Throughout Nursery and Reception, we follow the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum. Great emphasis is placed on the Characteristics of Effective Learning.

Playing and exploring – engagement.  This includes finding out and exploring, playing with what they know and being willing to ‘have a go’.

Active learning – motivation.  This includes being involved and concentrating, perseverance and enjoying achieving what they set out to do.

Creating and thinking critically – thinking.  This includes having their own ideas, making links and choosing ways to do things.

The curriculum is organised so that children learn through a combination of child and adult-led activities.  They have an hour each morning when they choose their own activities, selecting resources independently and setting themselves goals.  Phonics, reading, writing and mathematics are taught through adult-led activities in discrete lessons. Our core scheme for Phonics is Letters and Sounds.  In reading our core scheme is Oxford Reading Tree which is complemented by a range of books which are leveled using the Book Bands categories.  An important part of the week is ‘Welly Wednesday’ when the children spend the morning outside in almost any weather; the adult guiding them and developing their interests as and when they arise. This experiential learning opportunity is further enhanced back in class where they report back on their learning and further develop their writing and maths skills.