Pre-School - Hedgehog Class

 

 

Welcome to Hedgehog Class

Class teacher: Mrs Bolt

Teaching assistants: Chloe, Becky and Katy

Welcome to Pre-school Class- September 2025

We are delighted to welcome back our children from last year and are very excited about meeting all of the new children that are joining us this term.

Pre-school room

We have a wonderful, light and engaging environment for the children to play, learn and explore in. We have lots of exciting new resources for the children to share and a wonderful interactive whiteboard to enhance learning opportunities. We have created lovely, calm areas to explore mark -making and our senses as well as purposeful zones to further develop specific skills. Our continuous provision -the space where they use and explore independently, provides the children with endless opportunities to develop their skills in each of the seven areas of the EYFS.

Outdoor Learning

Throughout the day, the children will have time in the outdoor areas. We have free flow sessions on to the patio area and learn to explore in the 'big garden'. There is so much to see and do outside, from bikes, trikes, balls and hoops to water, soil and exploring all aspects of growing, weeding, planting and harvesting. The children will be hands-on with various seeds, plants, soil and herbs. They will get messy - please consider this when dressing your child for the day.  The children will have constant opportunities to choose resources independently, to explore collaborative play and decide how they want to develop their ideas and play in the outside area. We will respond to these interests and use natural resources, risk-taking equipment and will be out in all weathers, so please provide a coat, wellington boots and appropriate foot wear each day.

Children in pre-school learn through:

Three characteristics of effective teaching and learning.

• Playing and exploring- children investigate and experience things, and 'have a go'
• Active Learning- children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties, and enjoy achievements
• Creating and thinking critically- children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things.

 

Our focus for the first term, is all about getting to know each other. Existing children meeting new friends, children building peer friendships and children and adults developing trusting relationships. This is a really important part of the year so we give huge time and value to this essential part of learning to be in pre-school. Alongside this, the children will learning to separate from parents and carers, develop routine and daily structure to the sessions. We will also focus on all the essential self-care skills, finding pegs, recognising our photo label, toilet training, independence at snack time and learning to eat our lunch sat at a table with friends. That's a lot to learn!

We are very much looking forward to following the children's own interests to see where our learning takes us this term and supporting each child where they require us. 

Learning focus

Our key learning this term will be nursery rhymes and songs. All widgits to support this learning are available in your child’s home language. Please just ask a member of pre-school team for a copy.

Phonics fun!

In Pre-school this term, we engage in fun activities to support our phonics development. We really focus on our speaking and listening skills, learning to distinguish the sounds we hear, patterns of speech and sounds of speech. We will have great fun using our bodies to make sounds like clapping, stomping, patting, rubbing and clicking our fingers. We will learn to do this loudly, softly, fast and slowly! We will start exploring environmental sounds and body percussion with a selection of stories around nursery rhymes and stories like: '5 Little Ducks', 'The Wheels on the Bus', 'Old Macdonald had a Farm' and 'There was a Crocodile'.

Numbers

We will start to explore  number, number recognition and subitising with songs like '5 speckled frogs'.

‘Widgit’ in Pre-school

We use ‘widgit’ signs and symbols to help us learn the new words and vocabulary in our stories. These are published on the website and we strongly recommend that you look at these are home with your child. If your child speaks two or more languages it is really important for their development to speak about these words in all their languages and not just in English.

Makaton

Miss Potts comes to play at Pre-School on a Monday and Friday to show us how to use Makaton. This is to help us express and communicate our wants and needs. Last term, the whole class learnt how to say yes please and no thank-you, say what fruits they like to eat and make choices independently using their Makaton skills.

What a busy term we have ahead of us!

Mrs Bolt and the Pre-school team