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Ashfield Park Primary

 

 

 

Ashfield Park Early Years 

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Click Here To Visit Reception  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

INTENT
  • To develop all children as individuals and provide them with the knowledge, concepts and skills that will enable and inspire them to succeed in life, particularly as they move on into the next stage of their educational journey.
  • To provide a broad and balanced early years curriculum, incorporating all 7 areas of learning in the EYFS.
  • To embed the Characteristics of Effective Teaching and Learning – Play and Exploration, Active Learning and Creative and Critical Thinking which will help equip children with core skills they can apply in a range of situations.
  • To promote the school values and British values through the Early Years Curriculum which support pupils’ personal, social and emotional development.
  • To provide a language rich environment where children’s speech, language and communication needs are prioritised.
  • To develop independent learning that will lead to high quality outcomes.
  • To ensure that all young children are given high expectations and are able to fulfil their potential regardless of their backgrounds or additional needs.
  • Nurture pupils’ physical and mental health, particularly their resilience, equippingthem with the skills and knowledge to maintain good health throughout their lives.
  • To develop a love of reading, writing and number through adult directed and self-chosen tasks.
  • Enable pupils’ creativity to flourish through a wide range of learning opportunities and teaching methods.
  • Promote a love of learning, encouraging pupils to become curious, inquiring and independent learners with ‘broader horizons’ and high aspirations for their futures.
  • Promote the development of pupils’ individual interests, strengths and hobbies and effectively utilise the expertise and special interests of members of staff and the wider community.
  • To value imagination and creativity by providing a wide range of opportunities and skilful adult interactions through a vibrant continuous indoor and outdoor provision alongside trips, visits and regular forest school sessions.
IMPLEMENTATION

At Ashfield Park Primary and Nursery, we offer an early year’s curriculum which is broad and balanced and which builds on the knowledge, understanding and skills of all children, whatever their starting points. We follow the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum using stories, topic themes and enrichment opportunities. The children learn through a balance of child initiated and adult directed activities.

 

The aim of our curriculum is to develop a thirst and love for learning by:

 

  • Carefully planning sequences of activities that provide meaningful learning experiences, developing each child’s characteristics of learning.
  • Providing high quality interactions with adults that demonstrate and impact on the progress of all children.
  • Using high quality questioning and interactions to check understanding and address misconceptions.
  • Teaching the school values of respect, resilience, courage, acceptance and pride through discussions and activities relating to thoughts, feelings and ideas.
  • Ensuring all children are screened using the WELLCOMM tool to identify those who have delayed language and communication skills. These pupils then receive regular interventions to address these individual needs.
  • Staff acting as role models to the children they teach in order for them to develop their own speaking and listening skills.
  • Carefully observing and assessing children’s abilities and recording these individually. (Tapestry in Nursery and individual Learning Journeys in Reception.) These are regularly shared with parents and are used to inform the next steps of learning and meet individual needs.

Allowing children to be successful in their attempts at an activity and using effective feedback to help facilitate next steps in learning.

  • Developing an effective, challenging and engaging environment that is set up so that children can access all areas of learning both inside and outside at any one time.

Making use of our Forest School and school grounds to develop children’s love of learning across all areas of the curriculum as well as our school values.

  • Providing a balance of child initiated and adult directed activities that enhance children’s learning and impact on progress.

 

In Reception, the timetable is carefully structured so there is daily focused teaching focusing on English, Maths and Reading. Phonics is taught each day in reception using the Essential Letters and Sounds scheme which ensures that reading is at the heart of our curriculum.

This scheme is also introduced in our Nursery focusing on initial sounds and mnemonic rhymes used to identify letters and sounds.

 

Staff Work closely with parents by sharing information and developing home learning opportunities so they can build on their child’s school experiences at home.

Literacy and Maths opportunities are also promoted in many of the continuous provision activities available to children during the week.

 

The Early Years Literacy planning follows a topic teaching approach and introduces the children to core texts. Each new topic usually starts with an exciting hook based on a story to engage children in both the topic and the book. We have developed our own suggested text list for the Early Years which have been chosen for their level of challenge and quality of language. They have also been chosen with a view to promoting reading for pleasure.

 

The maths curriculum is based on the N.C.E.T.M Mastering number scheme and is taught through short dedicated daily maths lessons in Reception.  These sessions are carefully planned using concrete resources and accompanied by slides. These always build on prior learning. This starts with mastering numbers 0-5 and then progresses through to 0-10 and 0-20. We want our children to become confident mathematicians who can apply what they have learnt to real life experiences.

In Nursery, pupils begin to develop key skills where they explore sorting, quantity, shape, number and counting through practical activities.

 

We provide an inclusive approach that allows all children to learn together but support and additional interventions are provided for those who are not reaching their full potential. Children are identified in their pre-school year or on entry to Reception for inclusion in our Nurture Group. They attend this small group every morning, run by our SEND Co Ordinator and TA. They then return to Reception for the afternoon activities.

 

Weekly Forest school sessions are run for children in Early Years; these support a range of skills, link to class teaching and develop play and social interactions. All seven areas of learning and our school values are encompassed within these sessions and allow all children to take risks, supported by adults, in an environment whilst developing leadership skills and promoting mental health and wellbeing.

 

The Phase leader regularly monitors teaching and learning in the EYFS so all staff develop a good subject knowledge and are effectively supported. Staff Meetings are held regularly and are early years specific.

IMPACT

The impact of the curriculum is monitored in a number of ways:

 

Our curriculum needs to meet the needs of all our pupils, including those who are disadvantaged in any way and those with SEND.

We spend a lot of time observing and evaluating how children are learning. We talk to children, look at their work, observing them learning in play and structured situations and analysing data and progress.

Staff across the EYFS use a Development Matters tracking document to record progress. Where children not meeting age related expectations, these are noted. We are then able to track them from starting points and then plan learning experiences to ensure progress. 

 

Through regular monitoring and observations by senior leaders, Pupil Progress Meetings, data reviews and governor monitoring visits, children demonstrate high levels of engagement in activities and demonstrate they are developing and extending their speaking and listening skills. This enables them to access more areas of the learning and communicate to both adults and children.

Many children arrive at our setting with lower starting points than national, particularly in language and Communication. During their time in the EYFS, children make rapid progress towards their age-related expectations for GLD at the end of their Reception year in preparation for transition into Year 1.

 

In July 2023 73% of children achieved GLD on the EYFS Profile.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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