Friday 25 June 2021

28.06.21 - This week in Early Years

Hello everyone, 

Well that was another busy week that has been and gone! We enjoyed spending time with Mrs O'Connor this week and she answered questions about Year 1. We have also talked about and looked at photos of Emerald Class - we discovered that there are lots of things that are going to stay the same! We also had a sneaky look through Emerald's door when they were out doing their daily mile to see it for ourselves! 

Tricky Words

A number of parents have been asking about an updated list of the tricky words that the children learn in Phonics. Please click here for the list of words. We are currently working our way through the Phase 4 words and have reached have/like. We will be learning the remainder over the next 3 weeks. 

Hares About Town

This summer, if you head into Southend, you are in for a "hare-raising" surprise! The Hares About Town trail starts on the 1st July. There are 30 hares dotted all around the town, each with their own story to tell. Accompanying the hares are over 50 leverets, including our school leveret Lenny. 

Miss Wakefield and Mrs Holmes were very lucky to have a sneak preview of all the Hares on Tuesday. They are AMAZING and include a hare that has been created by one of the parents at school. Mrs Cairns' hare "View of Lepus" can be found in Priory Park.

We have been given some trail maps to sell, on behalf of Fair Havens. The suggested donation for these is £1 and we will be selling them at the gate, after school next week. 

PE Kit

A reminder that PE kit for Friday is a light blue t-shirt with navy blue tracksuit bottoms/leggings or navy shorts. Trainers should be black. We appreciate that if PE kit no longer fits, people are making do with what they have until the summer and this is fine, however, please be mindful of our uniform policy when restocking in the holidays.

Now on to our learning for the coming week, we will be:

  • Learning the next tricky words from Phase 4 in our Phonics sessions. We will also be trying to spell some CVCC words.
  • Working on some number problems in our Mathematics sessions.
  • Continuing our work on senses, this week we will be using our Super Sense of smell!
  • Creating some flying Superheroes using our handprints and then writing a speech bubble for them.
  • Reading and discussing the 4th book in our Tom Percival series, this one is called "Meesha Makes Friends".
  • Taking part in Sports Week, scoring points for our houses.
I hope you all have a lovely weekend, see you on Monday!
Miss Wakefield


Friday 18 June 2021

21.06.21 - This coming week in Early Years

 Hello everyone, 

This week has been a very busy week in Pearl Class, so much so that we didn't manage to fit in all of our planned activities - but more about that later. We were visited by Mr Law and Mrs Hurley on Wednesday, who spent time showing us an exciting way to learn our 2 times tables. We will be giving this a go next week, along with the rest of the school, as we trial this new method.

Classes for next year

You may have seen the letter that has been added to the website today regarding the class arrangements for September. It can also be found here. Both Miss Langley and Mrs O'Connor have already been spending time with the children and will continue to do so for the remainder of this term.


New School Website

Over the past few months we have been working on refreshing our school website. This started with the individual phase group pages and now includes the whole of the website. We have added lots more photographs of our wonderful children and premises and hope to add more in the future. We have also had a little rearrangement of the information available to hopefully make it easier to access the information you need. There is also a "Children's Hub" tab at the end of the taskbar which gives quick links to many of the common learning platforms that your child might find useful to support their learning. We hope you like the changes and a massive thank you to Mrs Balkwill for working so hard in driving this project through to completion! Visit our lovely new site here.

Now on to our learning for the coming week, we will be:

  • Writing about one of the characters from the film, including important information, for example discussing whether they used their powers for good or bad things. (This is what we didn't get done last week!)
  • Learning about odd and even numbers in our Mathematic sessions.
  • Using our "Super Senses" in another game, this time focussing on the sense of sight.
  • Sharing and discussing the story "Perfectly Norman" in our Circle Time session.
As always, please feel free to email me with any queries or any WOWs for the children using earlyyears@downhallprimary.com.

Have a lovely weekend
Miss Wakefield




Sunday 13 June 2021

14.06.21 - This coming week in Early Years

 Hello everyone!

Firstly apologies for the delay in posting this week's blog - unfortunately technology has not been my friend, but hopefully it is all sorted now!

A few important things first:

End of Term Reports

On the 8th July, your child will receive their end of term report detailing their progress and areas for future development. Although there are no formal assessments made this year, due to the National lockdown at the beginning of Spring Term, the report will contain an indication as to whether your child is working towards or working at national expectations. There will be an opportunity to discuss this report in a Zoom parent/teacher meeting after you have received the report. Further details of all of this will follow shortly so keep an eye on the weekly newsletter!

Hot Weather

The past week as finally seen some lovely summer weather. On hot days, please ensure you have applied sun cream to your child before school and it would be great if you could also send them in with a hat too. We continue to encourage the children to drink their water throughout the day and they are able to refill their bottles should they drink it all.

Now on to the learning for this coming week, we will be:


  • Continuing to watch and discuss the film "The Incredibles".
  • Writing about one of the characters from the film, including important information, for example discussing whether they used their powers for good or bad things.
  • Trying to recall the 2 Phase 4 tricky words we learnt last week and starting to learn how to spell some of our Phase 3 tricky words.
  • Learning about sharing in our Mathematic sessions.
  • Using our "Super Senses" in a feely bag game.
  • Sharing and discussing the story "Ravi's Roar" in our Circle Time session.
  • Making some special cards to take home on Friday.
See you all tomorrow!
Miss Wakefield

Sunday 6 June 2021

07.06.21 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone! 

What an unusual half term...it was actually sunny! I hope you have all enjoyed the last week and that the children are looking forward to coming back tomorrow.

We will be starting our new project "Superheroes" this week. Many thanks to those of you who have asked your children the Superhero questions, this will help with our ideas for the project. If you haven't had a chance to do this yet, please do as it is always lovely to know what the children would like to know more about. The information about our latest project can be found here.

On to our learning for the coming week, we will be:


  • Watching and discussing the Disney short "Jack-Jack Attack".
  • Thinking about the characters in the film and what they were like, working in a group to describe them.
  • Starting Phase 4 in our Phonics sessions.
  • Learning about doubles in our Mathematic sessions.
  • Creating mini superhero puppets, by carefully cutting them out.
  • Sharing and discussing the story "Ruby's Worry" in our Circle Time session.
See you all tomorrow!
Miss Wakefield