EYFS

Welcome to the EYFS page 2024/25

Here is where you will find information about the teaching and learning that takes place throughout the Early Years. The page will be updated regularly so please do keep checking back!

Class 1

In Class 1, our class teacher is Miss McGahon.

Class 2

In Class 2, our class teacher is Miss Gronow.

In our EYFS team, we are also lucky enough to have our wonderful learning support assistants, Mrs Bennett, Mrs Graham and Miss McGrady, working with us in in EYFS.

In EYFS, we have PE with Mr Hawthorne every Wednesday.

Our EYFS Curriculum

The EYFS curriculum at Childwall CE Primary School is a play based curriculum with an emphasis on developing independence, confidence, creativity, curiosity, knowledge and understanding. We provide a balance of child initiated and teacher led activities and provide meaningful, practical and multi-sensory learning experiences which fully engage all children and help them to develop ownership of their own learning. Below are links to the EYFS statements and early learning goals for both the prime and specific areas of the curriculum.

Prime Areas:

Communication and Language Statements and Early Learning Goals

Personal Social and Emotional Development Statements and Early Learning Goals

Physical Development Statements and Early Learning Goals

Specific Areas:

Writing and Reading Statements and Early Learning Goals

Maths Statements and Early Learning Goals

Understanding the World Statements and Early Learning Goals

Expressive Arts and Design Statements and Early Learning Goals

Our EYFS Policy

Here at Childwall C of E, we encourage every child to be immersed in a world of reading. In both of our main EYFS classrooms, we have quiet reading spaces with comfortable furnishings and a variety of high quality books to suit all interests – we even have a basket of reading bears to encourage the children to tell stories out loud. In addition to this, we also have our Listening Land area within continuous provision where the children can listen to stories and develop their listening and language skills. In our outdoor space, we have a book den where children can snuggle up, even on the coldest days, to read with their friends.

All of our learning is centred around literature; we never end a day without getting lost in a book! Everyday, our children engage in a guided reading session which teaches them the skills of reading, and encourages them to develop their own personal love of literature. Our EYFS environment is print rich which encourages the children to read for meaning and reinforces that reading is everywhere! Within EYFS, we love taking part in celebrating ‘World Book Day’ and ‘National Storytelling Week’ – even our teachers love joining in and dressing up as their favourite book characters!

We also encourage our children to sing lots of songs and recite nursery rhymes by heart – we would love it if you could support your child with this at home too, please follow the link below.

The Importance of Nursery Rhymes

Guided Reading

The children will now be receiving a reading book (which is carefully matched to their phonics phase) and they will also be receiving a reading record book. In school, we have guided reading sessions everyday. During these sessions your child will read their book and complete daily activities to allow them to practise their phonic and reading skills. Therefore, your child needs to bring their book in their bookbag everyday. The children will read daily, but will also read their reading book with a practitioner at least three times a week. They will change their book once a week with their teacher who will then write a note in their reading record book. Please feel free to make a comment in response to the teacher each week, if you would like to.

Please continue to regularly read and enjoy lots of other fiction and non-fiction texts at home with your child too in order to support your child’s love of reading.

Happy reading everyone!

Here at Childwall C of E, we teach phonics and phonics skills daily using the ‘Little Wandle‘ Phonics Scheme.

Please click on the links below to access some further information on how you can support your child’s phonic knowledge and skills at home.

Little Wandle Phonics Information – Information for Parents and Carers

Pronunciation Guide – 1

Pronunciation Guide – 2

Capital Letter Formation – Information for Parents and Carers

Home Learning

Your child will now be receiving some homework tasks to provide the opportunity for your child to practise and consolidate their skills and knowledge at home. We will be sending home your child’s homework in their home learning folder every Friday, starting today. Please can we ask that your child’s completed tasks are returned in their home learning folder no later than the following Thursday, but please feel free to send it in earlier if your child has completed their homework before this time. If you are unable to complete the tasks, please return the folder on the Thursday anyway; we will add the new homework and return it to you so that you can complete the outstanding pieces at your earliest convenience. We will look at your child’s work and it will then be kept in their home learning folder so that you can return to it throughout the weeks to practise the skills learned and keep a record of your child’s learning journey.

Autumn Term!

Monday 9th September – Friday 13th September

What an amazing start to our school journey we have had over the last two weeks in EYFS! We have all made our teachers really proud whilst we have been settling into our new school routines, exploring our indoor and outdoor areas and making lots of new friends. Over the last two weeks, we have also enjoyed learning lots of new action songs and practising our early phonic skills. We are really excited to share lots of photos of our fun and learning on the newsletter and website with you all over the coming weeks! Enjoy a very well-earned rest over the weekend, everyone!

Monday 16th September – Friday 20th September

What an incredibly busy and fun-filled week he have had in EYFS! This week, we have continued to become familiar with our school routines, build lots more friendships and enjoy our indoor and outdoor learning environment, whilst also enjoying some brand new learning experiences too! Our teachers were especially proud of how brilliant we were during our phonics sessions this week; we discovered what a phoneme and a grapheme is and we worked hard to learn our first GPCs, /s/ /a/ /t/ /p/. This week, we also enjoyed lots of fun PE games in the hall. I’m sure we are ready for a big rest this weekend ready for lots more fun and learning next week!

Monday 23rd September – Friday 27th September

In EYFS this week, we have been working hard to build the strength in our muscles in many exciting ways, both indoors and outdoors! In our garden, we have been building obstacle courses that have helped us to develop our strength and gross motor skills whilst also enabling us to practise our balance and coordination. In our indoor areas, we have been busy working on our fine motor skills. From getting busy in our construction areas to manipulate different building materials, to creating different shapes using the playdoh, and using the tweezers to sort and arrange objects, it is safe to say our muscles are becoming super strong! We have also enjoyed impressing our teachers by being phonics superstars all week! We have continued to practise our oral blending skills in phonics whilst also learning the new GPCs /i/ /n/ /m/ /d/. We can’t wait to find out what GPCs we will be learning next week!

Monday 30th September – Friday 4th October

In EYFS, we stepped into a world of colour as we immersed ourselves into a week of fun and learning inspired by the story of ‘Elmer the Patchwork Elephant’ by David McKee! From creating our own patchwork elephants and designing our own parade patterns on the Creation Station, to building a house for Elmer and his friends in the Construction Area, there were so many ways we enjoyed helping Elmer this week! The story of Elmer also helped us to think about how we are all different and special. We also talked about our special families and shared our family photos with each other; we are very proud to have all of our families come together on our display, reminding us that we are all different, special and loved. This week, we also enjoyed our very first RE lesson with Mrs Bennett where we learned some of our school prayers and sang some of our collective worship songs. We also practised and performed one of our favourite songs, ‘When I was One’, in front of the whole school for all the older children and grown-ups!

Our teachers have also been really impressed with how well we have been developing our independence as we have been pouring our own milk at snack time!

Carry on Learning!

Why not carry on your child’s learning at home by:

helping your child to gain independence and confidence as you encourage them to put on their own shoes and fasten the straps themselves
supporting them to dress and undress themselves, fasten zips and buttons on clothes by themselves
encouraging them to use cutlery when eating and take themselves to the toilet and wipe themselves

You could also enjoy sharing stories together and talk about the storybook characters and the events that happen. You could practise singing nursery rhymes, counting rhymes and familiar songs. Children love spotting numbers and print in the environment and counting everyday objects like toys or stairs. Baking is always a firm favourite with young children so why not have a go at making some gingerbread people? Maybe you could listen to the story whilst they are baking. Or why not try making your own playdough and then moving along to the dough disco!!

Fine Motor Practise:

In school, we focus on holding our pencil correctly with a tripod grip and we are practising using scissors with the correct grip, with increasing accuracy. Why not have a go using the attached booklets to practise these skills at home?

Cutting Skills Booklet

Pencil Control Activity Booklet

Help your child make their fingers nice and strong by having a dough disco at home: