Wren Chicks Class - Pre-school

 Wren Chicks Galley

Hello and welcome to Wren Chicks, our Pre-School / Reception Class.  Our teachers are Mrs Maurice and Mrs Janes (who teaches the class on a Friday). Our class TAs are Mrs Knight, Miss Hunt, Mrs Kent and Mrs Kerry.

In our class children learn through play, following the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework. We aim to provide learning that is fun and engaging, and that will challenge the children and support their development. We deliver our curriculum through both adult let input and child-initiated learning opportunities, following children's interests wherever possible and provide high quality interactions, engaging with children in their play in order to develop and deepen their learning opportunities. Underpinning all our learning sit the Characteristics of Effective Learning: Playing and Exploring, Active Learning and Creating and Thinking Critically. With these at our foundation we aim to support our children to become effective independent learners.  

Our learning journey begins with a focus on the Prime Areas of development: Communication and Language, Physical Development and Personal, Social and Emotional Development. As we develop and our journey progresses, greater emphasis is put on the Specific Areas of learning: Literacy, Mathematics, Understanding The World and Expressive Arts and Design. During our time in Wren Class we move from taking our first teetering, brave steps into school, towards becoming confident learners in our Reception Year. 

Autumn Term 2023

Welcome to the Autumn term, 2023! We hope you have all had a lovely summer. We have been very busy getting the classroom ready for the new year-group mix of Pre-School and Reception. and are very excited to share this space with the children. We hope that they will discover an abundance of learning opportunities through play in continuous provision, as well as through adult-led input, as the term progresses.

We plan to have a half-termly over-arching theme to our play and learning in Wren Chicks. For the first half-term this theme is ‘All About Me’ and we will be learning about families, our feelings, bodies and staying healthy. We will also have a weekly book which we try to tie in with special events and celebrations – for example we plan to explore Roald Dahl stories to coincide with Roald Dahl Day, and later in this half-term we will choose texts to align with World Space Week, Recycling Week, and Harvest. Of course, we try to follow the children’s interests wherever possible so these plans are somewhat of a moveable feast!

During the second half-term our over-arching theme is ‘Celebrations’ and we will be looking at lots of things that are celebrated such as birthdays, Diwali, Advent and Christmas.

Our focus over the initial couple of weeks will be on settling the children in, and establishing our routine and behaviour. Once the children have found their feet, in addition to learning through play in Continuous Provision, the daily timetable for Reception children will include phonics and literacy each morning, with maths each afternoon. Across the week there will also be sessions covering Science and Understanding the World, RE, PSHE and Expressive Arts & Design ensuring that all

7 areas of learning within the EYFS Framework are taught. Initially these adult-led sessions are very short, and will increase in time over the course of the year.

Pre-School children will also have some adult-led teaching for Phase 1 Phonics, Literacy and early reading and writing skills, and early maths.

All children (Pre-School and Reception) will have PE on a Friday afternoon – please ensure that your child has suitable shoes on this day. We encourage Reception children to come into school wearing their PE kit on Fridays.

We will be offering a parent workshop about phonics and early writing where we will provide you with more information about how and what we will be learning – more details will follow.

All parents should have received an invite to join Class Dojo which is a digital platform that we use to communicate with you on a frequent basis and to send you details of your child’s learning journey. If you haven’t received an invite or are having any problems with Dojo, please let Mrs Maurice know.

We know that the children will have a few changes to adjust to at the start of term so please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any concerns about their well-being, their educational needs or the new structure of the school day. Please use Class Dojo to contact us or phone to make an appointment if you would prefer an opportunity to discuss anything further.

Kindest regards,

Mrs Maurice

Important things to remember