| Teacher | Teaching Assistants |
| Helen Steele | Tanya Medlin (currently on maternity leave) |
| Natalie Roberts | |
| Melody Johnson | |
| Lisa Seabourne (p/t) | |
|
Claire Vickery (p/t)
Julie Martin
|
The unit is staffed by specially trained Foundation Stage teacher and support staff and we are very lucky to have two, well-resourced classrooms (Green Room and Blue Room) as well as a covered outside area that can be accessed in all weathers. We have a large garden that is available to the children throughout the day and offers opportunities for nature investigations, sand, digging, water play, building, imaginative play and more!
We are a happy team who love to engage the children in investigating, exploring and developing learning both inside the classroom and out. We believe that it is important that our youngest children are encouraged to learn in an environment that enables them to make choices and to assume responsibility for their learning by following their interests and enthusiasms. The reception age children and nursery children work closely together, supporting each others learning adventures.
The Early Years Foundation Stage statutory framework is utilised to support an integrated approach to the learning, development and care of the children. In FSU the three prime areas of learning are:
We place great emphasis on these three areas as it is important that we ignite our children’s curiosity, encourage their enthusiasms and build their capacity to learn, to form relationships and to thrive.
These three prime areas are strengthened and applied through the four specific areas of:
The children in FSU follow a daily routine which allows adults to plan learning opportunities that best meet the needs of the children and that focus on the basic skills of reading, writing and number work.
Phonics - the teaching of letter sounds to read and to write - is taught daily. Children are explicitly taught the skills of blending (putting the letter sounds together to read words) and of segmenting (separating letter sounds to spell). A short adult led session is taught daily using Read Write Inc resources.
We value parents as partners and emphasise the importance of home and school working together. As well as occasional topic linked home/school projects we would like you to spend 5 - 10mins sharing a book with your child every day.
Summer Term 21
This term our topic is 'The Ocean'. We will be using both fiction and non-fiction texts, including 'Billy's Bucket' by Kes Gray, 'The Big Book of the Blue' by Yuval Zommer and 'Sally and the Limpet' by Simon James. We will be exploring the oceans of the world and the animals and plants that live in them. The classroom will be transformed into a coral reef, complete with a submarine. We will be taking part in World Ocean Day and much of our learning will focus on looking after the ocean and its inhabitants
As we move into Summer, we will continue to observe the seasonal changes in the garden and are looking forward to spending as much time outdoors as we can! We will be watching our sunflowers grow and measuring them carefully to see which is the tallest!