Early Years

Please click here to access the Nursery transition booklet

Please click here to accesss the Reception transition booklet

Herts for Learning Early Year’s team have produced activity cards that have been designed to support children starting Reception as part of their Supporting Smooth Transition procedures. Parents and carers can easily keep these cards on their digital devices, making them accessible for use during activities at home or on the go. These cards are a great way to introduce new ideas and help children develop skills that will benefit their learning journey at school.

Poster with QR code to access activity cards

Downloadable activity cards

50 Things is an exciting initiative that supports children’s learning at home. It is inspired by parents and carers with each activity developed by Early Years experts and language specialists to create a fabulous resource for families.

More information can be found here 50-things-intrroduction-letter-pdf.pdf

QR code to the 50 Things initiative 50-things-qr.jpg

Below are key documents to support teaching and learning in our Early Years.

Long term plan across EYFS

Skills development across EYFS

'What to expect in the Early Years Foundation Stage' parent guide 

British values

Cultural Capital

At Oakview Primary School we use Read, Write Inc (RWI), a phonics programme to help children develop strong reading and writing skills from the very start of they schooling. This structured, research-backed approach teaches phonics systematically, building children’s confidence, fluency, and decoding abilities through engaging daily activities. It provides a clear progression that ensures every child can make excellent progress in literacy.

From Nursery children will explore environmental sounds, rhyme, alliteration and the beginnings of early letter sound work. As childen progress into Reception, structured phonics sessions offer children learning at a level appropriate to their development. 

RWI introduction

Pronouncing letter sounds

Fred games

Fred game words

Handwriting

Maths is taught through practical activities and linked to daily routines and everyday occurrences to ensure meaningful learning is delivered to all children.

Maths in Nursery

Maths in Reception

We support the understanding of good oral hygiene. Throughout the year children will take part in adult led tasks, child initiated play activities and hear stories based on visiting the dentist and cleaning their teeth.

ERIC - guidance on potty training

Is my child to ill for school? NHS advice

Young children love it when you chat, play, sing and read with them. Click here to find out more about early communication.

Our Early Years children have had a fantastic half term filled. One of the highlights was our Pirate Picnic Day, where the children arrived in wonderful pirate costumes, enjoyed a picnic together, and were captivated by a fantastic storyteller. Sports Day was another memorable event, with the children demonstrating excellent teamwork, determination, and enthusiasm throughout the activities. We have also had to find ways to keep ourselves cool in the classroom, paddling our feet in the water tray proved popular!

We are incredibly proud of how much the children have grown and the progress they have made this year —they have truly excelled themselves. We look forward to watching them continue to flourish as they move through the next stage of their journey here at school.

What a busy half term for our Reception class, our topic based on the garden has led us from designing our own gardens to watching a butterfly emerge from it's chrysalis then to seeing snails slide up close.

The children have made the most of the sunshine; exploring outdoors while hunting for minibeasts in our garden, making bee baths, planting seeds and creating art inspired by Andy Goldsworthy.

As part of the school's two week literacy project the children enjoyed sharing a book called 'Flower Block' and meeting the author Lanisha Butterfield. Work in Reception was based on describing flowers, forming sentences and planning their own gardens. 

As we move into the last half term we look forward to welcoming families into school as part of our working together session, our pirate picnic and preparing for sports day.

The Early Years classes have had a very busy half term, from meeting PC Dan to our Easter Bonnet parade during the Spring assembly.

During the topic 'People Who Help Us' we learnt about the important role the police, doctors and fire brigade have in our community. Children used non fiction texts to find out information on these roles. In role play we acted out what we had learnt.

Read, Write, Inc is now in full swing throughout the school. It is great to see the skills being taught as part of the scheme being used by the children across all areas of learning. Particularly when children used their skills independently in play to read books, write letters to each other or record in the role play. 

During this half term the children took part in a food workshop led by our catering team. Children were invited to create rainbow caterpillar made of food, before tasting each piece and deciding on this favourite. 

It was lovely to welcome families in to school as part of World Book Day and the Nursery stay and play session. The children are always excited to have grown-ups in our classrooms!

What an end to the half term we had, our Spring assembly and a visit from the Easter bunny! We cannot wait to se what the summer term brings.

What a busy and positive start to the spring term in Early Years, I would like to thank all the children and their families for making me feel so welcome. During this half term the children been exploring well known Fairy Tales to support many areas of our curriculum, from retelling stories using our new Tales Toolkit programme to creating maps of our local area viewed from the top of a beanstalk. We have also been enjoying poetry; children enthusiastically join in Poetry Basket to learn our new poem each week which in turn supports our Literacy and Language skills. Despite the non-stop rain children have been outdoors drawing our environment, jumping in puddles and using the vast amounts of water to explore mark making, changes in materials and pouring in the water tray.

Mrs Palmer

This half term we found out about the Diwali celebrations and created some of our own rangoli patterns. The children also enjoyed acting out the story or Rama and Sita. As the weather changed, it was exciting to find ice in our outdoor area and explore how it felt. We then looked for different ways to melt it – finding a sunny spot did the trick. Our topic also took us to space and the children had great fun dressing up and pretending to be astronauts.

As we reach the end of our first half term, we are delighted to share how well our Nursery and Reception children have settled into life at school. It’s been a busy and exciting seven weeks, full of new experiences, growing friendships, and fantastic progress.
The children have done incredibly well adjusting to new routines and learning how our days are structured. From hanging up coats and joining carpet time, to tidying up and getting ready for outdoor play, they’re showing increasing independence and confidence each day. We’re so proud of how quickly they’ve begun to feel at home in their classrooms.
A big focus this term has been on building relationships and learning how to work and play with others. It has been lovely to see friendships blossoming, with children learning to share, take turns, and be kind to one another.
In Reception, we’ve begun our phonics learning using our chosen phonics programme, and the children are already beginning to recognise initial sounds, blend, and showing lots of enthusiasm for early reading. In Nursery, we’ve been laying the foundations through fun listening games, rhymes and sound exploration, helping to build important early skills in a playful way.
For many children, having lunch at school has been a brand-new experience – and they’ve taken to it brilliantly! They’re learning to use cutlery, try different foods, and enjoy lunch as a social time with their friends. It’s been lovely to see their growing independence and confidence in the lunch hall.

We are so proud of how well all the children have settled in and started their school journey with curiosity, positivity and joy.