Hello and welcome to Early Years at Little Digmoor!
Early years is comprised of Reception taught by Miss Hamer and Nursery taught by Miss Berry. We work very closely as a team with two teaching assistants, Miss Bates and Mrs Dawe. Early years has recently become a unit with a large shared indoor and outdoor space. We are currently embarking on our Curiosity Approach accreditation which allows us to provide a stimulating and engaging environment through the use of natural, authentic resources and loose parts. We have created a nurturing home from home setting which allows children to explore their environment and build on their natural curiosity. We promote children’s independence by providing opportunities to do things for themselves, such as self-serve snack and self- registration. We help the children develop resilience, encourage them to ‘have a go’, enhance their communication and language skills and enable them to make some special friendships that will continue throughout their time at Little Digmoor. We currently have 36 children in our EYFS family however we grow in size throughout the year with many new Nursery children starting after their 3rd birthday.
Wellies, coats and appropriate clothing are essential in the cold weather as we love exploring the outdoors! As a unit we have purchased all in one suits and wellies so that children can play in all weathers, providing lots of learning opportunities all year long! As a school we love promoting reading for pleasure from an early age and therefore have reading books that get sent home every Friday for parents to read to their children. Books are to be brought back by the following Friday to enable us to change them. As our children do lots of learning through play it is important that we catch all of their new learning in the moment, instead of having a learning journey, the children have a personal profile online connected through Class Dojo. We do lots of our communication to parents through Class Dojo and do daily uploads so that you can see what your children have been up to. We also understand the importance of Cultural Capital and providing children with experiences and opportunities to help them have the best start to life. We understand that when children start our class they already have a variety of different experiences in learning and we love to build on these early experiences. We provide children other opportunities to be curious, explore, try new things and experience awe and wonder. We do this by using regular observations of the children to ensure we have an understanding of each and every child.
Our Reception class is called the Hedgehogs. We have daily phonics taught through the ‘Little Wandle’ scheme in which we learn Phase 2, Phase 3 and Phase 4 phonics through lots of fun and engaging lessons. Literacy is taught through the ‘Pathways to write’ scheme which provides children with imaginative and creative stories and Maths sessions taught through ‘White rose maths’ that is taught through interactive and fun lessons. We also do three guided reading sessions per week which the children are so excited for! We build and follow on our interests and explore these through our topic sessions which change every 2/3 weeks. During our topic sessions we ensure the children have a wide range of opportunities that include going on a train, having visits from people who help us and having Animal experts in. In the morning, we attend 2 assemblies with the other classes in school. Our PE day is Wednesday, and we cover a range of skills including balance, throwing and catching and athletics. We love looking after our little Hoglets and find that our joint class is very beneficial for all children involved!
Our Nursery class is called the Hoglets class. We are the youngest and smallest children of the school but we definitely make the biggest impact. By coming to Nursery we are ready for Reception and know what to expect. With our home from home setting and family orientated staff it just feels like we are at home (but it’s more fun!) Our classroom has lots of opportunities for us to play and learn. We learn basic skills such as listening skills, communication skills and building on friendships. We learn through play but have 4 short carpet sessions a day for Phonics and Maths, English and Topic. We have daily phonics taught through the ‘Little Wandle’ scheme in which we learn Phase 1 phonics that links very closely to Reception Phase 2 so that when we get to Reception we already know most of our sounds! We love to sing Nursery Rhymes, make lots of music and go on listening walks during our lessons too! Literacy is taught through the ‘Pathways to write’ scheme which provides children with imaginative and creative stories and Maths sessions taught through ‘Mater the curriculum’ that is taught through interactive and fun games and activities. We build and follow on our interests and explore these through our topic sessions that get taught with Reception which change every 2/3 weeks. During our topic sessions we ensure the children have a wide range of opportunities that include going on a train, having visits from people who help us and having Animal experts in. In the morning, we attend 2 assemblies with the other classes in school. Our PE day is Monday, and we cover a range of skills including balance, throwing and catching and athletics.
If you would like to come and have a look around our wonderful EYFS unit, please speak to Miss Hamer, Miss Berry or Ms Mulligan in the office and we will be happy to show you around! We look forward to welcoming you very soon!
