Bethlehem (YR)

Welcome to Early Years

During your child’s first year at school we deliver the Early Years Foundation Stage by using the ‘Come and See’ Catholic topics as a starting point for our learning.  In addition to this we also consider individual children’s interests and needs, to provide a holistic curriculum that supports each child’s ongoing learning and development.

We offer a continuous play-based approach where children can explore their indoor and outdoor school environment whilst engaging in challenging activities, interesting topics and learning through first hand experiences.

Early Years Staff

Miss Clark – Class Teacher

Mrs Winton – Early Years Educator and Class PPA Teacher

Welcome Bethlehem families 

Catholic Education

Within the Catholic Education we will explore our class name 'Bethlehem' and our class saint 'Mary'. The children will develop their understanding of their faith through candle time, prayers and class worship as well as religious education inputs and activities. 

The RE 'come and see' topics include; 

• Autumn Term ‘Myself’, ‘Welcome’, ‘Birthday’
• Harvest
• Spring Term – ‘Celebrating’, ‘Gathering’, ‘Growing’
• Fair Trade Fortnight
• Summer Term – ‘Good News’, ‘Friends’, ‘Our World’
• Other faith’s week (Islam)

House Colours

Your child will have been allocated a house colour; they will be awarded house points for their house. In Bethlehem, we collect 'bricks' to represent house points. 

Red house team - St Richards

Green house team - St Bernadettes

Yellow house team - St Wilfrids

Blue house team - St Clares

Tapestry

We will use Tapestry as a platform to share photographs and videos, WOW moments and celebrate successes. 

Mrs Winton and myself will also use Tapestry as a communication tool to share class messages, updates and information to you all.

Tapestry also allows your to share WOW moments from home.

Reading
Please read with your children daily, using their school book to support their early reading skills. We will initially sending home story books to be shared together which promote rhyme and word pattern.  Other fiction and non-fiction books will continue to engage their imagination and develop their vocabulary. 

Birthdays

On your child’s birthday, we ask that they do not bring sweets for their friends, but if they would like to donate a book to the class for the book corner instead, then it would be greatly appreciated.  They can also come to school in their own clothes on their birthday, or on the nearest school day if their birthday falls at the weekend.

Daily

Each day at school, please make sure your child brings;

- A water bottle with fresh water.

- Labelled jumper/cardigan.

- Labelled coat for wet weather. 

- Fresh fruit or vegetable snack for snack time (1 portion of fruit or vegetable is roughly equivalent to what your child can hold in the palm of their hand). Please ensure the snack is labelled, either in a tub or masking tape is great to write on and stick on bananas etc. 

- Their bookbag, reading record and books. 

Topic: Welcome

We will begin our RE topic ‘Welcome' from Thursday 7th October 2021. 

Welcome

This topic is about being welcomed into our family and into the church.

We will discuss as a class and within groups about:

Ø What does welcome mean? Where might we welcome someone? And how?

Ø How do we feel when we are welcomed?

Ø Exploration of a Baptism.

Core vocabulary – welcome, welcomed, belong, school, class, Baptism, baptise, holy water, candle, In the name of..., family, priest, white garment, godparents, font. 

There will be lots of talk about being welcomed into different places and how we may do this. This leads us into being welcomed into the church and learning about a Baptism. 

This learning will be combined with psalms, reflections, bible readings of the Religious Education curriculum that we use in school ‘Come and See’. Activities surrounding this will also be in the classroom environment, including; role-play Baptisms, creating welcome cards and a small-word church.

Miss Clark 

Class teacher