FSU

Welcome to the Foundation Stage Unit! The place to be for the youngest children in Lanner School!

Teacher	Teaching Assistants
Helen Steele	Tanya Medlin
	Natalie Roberts

	Melody Johnson
	Lisa Seabourne (p/t)
	Claire Vickery (currently on maternity leave)

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:

communication and language
physical development
personal, social and emotional development

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:

literacy
mathematics
understanding the world
expressive arts and design

( see "What to Expect When" document attached below)

Underpinning these seven areas of learning are the characteristics of effective learning

playing and exploring
active learning
creating and thinking critically

These play an essential role in a child's learning and are linked to the school's learning power superheroes - Engagement Ella, Motivation Mike and Think Flash .

Planning includes the delivery of a themed approach to learning through topics, selected by the children and guided by adults.

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).Short, teacher input is delivered 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 19

This term we are learning about Minibeasts beginning with insects that we might find in our garden!

We will be looking at and reading stories by Eric Carle and Julia Donaldson. We will be building a ' Bug Lab' to investigate and research any creatures that we find. Watch this space!

whattoexpect.pdf