Literacy Week is an important part of our whole-school calendar, providing a shared opportunity to celebrate the vital role that language, stories, and communication play in children’s learning and development. In the Early Years, this focus is particularly significant, as it supports the foundations laid out in the EYFS curriculum, where Communication and Language and Literacy are central to children’s progress.
At this stage of development, literacy is about far more than reading and writing. It is rooted in speaking, listening, understanding, and developing a love of stories. A dedicated Literacy Week helps to highlight the many ways children begin their journey into literacy, from sharing books and joining in with familiar rhymes, to developing vocabulary through play and conversation. These early experiences are essential in building confidence and supporting future learning.
Being part of a whole-school celebration also helps our youngest children feel connected to the wider school community. Seeing older pupils engaged in reading and writing provides meaningful role models and reinforces the value placed on literacy across all ages. It creates a shared sense of purpose and excitement, where books and storytelling are celebrated by everyone.
Our approach is closely aligned with the Curiosity Approach, which places emphasis on creating inspiring environments that encourage exploration and independence. Within Early Years, this means offering rich, inviting spaces where children can access books, mark-making materials, and storytelling resources in a natural and engaging way. By following children’s interests and encouraging open-ended experiences, we support them in developing their own ideas, language, and creativity.
Literacy Week also provides an opportunity to reflect on the importance of a language-rich environment. Conversations, storytelling, role play, and imaginative experiences all contribute to children’s communication skills and understanding of the world. These elements are embedded throughout our daily practice and are key to supporting children as they grow into confident communicators.
By celebrating Literacy Week as a whole school, we reinforce the message that literacy is a fundamental life skill and a source of enjoyment, creativity, and connection. In Early Years, we are proud to play a key role in nurturing these early foundations, supporting children as they begin their journey as readers, writers, and storytellers.
This week in Pre-Nursery, we celebrated Book Week by dressing up and enjoying the classic story The Little Red Hen. We continued our gardens and minibeast theme by planting some seeds in our garden, then spending time outdoors in the rainy weather to search for snails and roly-polies. Jumping in muddy puddles was our favourite part of the week!
We had some wonderful moments from our Literacy Week in Nursery. This week, Nursery have been exploring the magical stories of "The Enormous Turnip" and "The Very Hungry Caterpillar." The children dived into these enchanting tales through a variety of interactive activities including painting turnips and caterpillars of various sizes, using puppets to retell the stories, bringing the characters to life in their own creative ways, making little mini books of their own ideas, and even some maths magic by describing the heights of turnips and sizes of caterpillars.
Reception enjoyed many different stories this week as part of Literacy Week, with a particular focus on the story "Jack and the Beanstalk." The children have read and listened to different versions of the story, helping them to develop their understanding of narrative and language. They have created their own books, using their phonics skills to label and write within their small books. As part of their learning, the children have explored how beans grow and have planted their own beans, which they are excited to observe and record as they develop. Alongside this, Reception have been developing their knowledge of 3D shapes, identifying them within the environment and using them to create different patterns. We all enjoyed dressing up as a character from our favourite book and taking part in the parade, which was a lovely way to celebrate our shared love of stories.
