Reception
It is our belief that all children in the EYFS should have an inspiring educational experience filled with fun and stimulating opportunities to learn, that develops their curiosity and a love of learning. We understand the importance of fostering the knowledge and skills that are necessary as the foundations for their future education. We follow the Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework through the non-statutory curriculum guidance Development Matters. We enjoy extending children’s learning through focusing on their interests and weaving that into their daily curriculum and we create a rich and entertaining learning environment, with a heavy focus on outdoor learning and ‘real life’ hands on learning. We put into practice the approach of, instead of pulling children away from their play to learn, joining them in their play to extend their deeper learning. Children in the EYFS learn most successfully through play, so we entwine ourselves into their play and they create their own learning experiences with our support and guidance, helping them to develop their strengths. Our aim is for every child to reach their academic potential, which has led us to create an environment which doesn’t limit the children’s thinking, giving them open-ended stimuli. We promote inclusive strategies within our teaching environment.
Our commitment to the safeguarding and welfare of all pupils is demonstrated through the creation of a safe environment in our classrooms where all pupils feel valued and have a voice. It is our belief that children need to feel comfortable, happy and have the ability to self-regulate before they can even begin to learn.
We aim for our EYFS environment to be highly creative and dynamic on a day-to-day basis. In Reception we are very lucky to have wonderful indoor and outdoor classrooms that we learn and explore the world in! We have 2 role play areas, a small world area, sand and water areas, a maths area, writing/mark making areas, a play dough cafe, creative areas, reading areas, investigation areas and our outdoor trim trail area. We are also fortunate to have a Forest School area where we enjoy exploring the natural and physical world around us.
Throughout the year we plan exciting themes around the children’s interests; this may include themes like ‘We are story tellers’- exciting children’s stories and traditional tales, ‘Sparkly celebrations’- exploring different celebrations like Bonfire Night, Diwali and Christmas, ‘Out of this world’- exploring space, ‘Spring into life’- learning about new life and the growth of pants and animals, ‘Superheroes’ both in fiction and in real life and finally ‘Animals'. We always aim to read a variety of good quality literature including Traditional Tales and Nursery Rhymes. Children become super story tellers in Reception through a method called ‘Talk for Writing’ where we retell familiar stories by heart using props and actions to help us remember. Once children are able to tell a story they enable themselves to begin to write fun stories!
In Reception we feel very clever because we begin to learn to read words and sentences Using 'Read, Write Inc'. We start by learning to hear sounds in words and then learn what those sounds look like. We then learn to read simple words using the sounds called ‘Green Words’ and some tricky (non-decodable) words called ‘Red Words.’ When we are really good at reading these we can then get our very own reading book to share with our grown-ups at home! We also take a quality text from the library home each week to share with our family.
We understand that you are entrusting us with your most treasured possessions, and we feel privileged to be in the position of being able to inspire and motivate your children to achieve through their learning and build the foundations of their love of lifelong learning.