The Foundation Team

Mrs S. Smith,  Mrs S. Harris,  Mrs D. Dawes

Mrs E. Krishan,  Mrs S. Green.

The Foundation Stage is education for children aged from 3 to 5, rising 6.

The Nursery and Reception classes.

There are six areas of learning:

1. Personal, Social and Emotional development
2. Communication, Language and Literacy
3. Mathematical development
4. Knowledge and Understanding of the world
5. Physical development
6. Creative development

These areas are the Early Learning Goals that provide the basis for planning throughout the Foundation Stage, so laying secure foundations for future learning.

New School Year 2007/2008

September Sparkles

Welcome back everyone and welcome to all our new faces who have already started to settle in. This month started off with a wonderful gift from Jennifer Smith who came to paint our outside garden wall, using ideas put forward by the children themselves.

           The picture shows all the hard work Jennifer did!                      We will now have to start planning some new ideas for the Spring garden and decorating the outside areas.

Hopefully this month we will be able to hold our Sports which was cancelled last term, due to wet weather.   Also too, we are planning to celebrate our annual 'Harvest' Mass, more details to follow.

October Opportunities

There will be plenty of opportunities for both the children and parents to join in the activities this month.

Starting with Tuesday 2nd, we will be holding our Harvest Mass, everyone will be welcome, and at the end of the day the produce will be sold off at bargain prices, all money raised will go to charity.

Other activities to look forward to will be 'Beep, Beep' day when the Foundation children will be investigating safety near and on roads. 

 'Book Week' will be proceeded with magical activities to lead into the Book Fair where everyone will be able to buy a variety of books.   

  For the Foundation children we will be holding our 'Welcome Mass' to welcome them into the family of St. Joseph's School.           Information for all these events will be sent out to you soon.

Have you seen the play area lately? Something is now taking place around the painted wall, so pop in anytime and have a look. If you have any good ideas to help improve this area we would love to hear them.

November Nuggets

A date for your diary - Thursday 14th 9.30am in the hall the Reception class will be joining Years 1 and 2 for an assembly about 'Diwali' everyone is welcome.

The Nursery and Reception are hard at work now rehearsals have begun on our Christmas Nativity Performance, more news to follow.

There are lots of goodies to come over the next few weeks, so be prepared for lots of notices.

December Delights

The Santa Express was a great success, all the children were on their best behaviour, and although we got a little wet, after a drying out and refreshments we all were able to arrive back to school happily in one piece.

The rehearsals have now finished and the Foundation Nativity Performances will be beginning this week starting the 10th.           The first real performance will be for some specially invited V.I.P.s  After which we are holding a 'Mini Christmas Sale' for the Foundation children only.  Also a school 'Lucky Dip' will be taking place.

This week will be full of a variety of creativity and the School Christmas Dinner!

Week of the 17th will be the start of more Performances, for the School and Parents, also a chance to see other performances by the older members of the school.

On the 20th we will be enjoying our Christmas Party with food, dancing and games.

Come the 21st and we will be attending Mass with the rest of the school, at 10.00am             ALL are welcome to join us!         

 And hopefully before dinnertime, if we are really good, just maybe, if he's not too busy, a very special person may be able to pop in for a few minutes to say Hello. After dinner we will just have time to collect our Christmas goodies and say a 'Happy Christmas' to all as we leave for our Christmas break at 1.15pm.   

'Happy Christmas Everyone'

 from the Foundation Children    

New Year News ! 2008 !

January Jugglers

Back at school now and we are all having to juggle around the new ways of using our school while the builders turn it into something wonderful - we hope!

The children are all hard at work with their learning of new information and skills. They have really 'grown up' a lot over the last term and showing how able they really are. We haven't had any outdoor activities this month due to the dull days and are just getting outside a little every day that we can.

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New Year  News 2007

Welcome back and we hope you are ready for the new year ahead

January Starters

The Nursery children had a very unusual visitor this month, an enormous Penguin, who enjoyed himself so much he decided to stay. In his honour the children made a display of 'Cold Places' to make him feel at home.

Also this month we had a visit from Father Coslett who bravely came into school to answer some of the children's questions. After surviving all of that he then invited all of the children and staff to come up to church to have a guided tour. We have plans to turn it into a very special visit and will be informing parents of our plans soon.

On Tuesday [30th] at 10.00 in the school hall the Foundation children with Year 1+2 will be conducting the school Mass and hope as many parents as possible will be able to join us.

February Fun

After quite an exciting start to this month, SNOW and then a half-term holiday, we are now finding more new things to try.

Thursday 22nd at 1.30pm the Foundation children with their families and staff are visiting Father Coslett at St. Joseph's Church for the special Baptism of baby doll 'Hannah'. She will be there with her 'parents' and 'God parents' and all the special guests.

Starting Monday 26th we in the Foundation will be working very hard on our part of the 'Rainforest Display' which the whole school is taking part in to introduce next months 'Book Fair'. We have lots of plans and hope when we have collected together our display parents will be able to come and watch a performance - watch this space!

March Madness

March is certainly going to be a very busy month for the Foundation children.

We start with the Foundation Lenten fund raisers, the Nursery will be covering their 'Snail' with coins, Reception have started working hard to fill in their 'Lent envelopes'. Later this month everyone in the Foundation will be given a box of Smarties, they may eat the contents BUT must return the box, hopefully with small change to complete our Lent collections.

A small group of Foundation children have been invited to attend a Bhangra dancing workshop.

5th of the month is the start of Book Week, during which we will be performing for our parents, in the Reception classroom, songs, acting and music on the theme of the 'Rain Forest'.

Both groups are visiting the Library, 12th for Nursery and 19th for Reception.

13th of the month we are holding our Foundation and Key Stage 1 Mass, the theme - 'Thanking God for our Mothers', hopefully many of our Mums will be able to attend, 10.00am in the school hall.

23rd of the month will be the day that St. Joseph's Toy Library, Nursery and Reception children all visit Walsall Aboretum!

The Toy Library and Foundation Department of St. Joseph's invaded Walsall Aboretum and what a wonderful time we all had.

28th of the month the Foundation children's R.E. assembly will take place at 2.30pm. all are welcome.

29th of March is Competition day for all Egg Decorators and Rollers so keep an eye out for details nearer the time.

30th of the month is the 'Easter Bonnet Parade' when parents get to show their artistic qualities, so get your thinking caps on!!

I told you it was a MAD Month!!!!

WELL DONE EVERYONE WE RAISED £99 FOR LENT!!!!!!

April Antics

Spring is well and truly here now and it is time for us to start the Garden Spring Clean. Once the plans have been agreed and finalized we will set about making a flower garden, vegetable corner, decorated wall, music area and playground floor route. This should take most of this term starting from NOW!!  The Cheeky Monkey sponsor details have also gone out, so for those who are taking part - start looking for those NUMBERS.

May Marvels

 That must be everyone connected with the Foundation, because already we have Cheeky Monkey sponsorship money coming in!     We, along with the Infants are holding a 'Nautical Raffle' to support an ex-pupil who has been chosen to join the swimming team and represent Gt. Britain in Hungry. A staff member has donated some prizes so we will hold the Raffle all next week, 10p. a ticket or 50p for the whole week with an extra free ticket for the final draw.   Hopefully the May Procession will be taking place soon, details will be given out as soon as we get them.  

Jumping June

It certainly has started that way with all the fund raising we have been involved with, many thanks to all who have taken part in the Cheeky Monkey sponsorship, we will be closing the collection just before the end of this month, so we have time to order the rewards and give them out.                                                                  On Friday we had a visit from Jennifer who with her friends took us on a journey 'Under the sea' which we all enjoyed!

Just a special THANK YOU from the  Mum of Thomas Steen who is competing in a Swimming competition in Hungry, you helped to raise £40 in our little raffle and with other fund raising events within the school we have given Thomas a Great start - THANKS!

Jiving July

At the beginning of this month we [weather permitting] will be holding our 'Sports Day'. This year we are trying out competing in the morning which should make it easier for families to know if the sports will be going ahead. The planned date is Monday 2nd 9.30 start.[Reserve day Tuesday 3rd]  Last hope date Friday 13th July 9.30 start                                                                                           Also on Tuesday 3rd the Foundation classes will be in the hall performing their Saint Assembly, all will be welcome, times to be arranged.                                                                              On the 4th, Wednesday, all children will be visiting their next school year teacher and classroom for the day, school will start in the usual way but the children will leave from years 1+2 outside door.     

We have started practicing hard for our performance in the 'World War Songs Show', details to follow.                                          And rumours have it that we the 'Foundation' are holding a Class Mass sometime soon, when we find out the date we will let you know as we enjoy you being with us in this celebtation.

We will be finishing with a 'Royalty Day' everyone is invited to dress up as a King, Queen, Prince or Princess. Games and activities are being arranged and of course a 'Banquet' for their majesties!

We hope to hold a REWARD assembly before the end of term for all those who helped to raise £828 for charity, a BIG THANK YOU to all who helped to beat last year's total.

 We at St. Joseph's are so proud of you!!

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