Our staff plan activities and experiences together to enable the children to develop and learn effectively in both the indoor and outdoor learning environment. 

Our staff consider the individual needs, interests, and stage of development of each child in their care, and use this information to plan challenging and enjoyable experiences. In planning and guiding children’s activities, staff reflect on the different ways that children learn (the characteristics of effective learning) and include these in their practice.    

There isn’t a moment lost in Reception as everything is an opportunity to develop skills and knowledge.  In addition to planned activities, staff provide irresistible activities to entice the children.  These activities are full of opportunities to develop the children’s learning in a range of ways.  Our highly skilled team, create opportunities to learn through these activities – for example, the children learn about social skills, phonics and numeracy as well as developing children’s motor skills, while the children just believe they are playing a game where they build towers!  

We foster a culture of curiosity, where the children are driven by what fascinates them, and the staff use their close knowledge of the children to follow and develop the children’s interests. Throughout the day the learning environment, planned and child led provocations (learning activities) are used to stimulate and deepen learning. The learning areas are continually reviewed, refreshed and enhanced for children to extend their learning through play. 

The Characteristics of Effective Learning form the basis of these different teaching methods. To help the children think about the type of learning and skills they are using, we have Sammy Squirrel (Active Learning – Motivation), Bertie Bear (Playing and Exploring- Engagement) and Ollie Owl (Creative and Critical Thinking – Thinking) who represent the three characteristics and are popular members of the class! 

Where a child may have a special educational need or disability, teachers will speak to parents and consult with our Inclusion Team to consider whether additional support is required.  If necessary, the school will refer to specialist support or relevant services from other agencies, as appropriate.  

Vocabulary and Language

The children’s day is language rich – through quality talk in their interactions with adults, (through incidental interactions, questioning etc.) the texts that are chosen as stories, (as part of our ‘5 -a-day' approach to stories, books and poems) the vocabulary in our provocations and our core teaching.  This develops language acquisition which will support them in all other areas of learning. 

Phonics and Early Reading

Phonics and Early Reading is one of the ‘Golden Threads’ that runs through everything we do. We give the children not only the tools they need to decode and understand books but a wealth of experience through different text types and genres.  This is done through daily RWInc and Word Time lessons, carefully selected phonically decodable books, enticing reading areas, and phonic strategies being used throughout the day.  Phonics and Early reading are part of our home learning policy. 

Maths

Maths is our other ‘Golden Thread’.  Maths is taught daily in teacher directed sessions, following the White Rose scheme of learning.  Formal (such as Numicon and number lines) and informal (such as beads, dinosaurs and wood slices) resources are used in lessons are modelled and accessible to the children in continuous provision. These practical resources, also know as ‘concrete resources’ allow all the children to engage with learning, building core foundational skills for number to underpin future learning.  Enhanced provision inside and outside gives children opportunities to develop mathematical skills and thinking.  They and their parents are introduced to Numbots and it is a part of our home learning policy to help develop numerical fluency. 

Learning Environments 

All these different types of learning happen both in our indoor and outdoor classrooms. Each classroom has activities and resources to encourage independent exploration and learning across our school day as part of our continuous and enhanced provision. This includes a role play area (which evolves with the children’s learning and interests), quality texts in an enticing reading area, provision for construction, arts and expressive design, space for writing, activities and resources for maths, and literacy development and a welcoming environment with a Nurture Focus.   

As part of our continuous and enhanced provision, children have daily access to our extensive and carefully planned outdoor learning environment.  Our outside ‘classroom’ contains sand, water, a digging and gardening area and these are adapted continuously to reflect the children’s learning and interests.  For example, burying treasure in the sand pit to inspire gross motor and counting skills, or challenging the children to get water from one side of the water areas to the other without using bucket to develop their problem solving and understanding of forces like gravity.  We also provide daily opportunities to extend maths and literacy alongside other skills like gross motor activities.  The children might use the bikes, - where they might write a number plate; climbing frames – where the children might recreate a trip up a volcano; the slide – where the children might experiment with different materials and learn about friction and an ever-changing array of provocations which align with the children’s learning and passions.  Nothing is ever what it seems – there are multiple layers of carefully planned learning and discovery hidden beneath the surface.