fferent cultures and values
· creating a purposeful atmosphere, where teachers can focus on teaching and pupils on learning
· working closely with you, the parents/carers and respecting the fact that you are experts in the knowledge of your own child.
The content of the curriculum is planned in the seven areas of learning & development
THREE PRIME AREAS:
· Communication and Language –developing skills and confidence in speaking and listening in a range of situations.
· Physical Development – developing co-ordination, control, and movement through being active.
· Personal, Social and Emotional Development – within clear boundaries and expectations, the forming of positive relationships, developing social skills and respect for others and understanding appropriate behaviour.
FOUR SPECIFIC AREAS:
· Literacy – developing skills by encouraging your child to link sounds and letters and to begin to read and write. Providing access to a wide range of reading materials (books, poems, and other written materials) to ignite their interest. Opportunities are provided daily for developing fine motor skills and handwriting is formally taught and practised every day in reception.
· Mathematics – involves providing your child with opportunities to develop and improve their skills in counting, understanding and using numbers, calculating simple addition and subtraction problems; and to describe shapes, spaces, and measures.
· Understanding the World – finding out about people, places, technology and the environment.
· Expressive Arts and Design – exploring a wide range of media and sharing their thoughts, ideas and feelings through a variety of activities in art, music, movement, dance, role-play, and design and technology.
Your child will learn through:
· Playing and exploring
· Learning actively
· Creating and thinking critically
In the Foundation Stage teachers make professional judgments about the balance between activities led or guided by adults and those led by the children. This balance will shift towards more activities led by adults as children move from early years and towards Year 1.
Adult directed activities are those which are directed by the adult and are useful in the teaching of specific skills such as demonstrating how to use tools or equipment. In our Reception class, daily teaching of literacy and maths starts from the outset and is a key part of our curriculum.
Adult guided activities are those which the adult initiates. These activities are often playful or experiential. They are open ended and motivate a keen interest in learning.
Child initiated experiences take place within an environment the adult has set up and planned but will be wholly decided upon by the child, based on the child’s own motivation and remains under the child’s control.
· Daily maths and literacy lessons in reception
· Nature Detectives (outdoor learning)
· Circle time – SPED/CL
· P.E. indoors/outdoors
· Arts and crafts
· Role play corner/activities
· Sensory table
· Carousel of activities in reception (to support focus work)
· 1-1 reading
· Guided reading
· Regular writing challenges
· Exploration of technology
· Regular maths and literacy opportunities
More on our Early Years Curriculum
At the Beaulieu Park School, we believe that reading is the key to unlocking learning across all other areas of the curriculum. It is for this reason that we have adopted a book-based curriculum. We have selected a range of high quality texts that we use as a starting point for each topic. After initially exploring the book, we then ask the children to help us plan their learning according to their interests. We post the book title and the children’s ideas on ‘Classdojo’ for our families to share.
Here are a few examples below from our current Reception cohort….
Every day, there are a mix of adult led and child-initiated tasks available across both classes and the outside classroom for the children to select. Most of the activities are linked to the topic and give the children a ‘starting point’ for their learning.
Alongside our topic, we teach a discrete pho