Early Years Foundation Stage (Nursery & Reception)

Children in our Reception class will undertake a range of learning assessed, planned and developed under the following headings:

Prime Areas:

• Personal, Social and Emotional Development
• Communication and Language
• Physical Development

Specific Areas:

• Literacy
• Mathematics
• Understanding the World
• Expressive Arts and Design

In Reception children learn through a balance of child initiated play and adult directed activities. Purposeful play takes up around 80% of the curriculum with children engaged in learning at their own age and stage led and managed by skilled professionals within the Reception unit.

During their time in Reception the children will continue on their journey of learning to read and write. We aim to provide a print rich learning environment for our pupils and to encourage them to make marks in all areas of the curriculum. Children begin taking home books to read with parents and carers within the first weeks of school and have daily phonics sessions four times every week. We do not follow one specific reading scheme instead we have a range of books which are banded into colour groupings for the children to choose from.  Within phonics sessions children will be introduced to the letters and blends of letters within the ‘Letters and Sounds’ phases. These sessions are supported by resources from the ‘Jolly Phonics’ scheme.

Children also begin their mathematical journey, learning to recognise numbers and shapes and then assign meaning to these numbers, understanding ‘the threeness of three!’ We introduce the children to our ‘Big Maths Beat That’ scheme in Reception helping them to practice adding numbers and beginning to recognise their number bonds to 10.

A crucial part of our Reception unit is the outdoors. We have a very natural outdoor space attached to our Reception unit which is completely safe and secure. All seven areas of the curriculum are represented in the outdoor and indoor provision and children are allowed to flow freely from one to the other.

For more information about Reception please refer to the document below: