Our EYFS
Shanklea Primary School
EYFS
Shanklea Nursery and Shanklea Squirrels have been set up by the Governing Body of Shanklea Primary School to extend the provision for children in the catchment area of the school.
Admissions
Shanklea Monkey's 0-3 years
Shanklea Squirrels – 2-3 Year olds
Shanklea Nursery – 3-4 Year olds
Shanklea Reception - 4 – 5 Year olds
The children are admitted to the Shanklea Squirrels the term after their second birthday. These children attend an afternoon session. The Nursery children are admitted the term after their third birthday where they will also attend an afternoon session including their lunch prior to starting the session. There will also be a nursery session for those older children who will be starting Reception the following academic year and they attend Nursery in the morning session followed by lunch.
The Reception children are admitted the in the September after their fourth birthday.
Staff
EYFS LEADER – Mrs K Laughton
Nursery Leader – Mrs Spencer
Squirrels Leader – Mrs L Connelly
Reception Leader – Mrs K Laughton
Reception Teacher - Mrs M Short
Teaching Assistants
Key Workers
All children are assigned a key worker in the EYFS there will be a 1:8 ratio in Nursery and 1:4 in the Shanklea Squirrels. A child’s key worker will greet the child on arrival and be the main point of call for parents. Key workers will be displayed along with their children at the main entrance.
Curriculum
All activities are based around a thematic approach throughout our EYFS. There is a mixture of child initiated and adult led activities. These are all focused around the seven areas of learning. The children have their own input into topics and staff follow the children’s interests. Our children are active and inquisitive learners who are creative and think critically. We ensure our teaching is of high quality and meets the needs of the range of children in Early Years. Our teaching nurtures, engages and motivates children, includes a broad range of educational activities and is based on accurate assessments of children’s learning and development, so that activities and experiences meet their needs.
Learning and Play Opportunities
The characteristics of learning underpin the ethos and values of our EYFS Curriculum . Children’s attitudes to learning, including their participation and willingness to make choices and decisions, and the extent to which children are active and inquisitive learners who are creative and think critically are all part of our learning and play opportunities.
The nursery plans topics on a half-termly basis. All areas of learning are planned for during each session. Planning meetings are held weekly to ensure a balanced and coherent set of activities are prepared for the children.
How we provide for development and learning
Children start to learn about the world around them from the moment they are born. The care and education offered by our setting helps children to continue to do this by providing all of the children with interesting activities that are appropriate for their age and stage of development.
The Areas of Development and Learning comprise:
3 prime areas
- Personal, Social and Emotional Development;
- Communication and language
- Physical Development
4 specific areas
- Literacy
- Mathematical Development
- Understanding the World
- Expressive Arts and Design.
For each area, the practice guidance sets out the Early Learning Goals. These goals state what it is expected that children will know and be able to do by the end of the reception year of their education.
The practice guidance also sets out in ‘Development Matters’ the likely stages of progress a child makes along their learning journey towards the early learning goals. Our setting has regard to these matters when we assess children and plan for their learning.
Personal, social and emotional development
Our programme which includes SCARF as followed by the main school, supports children to develop:
- positive approaches to learning and finding out about the world around them;
- confidence in themselves and their ability to do things, and valuing their own achievements;
- their ability to get on, work and make friendships with other people, both children and adults;
- their awareness of, and being able to keep to, the rules which we all need to help us to look after ourselves, other people and our environment;
- their ability to expect to have their ways of doing things respected and to respect other people's ways of doing things.
Communication and Language
Our programme supports children to develop:
- conversational skills with one other person, in small groups and in large groups to talk with and listen to others
- their vocabulary by learning the meaning of - and being able to use - new words
- their ability to use words to describe their experiences
- their ability to listen to and talk about stories
Physical development
Our programme supports children to develop
- increasing control over the large movements that they can make with their arms, legs and bodies, so that they can run, jump, hop, skip, roll, climb, balance and lift
- increasing control over the small movements they can make with their arms, wrists and hands, so that they can pick up and use objects, tools and materials
- their understanding about the importance of, and how to look after their bodies
- their ability to dress and undress themselves, and look after their personal hygiene needs
Literacy
Our programme which includes activities from Read, Write Inc supports children to develop:
- their knowledge of the sounds and letters that make up the words we use;
- knowledge of how to handle books and that they can be a source of stories and information
- knowledge of the purposes for which we use writing
- making their own attempts at writing
Mathematical Development
Our programme supports children to develop:
- their understanding and ideas about how many, how much, how far and how big.
- their understanding and ideas about patterns, the shape of objects and parts of objects, and the amount of space taken up by objects.
- their understanding that numbers help us to answer questions about how many, how much, how far and how big.
- their understanding and ideas about how to use counting to find out how many.
- early ideas about the result of adding more or taking away from the amount we already have.
- We also follow the Mastering Number programme from the NECTM
Understanding of the world
Our programme supports children to develop:
- knowledge about the natural world and how it works
- knowledge about the made world and how it works
- their learning about how to choose, and use the right tool for a task
- their learning about computers, how to use them and what they can help us to do
- their skills on how to put together ideas about past and present and the links between them
- their learning about their locality and its special features
- their learning about their own and other cultures.
Expressive Arts and Design
Our programme supports children to develop:
- the use of paint, materials, music, dance, words, stories and role-play to express their ideas and feelings
- their interest in the way that paint, materials, music, dance, words, stories and role-play can be used to express ideas and feelings.
Phonics
Please see Read Write Inc for details on our approach to phonics teaching and learning.
Assessment
We assess how young children are learning and developing by observing them frequently. We use information that we gain from observations, as well as from photographs of the children, to document their progress and where this may be leading them.
All our children will have access to our online Tapestry learning journal. This will ensure a two way partnership for parents and staff to report on a child’s progress and share their journey in Nursery. These Journals are available for parents to access 24 hrs a day. We believe that parents know their children best and we ask them to contribute to assessment by sharing information about what their child likes to do at home and how they as parents are supporting development.
Staff and parents working together on their children's Learning Journals is one of the ways in which the key person and parents work in partnership. Your child's Learning Journal helps us to celebrate together her/his achievements and to work together to provide what your child needs for her/his well-being and to make progress.
Your child's key person will work with you to keep this record. To do this you and she/he will collect information about your child's needs, activities, interests and achievements. This information will enable the key person to identify your child's stage of progress.
At the end of a child’s Nursery education they will receive a transition report which will go home and also sent to their Reception class.
At the end of the reception year (end of EYFS) we will assess a child against the EYFS profile. This is against the Early Learning Goals.
Our Environment
Physical Environment
We provide a highly stimulating and exceptional organisation of the educational programme it reflects rich, varied and imaginative experiences that meet the needs of all children exceedingly well.
The EYFS operates on the best practice for Early years and ensures that procedures are in place for the EYFS to be an attractive working environment and offers a warm and welcome to the children and their carers. The school has adaptations for children and carers with disabilities.
The children have access to high quality both indoor and outdoor environments.
How parents take part in the setting
Our setting recognises parents as the first and most important educators of their children. All of the staff see themselves as partners with parents in providing care and education for their child. There are many ways in which parents take part in making the setting a welcoming and stimulating place for children and parents, such as:
- exchanging knowledge about their children's needs, activities, interests and progress with the staff;
- sharing their own special interests with the children;
- helping to provide, make and look after the equipment and materials used in the children's play activities;
- taking part in events and informal discussions about the activities and curriculum provided by the setting;
- joining in community activities in which the setting takes part
- building friendships with other parents in the setting.