Our Week in the Early Years

Dear Parents

It has come to the end of yet another busy week in the Early Years!

Highlights of the Week

It has been wonderful to see our Nursery children participate for the first time in their live Google Meet sessions and begin to form relationships with their new friends. It really has been fantastic to see the children engage with their online learning and also to see videos and pictures of the children learning through play by using the provocation suggestions from teachers, resources from the activity packs and recorded learning opportunities from their teachers and EAs. Our Nursery teachers have been supporting parents in seeing the learning that is taking place through these opportunities by adding the curriculum links in their feedback on Seesaw which has been positively received by parents – thank you for sharing this feedback with us.

 

Our Reception children have continued to demonstrate their resilience with their home learning and have been developing their knowledge of number through their Maths activities as well as learning about their emotions in their Discovery learning. Our teachers have been adding the curriculum links to the children’s activities to support parents in understanding how the children are making progress within the different areas of learning. The Reception children have loved listening to stories from our guest parent readers and encourage any parents who would like to record a story for our Reception children to please get in touch with class teachers or Miss Phillips, our Reception Year Group Leader.

 

Our EY1 children have continued to develop their understanding of sentence structure and organisation as well as apply their FRED sounds to their own writing. It has been lovely to see the children engage with their Maths activities and to see some children pushing themselves even further to complete the extra challenges. The children have been introduced to their exciting new Learning Technologies unit about robots – their lesson even took place from a robot factory this week!

 

In EY2 the children have been demonstrating themselves as committed learners through their progress in RWI lessons. The children have continued to develop a firm understanding of number through their place value unit in Maths and have been adding to their growing repertoire of writing secrets – the noun rapping was particularly impressive! You have also most likely seen your child practice their gymnastic skills this week through their live PE lessons.

 

Specialist lessons

As always, I would like to thank you for your positive, kind and constructive feedback throughout the week. There have been a number of questions regarding specialist lessons which I specifically wanted to address in my communication this week as I feel this may be a common question amongst our Early Years families. In the Early Years, it is expected that the children attend their specialist lessons as they would in school as the Term 1 curriculum is being covered in the same way that it is in areas of learning such as Literacy and Maths. The teachers will also be observing the children in their live lessons and providing feedback as well as looking at their Seesaw posts in order to track the children’s progress. That being said, we recognise that we are working in exceptional circumstances and that every family is different. Therefore if your child is finding it difficult to keep up with everything on the home learning programme, it is suggested that you make an appointment to talk with your child’s class teacher to discuss how best to support your individual child.

 

Wellbeing

Your child’s wellbeing is our primary concern and we understand that children may have been affected in different ways as a result of the situation we find ourselves in due to COVID-19. I would like to draw your attention to the Wellbeing tab that is available on our parent hub which includes a wealth of resources that may help you to support your child’s wellbeing at home. We also recognise that the current situation may also have affected you as parents and continue to ask that you get in touch if you are in need of support – we are all part of our DBIS community and want to ensure we are able to help in any way that we can.

 

Parent Focus Group

Thank you to those parents who have signed up to be a part of our Parent Focus groups to support the continued development of our online home learning programme. I will be in touch with those parents directly by the end of next week with arrangements for these meetings.

 

DBIS Learner Profile

Next week I am looking forward to telling you more about our new DBIS Learner Profile which has been developed over the course of the last 18 months. The DBIS Learner Profile is a set of personal learner attributes that are at the heart of our curriculum and the international education we provide for all our children. We will be introducing the children to the Learner Profile attributes through our weekly assemblies and teachers will also be supporting the children in becoming familiar with the different attributes over the coming weeks. Watch this space for further information!

 

As always, I want to finish the week by thanking you yet again for your continued support throughout this period of online home learning. As teachers, we are excited about the progress the children are making and are grateful for the crucial role that you play in ensuring the children can achieve their full potential. I wish you a restful weekend ahead and look forward to seeing the children continue with their learning adventures next week.

Please do not hesitate to get in touch should you have any questions or concerns at [email protected].

With best wishes

Hannah Cole

Head of Early Years

DBIS Hub

DBIS Hub