North Featherstone Junior And Infant School

Upper Foundation Stage

In our well resourced Foundation Stage Unit children have the opportunity to learn through play and practical activities, with free-flow access to indoors and outdoors.

We follow the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum which covers seven areas of learning. We aim for a play-based curriculum, following a child initiated structure, where the children learn through direct experience, investigation and exploration.  We also teach early reading and writing through our systematic approach to phonics ensuring that early reading skills are developed well.

The unit provides an attractive, stimulating and well organised, interactive environment for children aged 3-5. Our outdoor area has varied and open ended resources offering the children the opportunity to initiate and take part in games and activities that encourage them to engage in personal interactions, conversations and negotiation.

It is our aim in the unit to foster independence and confidence in our children, who are happy in their play and learning.  All children are encouraged to develop emotionally, physically and intellectually through a variety of well structured provision and adult led focused activity sessions. As part of the journey through Foundation children learn through our exciting and engaging topics that link to the children’s interests including: Dinosaurs, superheroes, toys and kings and queens. All our activities are differentiated and used to provide challenges to achieve the next step in the children’s learning and development.

As a unit we know that the children’s learning begins at home and we strive to work with parents to continue the learning journey, working together to consolidate their child’s learning through play. We encourage parents to spend time in the unit for example as volunteers. We feel this open door policy to parents is important to keep strong ties between school and home.

In Upper Foundation, the children have settled in very well and have been learning some exciting new things this past term! In our team we have: Miss Garland-Jones, Mrs Southern, Miss King, Mrs Dawson and Mrs Bowman. In the unit we also have Miss Stoker and Miss Kelly. Mrs Croft comes to help us on a Wednesday.

Take a look - Welcome book.

Learning Environment

The learning environment is key to Foundation. We strive to give children an holistic approach to learning allowing them to achieve their full potential.

Fun Friday

Every Friday we all take part in Fun Friday. This is a day where children explore, create, problem solve and develop their: fine motor skills, reading, writing and number skills - whilst having lots of messy fun! Have a look at all the learning that has been taking place.

Music

We have been lucky enough to have Mrs Moss join Upper Foundation every Wednesday afternoon to teach us Music. We have been looking at tempo as well as learning about some new instruments.  

 Maths

In Upper Foundation we develop our number and shape, space and measure skills. Every day we are learning something new or making progress in Math through outdoor and indoor provision. Take a look at some of the things we have been learning in Math.

Literacy

In Upper Foundation we develop our writing, phonic and reading skills through provision (indoor and outdoor), 1-1 reading, group reading, focus sessions and phonic sessions.

Harry and the Robots

This term we have been focusing on the topic of 'Toys'. We have been looking at old and new toys as well as the different materials they are made from. We have spent a week looking at the book 'Harry and the Robots'. during this week we have designed the robots, created the robots and evaluated the robots. We have been sorting toys into bar graphs and representing numbers 1-20 with toys.

Happy Chinese New Year - the year of the Rooster

We have spent the last week celebrating Chinese New Year. We have learnt about the Great Race and taken part in Drama about the story. We have looked at Chinese numbers as well as ordinal numbers. We have created lanterns, dragons and blossom paintings. We have looked at the traditions and culture of China and how they celebrate the Chinese New year festival.

Superheroes

The children love the superhero week! On Monday we are dressing up at superheroes and creating a catchphrase. We will be looking at the book Supertato where a Evil Pea tries to take over the supermarket but Supertato comes to the rescue. We will also be looking at superhero's who help us and what it means to be a superhero.

Parents

Here attached are some useful documents for parents to allow them to help their child progress at home. Attached are phonic materials as well as a break down of the objectives the children are working on in Upper Foundation. YouTube links are also attached to allow parents to listen to the phonic sounds we are learning.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGpsVmWLRFA - phonics phase 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjKq8s8154s - phonics phase 3