Reception 

Welcome to FS2

Our Goal

Our goal in Reception is to ensure that all children get the best possible start in life. We aim to achieve this by offering an enabling environment that supports them to succeed as happy and unique individuals. We pride ourselves on providing a safe, nurturing and language rich environment, where children are inspired to learn and fulfil their potential. We provide all children with strong foundational knowledge ensuring they have the building blocks needed to aid them through their journey, in receiving a happy and successful life in education.

Our Aims

We aim to:

• Create a stimulating learning environment which ensures each child achieves their full potential
• Ensure that every child receives a broad and balanced education of the highest standard, and are helped to discover their individual strengths
• Maintain a safe, caring, happy community where every child believes they matters and each child feels safe, nurtured, loved and supported by emotionally available adults
• Provide children with the skills and strategies they need to become emotionally resilient and literate individuals
• Encourage respect for each other and for the environment
• Create self-motivated, self-disciplined, confident, independent thinkers
• Nurture the spiritual, moral, social, emotional and physical wellbeing of each individual for life
• Establish strong partnerships with families and the community, celebrating and respecting diversity
• Develop and promote lively and inquisitive minds with the desire and skills to explore new ideas
• Foster a sense of awe and wonder, developing natural curiosity, so children enjoy learning in and out of school
• Encourage our children to believe in themselves, whist equipping them with the fundamental skills to enjoy and achieve in life
• Provide high quality interactions that develop language acquisition and oracy
• Provide children with fun and engaging opportunities that will help children to grow and learn together

Our Curriculum

We believe all children in the Early Years should have access to a broad curriculum, that includes a wide variety of challenging and enjoyable activities whilst meeting the requirements of the 2024 statutory framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage. This is shaped by the Four Overarching Principles: A Unique Child, Enabling Environments, Learning and Development and Positive Relationships.

Our curriculum has also been designed to enable every child the best possible start in life using a creative and bespoke curriculum that reflects our children and community, while providing pupils with the knowledge and skills they need at each stage of the Early Years. Our curriculum acknowledges that children learn at different rates and that each child is unique, by offering flexibility and additional support if required. We will continue to support the children’s interests, whilst also introducing them to new and engaging experiences.

In Reception we learn through a balance of play based activities, first hand experiences, as well as carefully planned adult directed tasks. Within the continuous provision we develop our social, physical and communication skills. We explore and discover the world around us focusing on our local area, the past and present and immerse ourselves in a range of stories, texts and poems. We present the children with the opportunity to think creatively, investigate and solve problems both individually and within a group.

Our Learning Environment

We are incredibly fortunate to have a wonderful outdoor space at Wybourn. The outdoors forms a fundamental aspect of our children’s learning.

The children have access to climbing equipment, bikes, a large loose parts area, mud kitchen, water play, a reading hut and a variety of open-ended resources to enhance learning. This grants children the opportunity to develop their fine and gross motor muscles, build resilience, problem solve with others and use their imagination. It is understood that all areas of learning can be achieved outside while the children’s long-term social, emotional and mental health are being enhanced.                                                 The children will also benefit from the use of the KS1 yard and play equipment during their lunchtime.

Language Rich Environment

Communication and language is the heart of our curriculum, providing for the development of children’s spoken language, whilst underpinning all 7 areas of learning. Because of this we expose the children to a language rich environment, which embeds, promotes and extends vocabulary through high quality interactions with adults, texts and provides true opportunities for children to read for pleasure. In addition, throughout the school week, children participate in Rainbow Talk, Drawing Club and Helicopter story lessons, further supporting the children’s imagination, vocabulary and language skills.

Parental Involvement

We recognise that children learn and develop well when there is a strong, positive relationship between practitioners and parents and/or carers and our curriculum underpins this.

We provide parents and/or carers with regular updates on what their child is learning through parents’ evenings and class dojo. Each child in EYFS will be assigned a key worker whose role is to help ensure that every child’s care is tailored to meet their individual needs. They will initially help each child become familiar with the setting, whilst building a relationship with each child’s parents or carers.

We actively encourage parent participation through termly workshops linked to our topics, Class Dojo, our home reading scheme, regular meetings with parents to discuss their child’s achievements at home and school and assemblies to celebrate achievements.

The Early Years Curriculum

The Early Years Curriculum has 7 areas of learning. These are:

Communication and Language

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

Physical Development

Literacy

Mathematics

Understanding the World

Expressive Arts and Design

Our inclusive curriculum is designed to meet the needs of the whole child. We ensure our learning experiences are shaped towards the children’s interests as well as meeting the coverage of the statutory framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage. In addition, we use the development matters document to support the developmental needs of each child. We also utilise the Cornerstones Curriculum to support children’s learning and ensure consistency throughout school. See below for our information about our curriculum. 

Our Curriculum