Indoors

Our Early Years Classroom has been designed to provide a calming, safe and engaging space where children feel at home. We strive to encourage children to follow their interests and become leaders of their own learning.

At North Fawdon we know that children learn best when they are happy and self-motivated, our resources have been specifically chosen to foster curiosity, independence, and a love of learning from an early age.

Our open plan Foundation Stage Classroom fosters a sense of community where our Nursery and Reception children can learn from one another and play in harmony.

Our classroom is split into various areas:

Creative Area

We have an easel to develop strength and control for writing, the children have access to various media and materials. Teachers model and scaffold activities that the children can then access independently. We love to be messy and provide plenty of opportunity for this!

Role play areas

We have a permanent home corner as we recognise the importance of children being able to understand their world through play and have repeated opportunities to do so.  The home corner enables children to reflect upon and enact their everyday experiences.

Our second role play area changes termly. It is designed to give children an opportunity to take on different roles in the community and foster an interest in different professions

Writing area

Mark making is a skill we promote in all areas off the indoor and outdoor classroom. We believe it is important that children experience writing and mark making for a purpose. However, our writing area provides various opportunities for children to use different tools and techniques in mark making. It provides inspiration for children to use their phonic knowledge when writing.

Our Wonderful Woods

Our Wonderful Woods changes with the seasons, helping the children to gain a sense of changes over time.

Small World

The children can access a range of high-quality small world toys. We want to promote a variety of cultures and professions and this is reflected in our small world resources. The children have the opportunity to reflect on their own experiences and experiment with new ones in their small world play.

Tuff Trays

We use tuff trays as a space to ignite children’s curiosity of natural and found things, this gives children the opportunity to observe and explore features of their environment up close.  They are also used to set up small world scenes or as an opportunity for children to re-enact our teaching texts.

Displays

Our displays are a mixture of working walls and spaces to remind children of what they have experienced.

Fine Motor Area

This area helps children to develop the crucial prewriting fine motor strength they need to hold and use a pencil effectively. There are a variety of activities the children can access and manipulate to strength their fine motor skills.

Construction Area

The children have access to a range of construction toys of different sizes and materials that fix together in a variety of ways, e.g. by twisting, pushing, slotting or magnetism.

Reading Area

Every classroom in our school contains an attractive reading area. It is key to foster a love of reading early on. Our under the sea themed reading area allows children to dive into a book of their choice and use puppets and props to retell the stories they know. Children have access to a range of high-quality fiction and non-fiction texts and authors. They will have repeated opportunities to access key authors as they move throughout the school. We give children access to books with photographs of themselves to encourage communication about their home and school life. Children have access to story cards to sequence events in the story. Children can decode and practise their phonics not just in the reading area but across the classroom.

Maths Area

Maths is another area of learning we believe should permeate all areas of the foundation stage environment.  The maths area is full of interesting and tactile objects to sort, order, count, and label when experimenting through play. They are encouraged to use the resources to be creative when problem solving. There are plenty of opportunities for children to make sense of pattern and number patterns. Children are encouraged to count the things they see and to count beyond ten. Children are provided with opportunities to learn about shapes, space, and measures.