Moving into FS1

A huge, warm welcome to St Joseph’s to yourselves and your little one.

We want your child’s transition into Nursery to be as smooth, happy and positive as we can make it.

We are very excited that you will be joining us in September and we are looking forward to getting to know you all. We have put some information together on this page which we hope that you will find useful in preparation for your child starting with us in September.

We are very much looking forward to welcoming you all into FS1 and getting to know all of our new families.

Best wishes,

Miss Hutchinson (Class Teacher) & Mrs Gray (Nursery Nurse)

Key principles for good practice in supporting successful early years transitions

Unique Child

• Prepare your child for change. It is important that all children experience a positive transition. With appropriate preparation and understanding, children are more likely to feel secure and settle more easily into their new environment. Please share as much information with us during our home visits to enable us to tune in to their interests, strengths and needs.

Positive Relationships

• Transitions can be eased by careful planning, sharing of information and visits. We are looking forward to meeting you during our Presentation Evening and ‘Stay and Play’ sessions, as outlined in your introduction letters to follow.
• We listen closely to you as parents/ carers and value your expertise and knowledge of your child.
• Work together. An essential element of an effective transition is for family, previous settings and schools to work together, to share information. Please share their previous learning experiences with us. Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns or are unsure about our aims.

Enabling Environments

• Children cope better with transitions when communication is shared well, and the process of change takes place gradually over time. Please remember that children learn, settle and develop in different ways and at different rates
• The emotions that come with change can be successfully handled by children through our experienced EYFS team.

The EYFS Curriculum

Please click on the button below to find out more about the new curriculum.

What learning looks like in FS1…

In Foundation Stage 1, children learn by doing things for themselves, by watching, listening, talking, creating, investigating and exploring- in other words PLAYING!  Play is children’s work and it can be tiring, messy, exciting, sometimes noisy, fun and magical.

Activities to support the transition to FS1

Why not take a look at this ‘I am independent’ task and see how many things your child can already manage to do independently. Remember, we will help them to practise these things in Nursery too!

I am independent!

Taking turns in Nursery is something else we learn to do. At home, you could play board games together, take it in turns to stir ingredients when baking or share and take turns with their favourite toys.

We love story time in Nursery. Maybe you could work with your child to make some puppets and practise telling your own story?

Tidy up time is really important in Nursery. We have lots of time to play together and it’s good to be able to tidy up too. Your child could practise tidying up their toys at home.

Tidy Up Poster

Virtual Tour of your New Classroom

We are so excited to share our virtual tour with you of the classroom, the staff, the routines of the day and further information that will support you with your child’s transition.

Please note that we are now a 30 hour Nursery setting and hours additional to the funded 15 hours can be arranged through school directly, rather than KidsTime. 

Below you will find a range of activities and resources to give your learning and settling into FS1 a little boost.

Chatter Matters

Please follow the links below to a wealth of very simple tips, activities and suggestions, for how to maximise daily opportunities to develop your child’s social and communication skills.

You may have noticed recent press coverage on the BBC Tiny Happy People webpage. This is another great website, with practical, fun, interactive ideas to enable your child to develop talk and listening, including nursery rhymes and songs and some suggestions from other parents.