Nursery
Welcome to Nursery - Early Years Foundation Stage
Mrs Altiparmaki - Aster Class ealtiparmaki@gordon.greenwich.sch.uk
In Early Years we have created a happy, secure and stimulating environment in which children can develop as unique individuals and where they develop emotional, social and academic skills needed to become independent, motivated learners and responsible members of the community.
Learning takes place both inside and outside the classroom. We also have a Forest School site where the children develop their awareness of nature, the environment and skills such as collaboration and enquiry.
The Early Years curriculum is designed to meet the needs of the youngest children in our school. Delivery of the curriculum is led through adult-led activities that introduce new skills and extend learning. There are also planned purposeful play opportunities and enhancement of provision, where adults observe and intervene with higher ordering questioning and engagement to extend the learning taking place.
Communication with parents and carers is a strength in Early Years. We communicate on a daily basis and use an online platform called ‘Interactive Learning Diary’ which enables us to inform parents of their child’s weekly learning through observations, photos and videos. It also allows parents to contribute to their child’s learning, as we are all instrumental in ensuring that our children’s development is excellent.
Summer Term 2025 Learning
Welcome to summer term in Aster Class. It is going to be a busy time! The children will be continuing to develop their social skills and will build on the relationships made. They will continue to develop their independence and confidence, in preparation for many of them transitioning to their Reception classes in September.
As always, the children follow a play-based curriculum. This takes place through a range of stimulating and engaging activities which allow children to explore, communicate, question and develop their understanding. The children will have opportunities to learn skills through focused activities and independent play and their learning journey will follow their individual needs within the Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage (2021).
This term they will be learning skills through our topics on:
- Ready, Steady, Grow! – we will be finding out how plants and some animals grow and change. We will be participating in some food and flower-growing projects. We will also be learning about animal life cycles, particularly caterpillars. We will discuss healthy and unhealthy eating as well as explain how to look after our teeth.
- This topic will also be an opportunity to support children with the transition to a new class or school (for those who are moving to Reception in September), as they, themselves, grow and change.
- Blue Planet – During this topic we will focus on exploring the underwater world, discussing marine life and learning about ocean life. Through a range of stories, we will observe creatures in their habitats, such as sharks and turtles.
In addition, our Forest School sessions will re-commence this term; all sessions will be linked to the topics above.
Communication, Language and Literacy
- Listen to longer stories and recall much of what happens.
- Understand ‘why’ questions
- Speak with clarity, attempting multisyllabic words and using future and past tenses (mostly correctly)
- Start conversations with adults and peers and continue for many turns
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
- Play with one or more other children, extending and elaborating play, e.g. role play activities
- Have a sense of responsibility in the community
- Develop appropriate ways of being assertive
- Find solutions to conflicts and rivalries
Physical Development
- Continue to develop their balance, coordination and movement skills, e.g. hopping, skipping and improve ball skills
- Continue to improve large muscle movements to support pre-writing skills
- Increasingly use and remember sequences and patterns of movements related to music and rhythm
- Use a range of one-handed tools
- Refine fine motor skills in preparation for writing
Literacy
- Use print and letter knowledge in early writing attempts
- Write first name independently in a variety of media
- Continue Phase 1 phonics letters and sounds activities; e.g. recognise words with the same initial sound, begin to orally blend/segment, start to recognise rhyme
- Engage in extended conversations about stories and quality texts.
Mathematics
Summer 1:
- Sequence pictures to recall events – first, then, later…
- Use of prepositions – under, on, between etc.
- Compare quantities: more than, fewer than…
- Explore different 2D and 3D shapes
Summer 2:
- Number composition 1-5
- What comes after?
- What comes before?
- Numbers to 5
- Consolidation numbers 1-5
Understanding the World
- Show interest in different occupations
- Explore how things work
- Plant seeds and care for growing plants
- Understand the key features of the life cycle of a plant and an animal
- Begin to understand the need to respect and care for the natural environment and all living things
- Know there are different countries in the world and talk about differences they have experienced or seen in photos/books
Expressive Arts and Design
- Make imaginative and complex ‘small worlds’ with blocks and construction kits
- Develop complex stories using small world equipment
- Develop own ideas and then decide which materials to use to express them
- Explore colour and colour mixing
- Sing the pitch of a tone sung by another person (pitch match)
- Sing the melodic shape of familiar songs
Please note that some aspects/ topics may change in order to adapt to the children’s interests and learning needs.
General Information
Reminders
- Forest School sessions will re-commence on Wednesdays. If you have any questions regarding the sessions, please speak to Mrs Altiparmaki or Mrs Maddalena (Forest School Teacher).
- ‘Lending Library’ is on a Friday. Please ensure your child brings in their book bag and Reading Record on that day, or every day if they wish to. Please read with your child on a daily basis (this could include the book they borrow from nursery, a book from home or why not enrol at Eltham library? Talk to them about the book and check their understanding by asking questions about events and the characters’ actions. Please also explain new or unfamiliar vocabulary. It would be great if you could comment on how your child responded to the book borrowed from nursery and encourage them to have a go at drawing in their reading record.
- We collect a voluntary donation of £1 at the end of sessions on Fridays to pay for snacks and other miscellaneous resources. Alternatively, you can pay £6.00 at the beginning of each half-term, if that is more convenient. Thank you to everyone who has contributed over the past term – without this we would not be able to provide snacks, cooking ingredients, ingredients for playdough, sensory resources etc. Please contribute, if you can afford it.
- If your child is not going to be in Nursery please inform the school office/teacher by phone/email.
- If your child is to be collected by someone who is not familiar to the Nursery staff, please inform us in advance.
- We are a Healthy School. Please do not send in sweets or other treats when it is your child’s birthday. If you want to celebrate your child’s birthday with their classmates, you could buy the class a book, send in a healthy snack such as boxes of raisins or buy stationery such as pencils, but due to the impact on the environment, we ask you not to send in plastic toys.
- Thank you for signing up to the Interactive Learning Diary. Don’t forget to share your child’s achievements in nursery and it would be great if you could upload information from home that we can then share in school. Our weekly home learning ideas/activities are sent out on the Learning Zone on ILD. This is available on the online version of ILD – not the app. It is a great way to find out what your child has been doing in nursery that week so that you can talk to them about what they have been doing and how you can help to consolidate this learning at home. Please ask if you are experiencing difficulties with signing in.
- If you have any questions or wish to raise a concern, please contact the class teacher in the first instance: ealtiparmaki@gordon.greenwich.sch.uk
Diary Dates
Please see the school calendar and weekly newsletters for more information about events for Nursery.