✨ Welcome to Sparkles Class ✨

We are very excited to be there at the start of your child's journey throughout school, particularly here at Thames View Primary School. We develop children's early communication skills, building key relationships with their peers and adults in the classroom. Children are encouraged to foster and develop their curiosity, independence and problem-solving in a rich and nurturing environment. We will cover these key skills through a range of exciting topics and activities.

We adopt an open door policy at Thames View Primary School, so please come and speak to us with any queries or concerns.

Meet The Team

Class Teacher - Mrs Brushett

Learning Support Assistants - Ms Spencer and Ms Frisby

Reading

The early reading skills your child will learn at this age are an important foundation for starting school.

The focus at this age is on sharing stories, songs, and rhymes together and building talking and listening skills. Luckily, there are lots of fun and easy ways to encourage early reading success at home. 

These websites will give some helpful information in regards to reading:

• Oxford reading owl
  Reading with children is vital. This website gives some interesting information about early reading - reading for all ages.
• A brilliant site - lots and lots of stories to listen to!
  Which story will you listen to first?

Starting School

The information below is about preparing your child for starting school. This is just a guide to point you in the right direction. Remember, children are unique and will develop at different times. Some things will come easily to them and some will be far more challenging. Even us adults find things tricky and take time to adjust and learn new things!

If your child is due to start school in September it would be extremely helpful and beneficial if you could get them ‘school ready.’ This includes:

• Toilet training – Those children that are still not quite toilet trained, unless there is a medical issue, this would also be beneficial to everybody if they are dry before September. 
• Taking turns and sharing – if you are at home alone with your child then ask them to have a turn of their toy they are playing with.  
• Putting their own coat on and doing up the fastening.  
• Recognising numbers 0 – 10
• Counting 0 – 10
• Recognise their name

All these things will help your child (and school staff!) immensely in preparation for starting school. Even if your child is not quite ready for school yet, working towards all these steps will give them a great start.

Useful Information

WOW Slips

Wow slips are for you to fill in as and when your child achieves something significant at home. For example "Bob slept in his bed all night!" or "Jenny can swim without armbands!" Please return these to Nursery as you fill them in so we can add them to our display.

You can get Wow slips from the Nursery or print them at your home (see link below). Or, you may want to make your wow slips, it could be a nice activity to do with your child.

Tapestry

We use tapestry, so you can see what your child has been doing throughout the day. We also love to know what your child is doing outside of school. We encourage the children to stand and talk about the pictures in front of the class which encourages communication. 

Other Links

• Nursery activity ideas
  Lots of ideas to keep little hands and minds busy!