Our Curriculum

Planning Our

Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum

Our curriculum is designed around the needs of our young children and is organised into seven areas of Learning and Development.

These are:

• Personal, Social and Emotional Development

• Physical Development

• Communication and Language

• Mathematics

• Literacy

• Understanding the World

• Expressive Arts & Design

Here are the main components of each of the seven areas.
 

Personal, Social and Emotional experiences are about:

• Self confidence & awareness

• Managing feelings and behaviour

• Making relationships

   

Physical Development experiences are about:

• Moving and handling

• Health and self care

• Developing an awareness of different parts of the body

Communication and Language experiences are about:

• Listening and attention

• Understanding
• Speaking

Literacy experiences are about:

• Reading
• Writing

Mathematics experiences are about:

• Numbers

• Shapes, space and measures

   

Understanding the World experiences are about:

• People and communities

• The world

• Technology

Expressive Arts & Design experiences are about:

• Exploring and using media and materials

• Being imaginative

We plan through a topic based approach. To keep you well informed about the children’s activities our plans are displayed:-

• On the Notice Board in the cloakroom (long, medium and short term planning)

• On the school website (long term planning)

Throughout the year we organise several exciting activities, outings and visits/visitors to enhance the children’s learning.

Our Nursery School considers the all round development of your child. We provide opportunities which enable your child to; exercise options and express ideas, reflect on experience and information, share thoughts, make decisions, make discoveries and explore and engage in first hand experiences.

Our allocation of time, space and equipment will provide opportunities for your child to develop to their potential, physically, linguistically, intellectually, emotionally, socially and morally. Through carefully planned activities we support and enhance your child's learning ensuring they make at least good progress over time. We plan themes on an annual basis (long term plans) but these are not 'set in stone' and are fluid to address the ever growing and changing needs of all our children. We seem them as more of a 'working document'!

Plans for the medium term (monthly of half term) and short term (bi-weekly) are displayed in school. If you would like a hard copy to take home, please just ask.

Letters and Sounds

In Nursery School we use the Letters and Sounds Phase 1 materials to promote, encourage and enhance children's early phonics skills. There are a series of games and activities included in the document which can be used 1-1 or in small groups.  It is very important that children are able to discriminate between different sounds before being able to sound them out verbally.  There are seven aspects to Phase 1 which we plan to cover during your child's time with us.  Please see the PDF just below for more information.  

Throughout Phase 1 of Letters and Sounds children will:

•  develop their language structures;
•  increase their vocabulary;
•  begin to distinguish between sounds in words;
•  speak clearly and audibly;
•  become familiar with rhyme, rhythm and alliteration;
•  listen attentively;
•  explore and experiment with sounds and words;

Activities to support learning in Phase 1 include:

•  storytelling;
•  singing songs;
•  listening to rhymes and repeating patterns and refrains;
•  playing alliterative games;
•  using creative language in role play, drama and dance;
•  identifying sounds in names, words in the environment etc.

We also explore Phase 2 of Letters and Sounds, and this is where we use 'Jolly Phonics'. Jolly Phonics is a programme for children that builds a thorough foundation for reading and writing. It’s method of teaching the letter sounds in a fun way. In Jolly Phonics the 42 main sounds of English are taught, not just the alphabet. Phoneme pronunciation is key to accurate blending. It is ‘ssssss’ not ‘suh’. We want a pure sound, without the ‘uh’ at the end.

Jolly Phonics

As part of our phonics teaching we also use the 'Jolly Phonics' programme to complement the 'Letters and Sounds' materials. Our 'Letters and Sounds' display in the creative room shows you which sounds we are focusing on, and the work that children do in school as a result.