Welcome to Early Years at the Dukes

'Teaching Children to Love Learning'
We strive to encourage happy, confident, independent learners who work together, seek challenge and have fun.

Welcome back to school!

We hope you have all have had a fantastic summer and are ready for a busy and exciting year.

On our website page, you will find more information about the EYFS curriculum.  

Our shared aim is for your child to have a happy and successful time in EYFS. At Dukes, we feel that openness, honesty and kindness are key factors in achieving this, so please let us know if you have any questions or queries. We will always do our best to help. 

We look forward to a super year!

Best wishes,

The EYFS Team

Miss Harvey, Mrs Hadfield, Miss Reynolds, Mrs Wilmot and Miss Bresciani (Chestnut class)

Mrs Clarke, Miss Reynolds, Mrs Blower and Miss Dakin (Sycamore class)

About Early Years

We have an open door policy, please always come and talk to us if you need to chat about anything or you have any concerns. 

We use 'Seesaw' to record some of our learning in school.   It also allows us to send and receive messages to keep in contact with you.  We will post pictures and any information you should need on a regular basis on here and you can also message us using this app too. 

If your child is in reception they will be bringing home a 'Some times in the life of...' book in the Autumn term. This book is used to communicate to the class what your child has done over the weekend or holidays and we will share them in class. 

Below we will outline the days that we will be doing PE, forest schools and anything else we feel you need to know. Most of our communication will be on Seesaw and here on the website. 

• Chestnut and Sycamore classes both have PE on Thursdays in the Autumn Term.  Please make sure that your child comes to school with no jewellery and long hair tied back.  Please send a full PE kit, including pumps into school in the first week of every term (NB it is only necessary for nursery children to have pumps / trainers).  
• Your child needs to bring a named water bottle (no juice please), their book bag and a coat to school with them. *Please don't carry bottles in book bags as we often get leakages and damaged books!
• The children will bring home a school library book and a class library book. These are for you to read to them and discuss the story and pictures with your child. Please ensure your child has their library book in school on the correct day to allow us to change them. Usually, school library books will be changed on a Wednesday for Sycamores and Thursdays for Chestnut class.
• Please, please put your child's name on everything! It makes our life a lot easier and means you are far less likely to lose belongings!
• Reading books- children will not have a 'reading book' until they can read/say the sounds of the alphabet. We teach phonics everyday and assess the children so we know when they are ready to take home a reading book.  Once your child has a reading book, they will usually be changed on a Monday.
• The children will bring home a little 'sounds' book when we start teaching phonics. Please practise these sounds daily at home.   
• We are not having Forest School this autumn term.

NB TIMINGS MAY CHANGE - WE WILL INFORM YOU VIA SEESAW

We hope you and your child have a brilliant experience in this important first year of school life.  

The Indoor Environment

Outdoor Learning

We are very lucky to have a fabulous outdoor space, including an area covered by a canopy, so we are able to learn outdoors every day.  For large parts of the day, children are able to free-flow between indoor and outdoor learning spaces.  Outdoor experiences generally involve activities on a larger and more physical level, and usually require lots of communication, collaboration and teamwork.

Our Outdoor Environment

• Oxford Owl
  An opportunity to read online books for free, plus lots of useful information

• Topmarks Maths Games
  Lots of useful and fun maths games to play

• Phonics Play
  Lots of free and fun games to support phonics learning