Early Years Foundation Stage

At St. Mary's we have a Nursery class and a Reception class which together, form our Early Years Class. On entry to our Early Years, our children make a swift start in their learning, particularly in phonics to enable them to make the best possible progress in starting to read. We use Read Write Inc for our phonics and information about our phonics program can be found on our phonics page.

We believe in a knowledge rich curriculum in our Early Years, and our curriculum has been specifically designed to support children's development and prepare them well for Year 1 and beyond.

Our topics/ themes for 21/22 are:

Under the Sea

Journeys/Transport

Dinosaurs

Growing and Changing

Animals and their Babies

Heroes and Adventurers

During each of these topics, we have lots of activities based around the theme during our busy learning (Continuous provision) as well as Visit and Trip opportunities. For example, Recepetion children visit Sedgewick Museum in Cambridge to see some real dinosaurs and fossils during our Dinosaur topic. 

We have a Forest School trained member of staff, and the children enjoy Forest School Friday's where all learning is linked to the outdoors! The children look forward to this time each week. We also have a dedicated PE session each week for all children.