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We understand that play is an integral part of learning and this is at the heart of our Early Years Curriculum. We believe that the correct mix of adult directed and uninterrupted child-initiated play ensures the best outcomes for pupils. Warm and positive relationships between staff and children, consistent routines and strong relationships with parents are key. We recognise the crucial role that early year’s education has to play in providing firm foundations upon which the rest of a child’s education is successfully based.
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Early Years Curriculum
At Banks Lane Infant and Nursery School we meet the welfare requirements laid down in the Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage and actively safeguard and promote the welfare of all of our children. We prioritise creating a ‘language rich’ environment through the use of songs, nursery rhymes, stories and providing time for quality interactions between adults and between peers. Trained staff ensure that interactions are positive and progressive, allowing children to flourish and gather words at pace in order to become confident communicators. Children are encouraged to become early readers through enjoyment of books and the systematic teaching of phonics. The children learn nursery rhymes and develop their mathematical thinking through direct teaching and exploration. We want our children to become confident mathematicians who can apply what they have learnt to real life experiences. We have built our school environment to enable our children to strengthen their core muscles through physical play, children spend time outdoors in their natural environment in all weathers. They develop through wonderful, exploratory, sensory experiences in our mud kitchen, sandpit and our woodland areas. Our learning environment is adaptable in order to reflect children's interests and progression. The children are supported to learn to work together, manage their feelings and ask questions through skilled adult facilitated play. The curriculum is taught through topics which are enriched with classroom enhancements, trips and visitors. Topics are supported by quality key texts. These are chosen carefully to encourage children's speech, language and communication development. All planning however, is flexible and responsive to children’s needs so plans can be changed and adapted dependent on children’s interests. We understand the importance of parental engagement and believe that our parents have a crucial role to play in their children's education. We work hard to create strong partnerships between home and school. Parents receive theme sheets each term to inform them of what their child is learning each half term. Parents enjoy using SeeSaw to engage in their child's learning and share experience from home. As part of the learning and teaching process, children are assessed in relation to their progress towards the Early Learning Goals. These judgements are made on the basis of accumulative observations and in depth knowledge of the children acquired through ongoing assessment. These ongoing assessments are used to inform planning and next steps in teaching and learning for all children throughout the year.
Impact: Our curriculum and its delivery ensure that children, from their own starting points make good progress. During their time with us children make rapid progress towards the national expectation for a good level of development at the end of the year. Pupils also make good progress toward their age-related expectations both academically and socially, developing a sense of themselves before transitioning into Year One.
Children develop their characteristics of learning and are able to apply their knowledge to a range of situations making links and explaining their ideas and understanding. Children are confident to take risks and discuss their successes and failures with peers and adults drawing on their experiences to improve or adjust what they are doing.
We believe our high standards are due to our carefully planned environment, enriched play-based curriculum, quality first teaching and the rigour of assessment.
Children develop their characteristics of learning and are able to apply their knowledge to a range of situations making links and explaining their ideas and understanding. Children are confident to take risks and discuss their successes and failures with peers and adults drawing on their experiences to improve or adjust what they are doing.
We believe our high standards are due to our carefully planned environment, enriched play-based curriculum, quality first teaching and the rigour of assessment.
Early phonics and Early Reading
In our nursery we focus on preparing our pupils for the early stages of learning to read. We use a range of activities including those suggested in Letters and Sounds Phase 1 which you can view below.
Careful listening and sound discrimination and oracy skills (speaking) are key to success in future reading development so these are the areas we concentrate on first. Our language rich environment where we talk, explain, share stories, sing rhymes and songs with repeated refrains helps to develop each child’s vocabulary.
Our teaching strategies encourage active engagement and the children are motivated by the praise they receive from adults. We know the purpose of every activity and our enthusiasm enables pupils to make progress so that they are ready to move on to the next stage of learning to read when they enter Reception.
We cannot stress enough how important talk and stories are in developing children’s vocabulary and language, whether these stories are read at home in English or your child’s home language. Below are the Ten Top Tips to help you, as parents, when reading stories to your child.
In nursery we select several books per term and these are read and re-read to the children as this enables them to fully engage with the story, predict the language and join in with repeated words or phrases, then re-telling it in their own words.
Letters and sounds Progression of Skills
10 top tips for parents to support children to read
Careful listening and sound discrimination and oracy skills (speaking) are key to success in future reading development so these are the areas we concentrate on first. Our language rich environment where we talk, explain, share stories, sing rhymes and songs with repeated refrains helps to develop each child’s vocabulary.
Our teaching strategies encourage active engagement and the children are motivated by the praise they receive from adults. We know the purpose of every activity and our enthusiasm enables pupils to make progress so that they are ready to move on to the next stage of learning to read when they enter Reception.
We cannot stress enough how important talk and stories are in developing children’s vocabulary and language, whether these stories are read at home in English or your child’s home language. Below are the Ten Top Tips to help you, as parents, when reading stories to your child.
In nursery we select several books per term and these are read and re-read to the children as this enables them to fully engage with the story, predict the language and join in with repeated words or phrases, then re-telling it in their own words.
Letters and sounds Progression of Skills
10 top tips for parents to support children to read
Early years foundation stage (EYFS) statutory framework - guidance from the DFE
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-foundation-stage-framework--2
Guiding Principles
| 4_guiding_principles_nursery.pdf |
Long term Overview
| long_term_overview_final.pdf |
Progression Map
| banks_lane_nursery_progression_map_only.pdf |
British Values
| british_values_map_nursery.pdf |
Long term Goals
| nursery_long_term_goals.pdf |