Mrs Hall leads the Early Years in School.
Our Intent for Early Years
At Carr Hill Primary School every child is recognised as a unique individual. In the Early Years we believe that first experiences of school should be happy and positive, enabling children to develop a lifelong love of learning.
Nurturing and developing personal, social, and emotional skills are at the heart of everything we do. All staff work as a team to create a positive, calm, caring and welcoming atmosphere where all children feel secure yet challenged in order to achieve their full potential.
We aim to develop children’s knowledge, skills and understanding through a combination of both play-based learning and more focused teacher led sessions. This creates independence but also supports, challenges and extends all children.
Our Implementation for Early Years
We plan and assess children in Early Years using a document called Birth to 5 Matters. This organises assessment into prime and specific areas of learning, as detailed below.
Prime Areas
- Personal, Social and Emotional Development
- Physical Development
- Communication and Language development
Specific Areas
- Literacy
- Mathematics
- Understanding the World
- Expressive Arts and Design
Within this framework there are developmental steps leading towards 17 Early Learning Goals (ELG’s). If a child achieves these goals by the end of the reception year, then they are said to be working at the expected level.
We understand play is essential for children’s development. The curriculum is planned by following a play-based approach. Each day we provide playful experiences both indoors and outdoors. We follow the plan, do, review cycle to allow play to become more purposeful and focused. This allows children to solve problems, work with others and accomplish their goals. Adults act as play partners to support, challenge and extend play.
The daily routine plans for a combination of whole class and small group teaching. Reception children follow Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Programme and White Rose for maths. Nursery children work on phase 1 letters and sounds activities.
Adults in the Early Years meet daily to reflect on learning, plan next steps and enhancement opportunities to the environment that follow children’s interests and engage children’s learning further.
All enhancements and planned activities aim to support the Characteristics of Effective Learning as defined in the Birth to 5 Matters framework. These are:
- Playing and exploring – children show curiosity, investigate and experience things and ‘have a go’.
- Active Learning – children maintain focus, show high levels of motivation and keep trying if they encounter difficulties and are proud of achievements.
- Creating and Thinking Critically- children find ways to solve problems, make links, test their ideas and review how well their approach worked.
We record any significant evidence on an online application called Seesaw. We upload observations, photographs, and videos of the children. Parents and carers can access Seesaw on their own electronic devices and comment on what is happening in school. We encourage parents and carers to share their child’s home learning journey onto to Seesaw which staff can comment on too. We also invite parents/carers into school regularly to engage in workshops to find out how they can support their child at home and to arts and crafts days.
We aim to give children first-hand experiences to spark interest and support and engage children in learning. We do this through inviting visitors to the school such as dentists and community police officers and through regular outdoor educational visits to the library, woods, beach, farm etc.
The Impact of Early Years
The first few years of a child’s life is crucial for brain development. Therefore, creating a safe and nurturing learning environment where children feel ready and able to learn is vital. We constantly strive to do this by gaining trust from children and maintaining positive relationships with parents and carers.
From their varied starting points, we aim to ensure that all children make good progress in all areas of learning. Using the Characteristics of Effective Learning we help build children’s resilience and independence. Towards to end of Reception we prepare and enable children to be ready for the more formal structure of Key Stage One.
In the Early Years we lay foundations for each child’s educational life and so it this crucial that we make a positive impact on each and every child. Our job is to excite and inspire the children we teach, and ensure they move on to the next stage of their educational development with a positive attitude towards learning, that hopefully lasts for a lifetime!
Planning
Curriculum Overviews
Nursery Long Term Plan
Reception Long Term Plan
