Early Years Foundation Stage

Rationale

The principles of the Early Years Foundation Stage guide are to develop the unique child, providing care and support in a safe environment so that every child reaches their full potential. In the Early Years Foundation Stage at St Paschal Baylon, we lay the foundations for children to become confident, independent learners and loving, caring members of our school community.

A high-quality Early Years education allows children to develop in all seven prime and specific areas of learning; Communication and Language, Personal, Social and Emotional Development, Physical Development, Literacy, Numeracy, Understanding the World and Expressive Art and Design. With a broad range of learning opportunities, children develop curiosity, investigative and problem-solving skills. Purposeful play through a rich and varied learning environment allows children to gain new knowledge and understanding of the world around them.

Learning in Early Years is also linked to a range of topical issues allowing children to develop as global citizens from the moment they start our school. In Early Years, children begin to learn about their rights and the rights of children around the world. This allows our children to develop a respectful, diverse and inclusive attitude towards others from a very young age.

Positive relationships between staff and children ensure they feel safe, valued and cared for. We also build positive relationships with parents, working together ensures our children have the best possible start as the begin their learning journey at St Paschal Baylon. Through our faith and mission statement ‘Following in the footsteps of Christ’, we promote love, care, respect and forgiveness.

‘There is secure evidence that children make consistently good progress towards the early learning goals. Early years leaders have an accurate understanding of the quality of provision. The planning of the curriculum is effective and it inspires children to learn. The early years provision is extremely strong.’

(Ofsted, 2018)

Reading Workshop 2023

Please click here for the Reading Workshop PowerPoint.

The Early Years Team

Teachers

Miss Horton

Mrs Housley

Mrs Darbyshire

Teaching Assistants

Mrs Colquitt

Mrs Murphy

Mrs Maclean

Miss Hesford

Important Information

Book bags and water bottles are to be brought into school each day. Please keep water bottles out of book bags to avoid leakages.

Water bottles will be sent home each day to be refilled and brought back into school the following day.

PE lessons are every Monday from w/b 1st June 2026.

Children are to come to school wearing their PE tracksuit or PE kit (in warmer months).

Please ensure PE tracksuits and kits are labelled with your child’s name, this includes trainers or pumps.

Reading

Depending on which phonics group your child is in, they will either have a reading book or a ditty sheet.

This will be explained in more detail on Tapestry and at our Phonic/Reading Workshop.

Reading books must be kept in book bags and returned to school each day so they can be changed accordingly.

Homework

Homework is given out every Thursday. This will either be a practical activity or worksheet to complete.

You can upload a photo of your child’s homework to Tapestry.

For more information about homework, please read the EYFS policy.

Click to download:

Gallery

Growing

As part of our growing topic, we have learned about plants and how they need water and sunlight to grow. We have planted a range of seeds and we will observe them as they grow in the spring sunshine over the coming months!

Growing

During our growing topic, we learned about the life cycle of a hen. We had a delivery of eggs and counted down 21 days until they hatched. We were so lucky that six eggs hatched! We named our chicks Eggcup, Fluffy, Midnight, Sonny, Violet and Rainbow!

Pentecost

The rain didn’t stop us from sharing the Good News. We made Pentecost flags and walked around the school sharing the Good News with others that the Holy Spirit is our friend!