Nursery Curriculum
All of our Early Years teachers are specialised in teaching the Early Years Foundation Stage and have a passion for delivering excellent teaching and learning. Research has shown how important it is for children’s overall academic achievement to have a good ‘foundation’ to their learning in the Early Years. At All Saints’ Primary school we recognise this importance and have continued to make the development of our Early Years setting a priority.
We built a brand new dedicated outside learning area just for our Early Years children. We offer the children ‘free-flow’ opportunities during the times when they are not doing focussed learning with an adult. This allows the children to move freely between the indoor and outdoor areas, and enhancing the opportunities for learning.
At All Saints’ Primary School we provide an outstanding Nursery education.
We deliver an exciting, enquiry-led curriculum, which follows the children’s interests to maximise their learning. A Nursery session will be divided up between whole-class teaching sessions, small group focussed activities with an adult, and ‘child-initiated’ learning which is led by the child but enhanced by an adult. Our observations of the children result in targeted ‘next-steps’ being set for each child. These in turn inform our planning and ensure that each child continues to be challenged during their time in Nursery.
Our nursery teachers deliver the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum in a fun, exciting manner, where children are nurtured and supported throughout their learning journey.
Our stimulating indoor and outdoor environment, encourage children to learn through self-initiated exploratory play, together with carefully planned activities, which are tailored towards individual children’s needs and interests. We ensure that children can learn by playing and exploring, being active, and through creative and critical thinking.
Each term we focus our learning around a different topic each half term so 6 are covered over the year. You can find out more from the newsletter that your nursery teacher sends out at the beginning of each term.
Each week we send home a brief outline of some our learning that week and what we will be learning about the following week. We send home suggestions of how you can support your child’s learning at home and send home a short activity for your child to complete with you at home.
If you want to know what an average day will look like for your child in Nursery at All Saints' have a look at 'a day in the life of a Nursery child.' The Nursery Gallery gives you more photos of children during their day or example activities, they may be doing.
If you would like your child to come to Nursery at All Saints' please call the school office to arrange a visit or apply online directly with the school. You can find out more about our Admissions Policy here.
The EYFS Curriculum
There are 7 areas of learning and development, which apply to nursery age children. At All Saints' we deliver the learning objectives in our curriculum through focussed activities with an adult both as a whole class and in small groups as well as through a range of carefully-planned play based activities.
PRIME AREAS
- Personal, Social and Emotional Development – We do weekly small group ‘circle-times’, introducing and teaching the important skills that children need in order to develop emotionally, socially and personally. We use turn-taking games, teach how to recognise emotions and teach children the language needed to take turns, make friends and resolve disputes. As a church of England School, we also cover a topic each term based around one of our Christian values. We use bible stories and props to help support our teaching and routines such as our end of day prayer are a key part of our routine.
- Communication and Language – Much of the Early Years curriculum is focussed on developing communication and language. We plan in lots of opportunities for our children to practise speaking and listening through practical activities such as role-play and drama. Turn-taking games and small – world scenes. We also use Pie Corbett’s recognised scheme, ‘Talk for Writing’. We use a storybook as our focus, map it out and re-tell it simply and by heart using actions and gestures. This has been proven to improve children’s vocabulary as well as giving children the confidence to speak publicly. Throughout the year we perform our short story re-tellings for parents and carers.
- Physical Development – Our focus is on developing our children’s fine motor and gross motor skills . Throughout the week we do a ‘dough-gym’ session where we work with playdough in time to music, building up the muscles in our hands. We plan in activities such as threading, pegging or mark-making which encourages skill and dexterity with our hands and prepare our hands for writing!
SPECIFIC AREAS
- Literacy – Lots of opportunities for writing around our setting for example, menu writing in the mud kitchen or writing shopping lists in our class grocery shop. We also encourage this early ‘mark-making’ in all of its forms whether it be writing in the sand or in foam, mark – making with paintbrushes and water on a sunny day or making marks using sticks in the mud kitchen. Mark-making is our early writing and we celebrate it!
- Mathematics – math’s is everywhere and we bring it into almost all of our curriculum whether it be paying for our fruit at the snack table or filling and emptying different sized containers in the water tray. We also teach it throughout the week with whole class learning sessions focussed on shape or number and use fun and visual ways of demonstrating counting such as through number songs with props.
- Understanding the World – We learn about the world around us through our enquiry-led topics that centre around a question we would like to find out about. We look carefully at the world around us in our outside areas and compare with other habitats. We talk about our families and celebrate what makes us and our families unique.
- Expressive Arts and Design – While teaching skills the children need such as cutting, sticking and colour-mixing and using different materials, we also provide children with all of the resources and equipment the children may need to develop their ideas.
Induction to Nursery
We have a structured induction programme for our Nursery children including home visits with parents and carers, a staggered start, careful planning of resources and gradual introduction of the class routines. We understand that every child is different and we work carefully with parents and caregivers to ensure that your child has the best start to their time in Nursery and can settle into the routines of Nursery.
Transition to Reception
In the Summer term, we have a structured transition programme for the children introducing them to the Reception teachers and their new classrooms, staff, as well as involvement in whole school initiatives and assemblies. The Year 1 and Reception teachers work closely together to ensure a smooth transition and the children begin Year 1 with a structure to their day very similar to Reception.