What a fantastic start to the school year it has been in Foundation! The children have settled into school life with great enthusiasm and curiosity, building new friendships and developing a love of learning through play. Our classrooms and outdoor areas have been buzzing with creativity, discovery, and laughter as the children have explored a wide range of exciting topics and challenges.

In Phonics, the children have been busy learning their Phase 2 sounds and are now beginning to use this knowledge to write simple CVC words independently. They have loved practising their sounds through games, songs, and storytelling, and it has been wonderful to see their confidence grow as they blend and segment to read and write their own words. Our mark-making areas have been full of children writing shopping lists, labels, and short captions inspired by their play!

In Maths, following the White Rose curriculum, the children have explored patterns, shapes, and numbers through hands-on, practical experiences. They have enjoyed making repeating patterns with natural materials, building shape pictures with 2D and 3D blocks, and using their problem-solving skills to compare and sort groups of objects. We have also been learning all about the numbers to 5 — exploring composition, counting carefully, and investigating one more and one less through games, songs, and playful challenges.

Our Science topic, All About Me, has been full of curiosity and self-discovery. The children have learnt to name and identify different parts of the body, talked about how we grow and change, and thought about how to keep ourselves healthy and strong. Linking with RE, we explored how everyone is special and unique, just as God made us to be, and how we can show kindness, care, and love to others every day. Acts of kindness have been celebrated throughout the term, from helping friends to sharing resources in the classroom.

In Geography, the children have been discovering more about our local environment. We have explored our school grounds, looking closely at the natural world around us, and talked about the special places we visit in our community. The children enjoyed creating simple maps, drawing what they could see on their walks, and learning how to care for the environment around them.

Our continuous provision has been carefully designed to inspire curiosity, independence, and imagination. The children have been building castles in the construction area, creating seasonal artwork using natural materials, investigating textures in the sensory tray, and role-playing real-life experiences in our home corner. Outdoors, they have loved building obstacle courses, exploring patterns with autumn leaves, and using their problem-solving skills in water and sand play. Every day, new challenges encourage the children to apply their learning in fun and meaningful ways.

It has been a magical first term filled with creativity, exploration, and growing confidence. We are incredibly proud of how much the children have achieved already, from their first independent words to their imaginative creations and we can’t wait to see what new adventures the Spring term will bring!