The Foundation Stage

Starting School

The Foundation Stage

At Sitwell Infant School, we believe that high quality early years’ experience is of vital importance and can have a lasting effect on a child’s attitude to education, personal and social skills and attainment. First days at school for young children are a mixture of all kinds of emotions. The school day and its demands can be quite daunting and, at first, very tiring. Children and their parents or carers are invited to spend some time with us in an informal way before admission. This gentle introduction is intended to make the children’s first day in school a little less daunting - and the parents’ first day at home less anxious! As well as visits to the classroom for the children, an induction evening is held for the parents of our new intake. This meeting outlines the induction process and gives parents a chance to meet the staff and find out anything they want to know about education at Sitwell Infant School. The meeting is held by the Headteacher and is lively and informal, with plenty of opportunities for questions and comments. The Foundation Stage curriculum follows the new Statutory Framework as implemented from September 2021. All areas of the curriculum are covered both inside and outside, and contain seventeen goals for the children to work towards. The children build up a variety of evidence showing some examples of their work and photographs of some of their other activities, which contribute to the teachers’ assessments of each child. A Learning Journey is created and sent home fortnightly, sharing children’s learning with their parents. Parents are then encouraged to share learning from home with school. Please take a look at the curriculum section of our website for more information. 4