At Arlecdon we offer full day term-time care for children from two years old. Our flexible childcare arrangements suit working parents and many choose to use our breakfast and after school provision too.

The key focus for our Early Years class is to spark curiosity and ‘hands on’ investigative learning – this week as ‘dinosaur detectives’. The school day is focussed and fun. The children develop independence and resilience through exposure to a variety of environments for hands-on play. These include our exploration field with, growing area and plastic bottle green house, huge gravel and sandpit, mystery tunnel, imaginative play area and nature space for bird feeding and bug hunting.

Children are encouraged to follow their own lines of enquiry, with a focus on communication and questioning. All pupils enjoy high quality phonics provision using the ‘Read, Write, Inc.’ reading scheme and we believe that starting learning phonics early is the best foundation for lifelong learning. Our results in the phonic screening test at the end of Year One have been above national averages for many years.

We have places available in our Early Years and Foundation Stage Unit. Free taster sessions are available and places can be flexible to accommodate working parents or other childcare options.

It started just like any other Monday in Early Years at Arlecdon Primary School and we all came into class, found our names for self-registration and chose one of the activities that Mrs Finlay had set out.

After choosing our lunch and saying good morning to everyone for the register we then completed our calendar and 15-minute maths.

During the weather check we could see the storm clouds gathering over the hills – we always look over the hills to check our weather – and everyone felt a chill in the air.

We hoped that the storm would stay away and then we would be able to enjoy playing outside on the climbing frame, writing in the message shed, digging and building in the sand or gravel pit, or creating our own recipes in the mud kitchen.

Nursery began their maths task and found different groups of six objects while Reception investigated different ways to make 11 using a variety of apparatus to further develop our number sense.

As usual we followed our maths session with Choosing Time. Some children chose to play in the sand or water, some in the role play area, and others used a selection of items from the craft and creative shelves to make their own designs.

After enjoying our snack, we then sang some songs and danced along to our favourite ‘Go Noodle’ tunes.

Then it was time for phonics, so we went into our little groups to learn new sounds, practice writing letters, read our books and write sentences.

Once phonics was finished, we checked that the rain had held off.

We were lucky it had but the sky was still very dark and the clouds were definitely getting lower over the hills. So, we all got our coats on and went outside to enjoy all the different activities we can choose outdoors.

We played our games until it was Tidy Time then went indoors to vote for our story.

After listening to the story that received the most votes, it was lunchtime.

We are really lucky because we get to go for our lunches first and we also get to see all our friends from the other classes in school while we eat our dinner.

It was after eating our lunch that things started to feel a little strange.

The wind was getting stronger and there was an air of mystery around school. After playtime Mrs Finlay met us at the door but she said that we couldn’t go into class as something strange had happened. There was a notice on the door which read “DANGER. KEEP OUT!”

There had been an intruder! Someone, something, had been in our class.

We counted to 10 to prepare ourselves for entering the room and as we tentatively entered our class it was incredible.

The furniture had been moved and the room was a complete mess.

Mrs Finlay asked us to investigate what might have happened, but to be careful because whatever had caused the mess might still be around school somewhere. We needed to find clues. Off we set with our magnifying glasses and clipboards.

We found footprints, leaves, grass and twigs.

As we continued through our class, we could see something odd near the book corner, next to the comfy sofa.

As we approached, we could see more twigs and leaves but this time they appeared to be in the shape of a nest, but not a bird’s nest; this was much bigger. Inside were some eggs.

Again, these were not like bird’s eggs. These were really big, green, blue and different shapes.

Some were round, some were long and oval-shaped.

Looking at all the clues it became obvious that we had been visited by a dinosaur.

So, we now need to find out more about dinosaurs and discover if one could really have visited our class. We’ll keep on investigating and learning and I’m sure we’ll have the answers soon.