Welcome to EYFS at Brookfield

The first year of school is an exciting time for both parents and children! Starting school is a special milestone in the lives of families, and we feel privileged to share this experience with you. Together, we will support each other through the amazing adventure that lies ahead. 

In our Reception class, we work together to ensure that your child experiences a fun, stimulating, and active learning environment, helping them reach their full potential across all aspects of the curriculum. We recognise that every child is unique, and we cater to this by offering inclusive learning experiences. We are confident that your child will enjoy the new challenges and learning approaches as they begin their journey at Brookfield with our experienced EYFS team and school family.

Meet the Team

• Miss Hodgson: I work in EYFS and have been lucky enough to work in Early Years as a Reception Teacher for over seven years in a number of differing schools. Early Years is my passion and I can't wait to watch your child flourish before our eyes!

• Miss Davis: I work full-time in Reception and bring years of experience in early years settings. I’m excited to share my expertise with your children.

• Miss Smith: I work in Reception and help settle the children into new routines. I'm looking forward to helping your child grow in all aspects of the curriculum. 

Our Learning Approach

We believe that each child is an individual who learns continuously through positive relationships, a stimulating environment, and rich learning experiences. To support this, we offer a balance of child-initiated and adult-led activities, fostering curiosity and encouraging active learning. Our indoor and outdoor classrooms provide a range of practical experiences, and each day includes regular sessions in Phonics, Literacy, Mathematics, and Reading. Additional curriculum areas are scheduled throughout the week, which you can find on our class timetable. Our learning is linked to stories we read daily, with focused topics explored throughout the year.

Our School Ethos

At Brookfield, our ethos, vision, and values are at the core of everything we do. We live by our mission statement: "Many hearts make a school" and emphasise our protected characteristics. Our children will:

• Be happy and secure

• Be high achieving learners-making excellent progress in relation to prior attainment

• Be enthusiastic and highly motivated to learn

• Develop key skills

• Be good role models-demonstrate positive attitudes and behaviours characterised by high self-esteem, independence, resilience and responsibility

• Be respectful to other children and adults

• Be respectful of the school environment

• Become well-rounded citizens

Our Topics

We cover a variety of engaging topics throughout the year:

• Autumn 1: Welcome to Julia's House (Our favourite stories, based on Julia Donaldson)
• Autumn 2: Walking in a winter wonderland (Winter)
• Spring 1: Let's go on a Road Trip! (Transport)
• Spring 2: Not all Heroes wear capes (People Who Help Us)
• Summer 1: Oh I do love to 'bee' beside the seaside (The Living World around us)
• Summer 2: Once upon a time... (Traditional Tales/Fairy-tales)

Supporting Your Child’s Learning

Your role in supporting your child to become an independent learner is invaluable. You can help by ensuring that your child can:

• Dress and undress themselves
• Zip their coat up and down
• Hold a pencil using the tripod grip
• Handle tools like scissors with care
• Write some or all of their name
• Recognise their name
• Take care of their toileting needs
• Identify some colors, shapes, numbers, and letters, especially those in their name

At home, you can further support your child’s learning by:

• Reading both fiction and non-fiction books with them, discussing the main story settings, events, illustrations, and characters- who, what, where, when, why, how?
• Recognising different shapes and numbers in your environment, e.g. door number, car plates, magazines, remote control
• Providing opportunities for counting objects and comparing quantities, e.g. baking, nature hunt, daily chores such as pairing socks, shopping trips
• Encouraging independent reading by sounding out and blending words

Parental Involvement and Support

Parents as partners is something we strive for at school. Communication is important to us and we value the relationship that we develop with parents throughout this vital year of the children's learning journey. By working together, your child will become the best version of themselves. We provide plenty of support for parents at Brookfield. Throughout the year, we offer Parent Workshops on topics such as writing, maths, and phonics. We also encourage parental involvement through class assemblies, book looks, visits, e.g. ERIC (Everybody Reads In Class), and school-wide events.

Gardeners and Seeds

We are proud of our school community and enjoy encouraging relationships flourish amongst our children. To help settle the EYFS children in, we have our 'Gardeners and Seeds' programme, where the Year 6 children are paired up with a Reception child each. This programme allows for plenty of support with the little ones. The programme occurs throughout the first full academic year.

PE at Brookfield

Our PE lesson is on Tuesday. This session is run by PNE, who we are thrilled to have on board again this year! Please send your child dressed in their PE uniform every Tuesday, starting from Tuesday 3rd September, with their school PE hoody. All earrings must be removed or covered with plasters on a Tuesday, for the PE day.  

Uniform at Brookfield

School uniform is a significant part of life at school because it can play an important role in promoting a sense of pride, self-confidence, and a feeling of belonging within the student body. All these factors positively contribute to pupils' overall wellbeing. A polite reminder that children should be in regular uniform each day and PE uniform on their allocated PE Day(s).

School provide water bottles for all children, which are washed and refilled each day. A wide range of healthy snack is available each day. This forms part of our 'snack time' on the class timetable. 

If you have any questions or concerns about school, please don't hesitate to speak to myself at the beginning or end of the day. Alternatively, you can make an appointment at the office to speak to myself at a mutually convenient time. Please be aware that we do not use ClassDojo for communication messages- this is used for daily communication from ourselves to families, e.g. day in the life, reminders, important information regarding school. 

We’re looking forward to a fantastic year with your child at Brookfield!