Intent

At St Aelred’s, our families, our school and our church work together to provide our children with the best possible start to their life long journey of learning. Building strong relationships is paramount for both children and adults. Each child feels safe, secure and valued because they are. Each child knows that they play a special role in the St Aelred’s Community.

Following the lead of our patron saint, St Aelred, children learn the importance of friendship and kindness through what they see and hear around school. Our Nursery and Reception children work and play together and experience a consistent approach that ensures a smooth transition when starting full time education.

 

At St. Aelred’s we believe that our curriculum should reflect the needs of all our children and allow each to explore their own interests. This instils positive attitudes towards learning and empowers children to be confident, independent, and resilient. We are passionate about encouraging self-motivated learners and this is reflected in a well-planned, focussed, flexible and challenging curriculum.

By living life in all its fullness and through our whole school values of friendship, courage and respect we aim to develop:

• successful learners who are curious, take risks and are resilient;
• confident children who can live safe, healthy and fulfilling lives;
• responsible citizens who respect and make a positive contribution to the community and world around them.

Ensuring good language and communication skills are a priority, each child will be equipped with a voice that can be heard and understood as well as the confidence to face any challenge that comes their way.

Implementation

A Unique Child

At St Aelred’s we believe all children are special and unique. Our curriculum is focussed on the needs of our children, especially our most disadvantaged. Our early years curriculum is the cultural capital that prepares our children for the rest of their lives as lifelong learners and responsible citizens. We aim for the children to leave our EYFS filled with awe and wonder of the world in which they live. We know that children benefit most from a flexible curriculum that builds on what they understand and know already. When children first arrive at St Aelred’s, staff quickly build relationships with children and families and establish children’s prior knowledge and experiences. We strive to provide learning opportunities that build on prior learning and interests, extend their knowledge, strengthen skills and provide rich experiences that foster a lifelong love of learning.

Learning and Development

Our teachers have an excellent understanding of Early Years pedagogy. Underpinned by our assessment checkpoints, everything, from the simplest of daily routines to the delivery of adult-led sessions is carefully planned for and considered to best meet the needs of the children. Every day children learn through extended child-initiated play sessions. These are supported by high quality adult interactions and interspersed with structured adult led teaching sessions to ensure curriculum coverage and progression. Throughout the day, staff provide children with meaningful opportunities to develop the characteristics of effective learning. The characteristics of effective learning are discussed and celebrated with the whole class at the end of each session so that children are made aware of the attributes that make one a good learner.

We aim to provide first hand experiences, initiated by children’s interests, taking our children beyond the setting and into the local community and beyond. These experiences lend themselves to some of the richest learning opportunities. We invite members of the local community to talk to the children and engage in special whole school events and celebrations to enrich the curriculum with further learning opportunities for our children. Our resources, core texts and planned learning opportunities underpinned by our progressive checkpoints reflect the diversity of our local as well as global community.

‘Wow moments’ are shared with parents on our online learning journal ‘tapestry’ and parents are invited to share ‘wow moments’ from home here too. Children benefit from the opportunity to share and celebrate these moments with their peers during whole class learning reviews. Parent and teacher meetings take place at least termly. Here, individuals’ next steps are discussed and these feed into future planning.

Metacognition

We believe that helping children to develop their metacognitive and executive function skills should be central to learning in the EYFS, which is why we have trained all our EYFS staff in teaching the skill of ‘self regulation’ to our youngest school members. We know that this is a fundamental skill for life. Our learning environment has been developed to provide calm spaces, such as our sensory room, our ‘Nest’ as well as communication friendly spaces and areas for role play. Our daily timetable provides frequent opportunities for adults to model reflection on learning, metacognitive talk and to provide opportunities for children to comment on their own learning and feelings.

Learning through play

Learning through play and exploration is most meaningful to children and leads to deeper learning. Our timetable reflects the importance of time to engage in ‘fantastic learning’. Throughout the day, children engage in child-initiated play, guided by adults as well as adult led sessions.

Knowledge of how we learn is built into our everyday learning so that children can identify the learning power they are using and can achieve success for how they learn and not just what they learn-‘fantastic learning reviews’ happen at the end of each session so that all children can celebrate and learn from these ‘wow moments’.

Literacy and Maths

We teach specific skills of learning to read and write through consistent application of our chosen systematic synthetic phonics programme, ‘Little Wandle’. We offer opportunities to explore high quality literature through our daily ‘We love to read’ lessons as well as through promoting a love for reading at home. Maths is taught through the Mastering the Curriculum approach in Nursery and Mastering Number approach in Reception, supported by White Rose planning to ensure coverage of geometry and measure are incorporated into learning. Literacy and Maths learning opportunities are threaded through all areas of the environment to allow children to remember and embed what they have learned in class.

We love to read

‘We love to read’ sessions take place daily to support language development. This daily session incorporates sharing stories with children, involving children in story-telling, exploring non-fiction texts, specific teaching of vocabulary, learning and reciting of poems and rhymes, to instil a love of reading and to support language and cognitive development.

Enabling learning environments

We facilitate a highly stimulating indoor and outdoor environment, which encompasses open ended, natural, authentic and loose parts play provision. The environment is responsive to the needs and interests of the children. The pared back, natural approach works best to create a calmer learning space for children, improving focus and concentration and positively impacting on mental wellbeing. Children are free to explore the continuous provision (both indoors and outdoors) and follow their own interests. In addition, carefully planned enhancements are incorporated to provide opportunities to extend learning in all areas of the EYFS curriculum, supported by sensitive high-quality interactions from adults that are responsive to the children’s needs.

Resources are modelled, well organised and labelled, so that even without direct support from an adult, children can still engage in higher level play. Nursery and Reception staff work collaboratively to enhance specific areas of the provision to augment learning opportunities further and provide exciting stimulus, ignite curiosity and promote child-led learning.

High quality interactions

At St Aelred’s we believe the adult’s role is to facilitate opportunities for children to learn through thoughtful enhancements and sensitive, nurturing interactions. Our highly skilled staff are equipped with a strong knowledge of the EYFS curriculum. They quickly build strong positive relationships with the children and know each child’s areas for development. These attributes, coupled with our enabling environment allows every moment to be a ‘teachable’ moment. Throughout the day, staff support children to explore, investigate and develop their knowledge, skills, and confidence. This empowers our children to see their learning as valued and meaningful and better prepares them to become ‘lifelong learners’.

Communication and Language

Our nursery teacher has undergone ELKLAN training and has cascaded information to the team, to help us work towards achieving ‘communication friendly setting’ status for the school. A high priority is placed upon developing communication skills for all, to enable all of our children access learning opportunities and achieve. Children can access communication friendly spaces in the provision and are supported by staff who are trained in how to explicitly model language and new vocabulary.

Learning support hub

We work closely with external agencies, such as speech and language therapists (accessed through the Early talk for York initiative) as well as York’s Learning support hub, to ensure that the best advice and specialist expertise is sought to support children who have barriers to their learning. Close liaison with our school SEND coordinator also ensures that children with additional needs are identified early so that appropriate supportive strategies can be put in place alongside work with the family.

Little Explorers

Regular ‘Forest school’ style sessions take place in our orchard for Nursery and Reception children to promote a sense of awe and wonder of the natural world around us, to promote good mental health and to offer opportunities to develop vocabulary and communication skills. This is a time for children to learn to work together, build their self esteem and take risks in a controlled environment and enjoy being in the great outdoors.

 

Positive Relationships

We strive to support children in developing a sense of self through opportunities for personal, social and emotional learning. Children learn the most effective ways of living and learning collaboratively within the classroom and the wider world. Promoting emotional and physical education alongside knowledge of how to stay safe and make healthy lifestyle choices we learn about our emotions, self -regulation strategies and how to relax. To support personal, social and emotional development:

• Teachers ‘meet and greet’ each child as they arrive at school. This ensures all children feel welcomed and allows teachers to check on the child’s wellbeing.
• The ‘Feelings Monster’ story is shared with children to help them learn about their emotions and the feelings of others, using our ‘zones of regulation’ whole school model.
• An emotion check in is used when children arrive to indicate how they are feeling.
• Tapestry is used to communicate with parents about their children’s learning and achievements. Children enjoy the opportunity to share and reflect on their achievements and experiences at home and at school.
• EYFS children have access to a quiet area in the room at all times called ‘The Nest’ to offer a safe place of comfort, or a place to calm down if they are feeling dysregulated. Throughout the year adults teach children a range of calming strategies.
• Characteristics of effective learning are represented through a series of animal characters called ‘learning powers’. The use of a song and ‘fantastic learning power’ stickers to celebrate this learning helps other children to focus on their learning and know what they need to do next. Later in the Reception year, children are taught the ‘Learning Pit’ model to learn about growth mindset and to learn a range of strategies to support them in overcoming a challenge to reach a higher learning goal.
• A whole class pebble jar is used to encourage children to work together towards a shared goal and enjoy a whole class treat in recognition of this achievement.
• The children in the EYFS have access to a large outdoor area. Learning outside of the classroom encourages our children to live healthy and active lives by providing them with chances for physical activity, freedom, and movement, as well as developing a sense of well-being. The outdoor provision has been designed to provide opportunities for children to take risks in a controlled environment.
• Children participate in a regular ‘Forest schools’ style session in small groups to explore the natural world, develop communication skills and work collaboratively to overcome problems, take risks and build on their own interests and fascinations.
• Communication friendly spaces are strategically placed to ensure children have quieter spaces in the provision.
• Staff in EYFS have completed training in supporting children’s self regulation. Staff are highly skilled in identifying and naming an emotion for a child e.g. I can see you are upset…it’s ok to be angry…are you feeling worried?

Parents as partners

We work closely with parents, operating open and regular communication daily with parents in person and via our online learning journal ‘tapestry’. We hold parents’ open evenings, come and share sessions and termly parents’ meetings. Information about how to support learning at home is regularly shared as well as a half termly newsletter and curriculum update. Early years staff team meetings take place regularly to ensure a joined-up approach, allowing staff to discuss children’s development and wellbeing and to participate in CPD. This means that where a child is not making the expected progress, especially in the prime areas, staff will meet with parents as early as possible to discuss ways in which the child can be best supported in their learning.

Family Learning Sessions

As part of the Early talk for York initiative, St Aelred’s facilitates the running of York Family Learning sessions for our Early years parents. A creche is offered to enable parents with younger children to attend a weekly session with our visiting tutor who supports and develops parents’ understanding of early reading and phonics.

Impact

The impact of our Early Year approach is for children to leave Reception as:

• Confident, happy, resilient, individuals who can form positive relationships within our school community and beyond.
• Curious and ‘Fantastic learners’ that have developed the characteristics and knowledge to prepare them for the next stage of their learning journey in year 1 and beyond.
• Children with a positive attitude towards learning, showing the ability to concentrate, engage in sustained shared thinking and show enjoyment for learning.
• Well-rounded citizens who are ready to learn, respectful of others and know how to keep safe.
• Learners who have developed detailed knowledge and skills across all areas of the EYFS curriculum, most of whom achieve a good level of development at the end of the reception year.
• Learners who have a voice and are confident to communicate and share their ideas with others.