St Margaret Mary’s Foundation Stage
We are delighted to welcome you to our Early Years Foundation Stage. We are a large team of teachers, nursery nurses, classroom assistants and other support staff led by Mrs Kerr. We are organised into two nurseries and four reception classes. We are proud to be a very large and happy family.
Our aim in the Early Years is to ensure that all children are given the best possible start to their education. Children have a right to provision which enables them to develop their personalities, talents and abilities irrespective of ethnicity, culture or religion, home language, family background, learning difficulties, disabilities or gender. Our principle aim is to help young children achieve their best and reach their full potential.
In order to achieve this we develop strong relationships with parents, other care providers, outside agencies and the local parish. Children are happy in school and we provide a wide variety of opportunities for them. These include indoor and outdoor continuous provision, focussed teaching and accurate assessment.
We are always pleased to welcome visitors if you wish to learn more about us. Please enjoy exploring our website.
Phonics
In St Margaret Mary’s we use ‘Phonics Bug’ as the vehicle through which we teach phonics. Phonics is the ability to hear and make a range of sounds, recognise letters and to link these letters with the correct sound. In Nursery the children are encouraged to listen to and become aware of different sounds in their environment. They then explore sounds through instruments and body sounds, looking at pattern making with sounds. A large emphasis is made upon the ability to hear, repeat and extend rhyming words through the use of nursery rhymes and word strings (e.g. rat, mat, pat, sat). Alliteration (the use of repeated initial letters such as mop, map, man) is the next aspect and we explore different animal names as part of this. The next aspect encourages the children to make different sounds using their voices. This is important as it encourages them to learn about the different mouth shapes that are needed to produce the sounds of the English language. The final aspect introduces the children to hearing the different sounds within a word and to say them out loud.
Phase 2 of learning begins to introduce individual letter sounds and the children will learn how to shape their mouths to make the sound, to recognise the sound in words, to recognise the sound when written down and then to write the sound. This phase begins in reception and is part of a daily lesson. Phase 3 is a continuation of Phase 2 and introduces the children to the rest of the sounds made by the remaining letters of the alphabet and some of the sounds that are made up of more than one letter (e.g. sh, ch and th).
If you have any questions about the current phase within which your child is learning, please speak to your child’s class teacher.
For more information with regards to ‘Letters and Sounds’ follow the link to some useful videos created by the Department of Education.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP_FbjYUP_UtldV2K_-niWw/videos
HOME LEARNING LINKS
- https://www.twinkl.co.uk/ – Register for free. Enter the code UKTWINKLHELPS for access to additional resources and games.
- www.phonicsplay.co.uk – A website packed with fun ideas and games
- https://classroomsecrets.co.uk/ – Register for free for access to resources and games.
- EYFS Home Learning Pack
- https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/– Advice and support for parents, Educational activities and games and Free eBook library for 3- to 11-year-olds
- https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p007g5y4 – BBC School Radio: Learning resources for primary schools offering video, audio and downloads for Early Years and KS1 covering music, dance, history, collective worship, literacy and maths
- https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/38YbPTpH34460kNGWlz5Pds/lets-get-active – BBC Let’s Get Active: Clips and Videos related to PE and keeping healthy
- https://www.cosmickids.com/ – Yoga and Mindfulness activities for children
- https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/znsmxyc – BBC’s Parent Toolkit: Parents’ Toolkit is the place for mums, dads and the whole parenting community to find stories, expert advice and fun activities that will help you support your child in a changing world.
- https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/curations/tiny-happy-people – Tiny, Happy People: This website helps parents and carers to develop their child’s language skills.