EYFS
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Our vision begins in Early Years where we develop the foundations for learning. We aim to provide children with the most positive start to their educational life, enabling all children to enjoy learning. We value each child as an individual and are determined to cater for all our children's needs, creating a collaborative and explorative environment to learn in.
We endeavour to support children so that they become confident, independent and balanced individuals who are able to reach their full potential in all areas of their development. In order to do this, we work hard to provide high quality provision both indoors and outdoors in order to develop a love of learning and collaborating. This provision is set within a safe and stimulating environment where diversity is celebrated and achievements are recognised. Our Early Years setting is the foundation for learning for the rest of our children's school career here at Applegarth, our key drivers of communication, creativity, collaboration, standing out from the crowd and application. are fostered here and then developed throughout years 1-6.
The Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum
At Applegarth Academy, we use the Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework to inform and support our planning and to enhance our assessment procedures. This guidance sets out the Early Learning Goals which children are expected to achieve by the end of reception. There are three prime areas and four specific areas included within the Early Learning Goals:
Communication and Language underpins all learning. Children throughout Applegarth from Nursery to year 6 are all asked a question as a whole class then all given the opportunity to respond in talk partners or team huddles. This way, every child has a voice and develops their language constantly in class. We understand the importance of supporting and facilitating back-and-forth interactions from an early age. At Applegarth Academy, children are supported by their peers and adults throughout the day in a language-rich environment. Practitioners will regularly comment on what children are doing, incorporate new vocabulary into conversations and echo back what children say, adding additional vocabulary as they do so. In both nursery and reception, children in engage in both rhyme time and story time each day, allowing them to become immersed in language. Children enjoy actively participating in these sessions whether through actions, discussions or song. Within our provision, we also ensure that children have a variety of opportunity to engage in role play alongside their peers, developing their own story telling and use of communication. We endeavour to make our role plays areas exciting and stimulating for the children, but role-play can happen anywhere. Practitioners enjoying engaging with children during role play or small world play through modelling or questioning, which allows children to elaborate on their story-telling and become more confident within the language structures that they use.
PSED (personal, social emotional development) is critical for very young children in all aspects of their lives and gives them the best opportunity for successes in all areas of learning. At Applegarth Academy, we strive to ensure that all children learn the skills necessary in order to work, play and co-operate with others. Children should feel safe, secure and respect themselves and others in order to develop a positive self-image. In Early Years, children learn how to build relationships with peers and adults and begin to understand how to express and regulate their emotions. As practitioners, our aim is to support and develop this through the delivery of safe and stimulating curriculum. Children will also learn how to look after their bodies, including how to eat healthily and how to manage their personal needs independently. We are a Thrive school, who supports children's well being and mental development at all stages, and our trained practitioners are able to support classes and individual children's needs on a case by case basis.
Physical Development is vital in a child’s all-round development. At Applegarth Academy, we understand that through developing a child’s physical skills, they will be able to pursue happy, healthy and active lives. Our curriculum strives to develop both the fine and gross motor skills of a child. Fine motor skills are the ability to make movements using the small muscles in our hands and wrists. Throughout their time at Applegarth Academy, children will engage with numerous activities that facilitate this including using playdoh, peg boards, tweezers, fishing rods, threading, cutting etc. Fine motor control and precision helps with hand-eye co-ordination, which is later linked to early literacy.
Gross motor skills involve using large muscles in our torso, legs and arms in a coordinated way. Within our setting, children are encouraged to practise their climbing and balance skills using our outdoor apparatus and are given time to explore, experiment and refine movements within a safe, planned and well-resourced learning environment. Our practitioners create games and provide opportunities for play both indoors and outdoors, to support children to develop their core strength, stability, balance, spatial awareness, co-ordination and agility.
Literacy teaches the children the skills they need to build and develop their phonological awareness, love for reading and their ability to write. At Applegarth Academy, we provide children with lots of opportunities around their environment to mark make, write and read. Reading is a cornerstone of our curriculum, and begins in Nursery by exposure to a variety of texts, rhymes and songs each day. This continues up the school in all year groups, with a dedicated reading programme and texts delivered to children at their level to ensure we create passionate and positive reading experiences. During these sessions, we teach essential comprehension skills to enhance inference and speech development. Children will learn how to read individual sounds, diagraphs, trigraphs and sight words. We understand the relationship between physical development and writing and so we offer a wide range of activities for children to strengthen their pencil grip in order to become fluent writers.
Mathematics teaches essential life-long skills for all children to develop and excel in. We provide children with high quality provision that is both resourceful and accessible. Children are taught how to count confidently, develop a deep understanding of the numbers to 10 and the relationships between them, including the patterns within those numbers. They learn about shape, measure and can articulate how they got their answers. By providing frequent and varied opportunities to build and apply this understanding, children will develop a secure base of knowledge and vocabulary from which mathematics is built. At Applegarth Academy, we aim to provide rich opportunities where children learn across all areas of mathematics. It is vital that children develop positive attitudes and interests in mathematics, observing patterns, relationships and spotting connections.
Understanding the World focuses on guiding children to make sense of their physical world and their community. At Applegarth Academy, we encourage the children to share their experiences from home, to help broaden everyone’s knowledge and understanding of different cultures and heritages. We learn about different celebrations throughout the year and encourage the children to try foods from around the world. We endeavor to ensure that our resources reflect our diverse community, allowing every child to see themselves. We spend time looking at different people in our community and use our role-play areas to provide hands-on experiences. Our children can be anything from firefighters to postal workers, police officers to bus drivers or even doctors and vets. This helps to build their knowledge and develop their vocabulary, which will later support their reading comprehension. Practitioners facilitate children’s natural curiosity through providing opportunities for children to explore the world around them, including the effect of different seasons and changes in states of matter. We talk about nature and the world around us, respecting life and understanding and learning about the natural world and creating an ethos of exploration and conservation for the future of our planet.
Expressive Arts and Design encompasses all things creative and imaginative. At Applegarth Academy, we provide a rich creative environment to ensure the children have the opportunity to explore and develop their creative side. The children will have opportunities to create music, dance, sing and perform. They have access to a wide variety of art materials to allow them to plan and design an original piece of artwork or sculpture. We look at artists and model artistic techniques to children, skills which they will develop throughout their school career. We change our role-plays frequently to provide our children with broad experiences linked to our themes, creating imaginative play ideas and adults supporting and nurturing this. The children also have opportunities to perform for their parents, as well as times where we will have creative opportunities for parents to come in and engage and use their imaginations too!