kacper and Harry 

 Our always people this week were William and Nandini 

Week Commencing 17th October

The children have had a super week this week. We have been learning about Diwali and practiced some Indian dancing during our PE lesson. We also made some Diwali biscuits which the children thoroughly enjoyed making and eating!

In our stay and play sessions we made spider headbands and little monster friends! In Reception the children have been learning more phonemes and are getting better each day at saying the sounds. Some children are orally blending and reading short words. Thank you for your continued support this half term! We look forward to seeing you back in school on the 31st October.

 Our well done certificates went to Jessica, Mylie and Vito

 Our always people are Lucca and Robyn

Week commencing 10th October

We've had a very musical week in Foundation Stage. Following on from the children's interests we created a stage outside. It was wonderful to see the children expressing themselves and being both confident and creative! We hope to continue with this next week too!

Our sensory learning has continued this week and in our tough tray we have had some citrus fruit for the children to explore. We also did some food tasting too, the children tried sweet honey, savoury breadsticks and sour lemons....there were lots of funny faces during this challenge!

Our stay and play morning was another success and the children enjoyed creating an Autumn rocket with their grown ups.

See you next week for lots more fun learning!

 Our Well Done certificates went to Tilly, Bronte and Harper

 Our Always people are Elisa and Harry

Week Commencing 3rd October

We have been busy bees in Foundation Stage this week! We have been talking about things we can hear and had some lovely discussions during circle time. 

Outside we hunted for leaves and created some fantastic Autumn pictures. The children also continued hunting for worms!

During our stay and play sessions it was lovely to see the children interacting with their grown ups. We made name book marks in Reception and musical instruments in Nursery.

 Our Well Done certificates went to Jessica, Elisa and Kyra-Rose 

 Our Always people are Phoebe and Lily-Mae

Week Commencing 26th September

The children have been discovering their senses this week and really enjoyed exploring red jelly in our tough tray. Many were able to talk about how the slime felt and used it to hide dinosaurs and cars.

In Nursery the children made eye collages and had lots of discussions about what we use our eyes for.

In Reception we have been recapping 2D shapes and I was so impressed with how well the children remembered the shape names and were able to talk about the properties. They used cut out shapes to create pictures such as rockets, houses, vans and people, we even had an "Elsa mermaid"

We also had our first stay and play session this week which was hugely successful. Thank you to everyone who was able to attend and we look forward to seeing you all next Thursday for some more fun!

 Our Well Done certificates went to Nandini, Lucca and Zendaya

 Our Always people are Milan and Jessica

Week Commencing 19th September

We have had a very creative week this week in Nursery and Reception looking at our class artists. In Nursery the children have been learning about Kandinsky and created their own circle pictures with paint. In Reception the class artist is Alma Thomas, the children showed great interest in her life and works and made both an individual collage based on the painting, "starry night" and also worked together to make a collective piece of art with the paints. 

 Our well done certificates went to Melissa, Phoebe, Tobias and Robyn

 Our always people are Oliwia and Darcey-Leigh

Week Commencing 12th September

We've had another great week this week and the children have been busy accessing lots of our provision as well as creating their own games. Outside, some children had a tea party and used the mud kitchen to support their play. It was lovely to see the children listening to each other and using role play language. 

On Thursday we picked apples from our apple tree and everyone tasted them. We all thought they were lovely and juicy!

We also had some circle time where we spoke about what we would like to be when we grow up. Nellie wants to be a "mummy" and Phoebe wants to be a "fairy"

 Our always person is Miley

 Our well done certificates went to Archie and Kelsie

Week Commencing 6th September

What a fantastic first week back we have had in Nursery and Reception. The children have come back with a lovely positive attitude and seem very grown up! We have also welcomed some new children who have settled really well and have been quick to make friends and follow routines.

The children have enjoyed exploring the areas of provision and particularly liked playing in our new doctors role play area where we have had some great conversations and acting. They have also loved making and playing with playdough.

Thank you for your support this week. 

 Our well done assembly people this week are Zeus and Nellie

 Our always person is Star