Swillington Primary School

Intent (what we do)

Our Curriculum

Our aim is that all children get off to the strongest start through our well-thought out early years curriculum that has been created to support academic challenge. We have a strong focus on personal, social and emotional and children's language development. We know that communication is paramount for friendships, understanding emotion and accessing all areas of the Early Years Framework. We recognise that happy children make progress, our EYFS team are passionate that all children feel seen, valued and celebrated as their unique self. Our Early years team knows the importance of developing positive relationships between children and families.

Our early years environment offers endless possibilities. We have created an enjoyable environment where children want to learn and can imagine the possibilities. We tailor our curriculum to the needs of our Swillington children. Alongside adult planned topics, wheever possible we plan learning opportunities in response to what we know about our children and their interests so that they are self motivated. This flexible approach is driven by the characteristics of effective learning that links closely with our school values, - being respectful, staying safe, imagining the possibilities and tolerance

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Weekly parent/carer stay and read session

The EYFS framework‍

Link to the EYFS framework.

The Characteristics of Effective Learning

The three characteristics of effective learning describe the behaviours children use in order to learn.

‍Playing and exploring – children investigate and experience things, and build the resilience to ‘have a go’.
‍Active learning – children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties, and enjoy achieving.‍
Creating and thinking critically – children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things.

The areas of learning and development

There are four specific areas through which the prime areas are strengthened and applied.

The Prime Areas

Communication and Language
Personal, social and Emotional Development
Physical Development

The Specific areas

Literacy
Mathematics
Understanding the world
Expressive arts and design

Learning to Read and Write at Swillington Primary

Children who read or are read to regularly have the opportunity to open the doors to so many different worlds!

More importantly, reading will give your child the tools to become an independent, life-long learner.

We develop early readers by:

Using Read Write Inc, a programme to help to your child read at school
Encouraging children to develop a love of books by reading to them daily, at home and at school
Giving children access to a wide range of books at school and at home

At Swillington Primary School, we use Read Write Inc Phonics (RWI) to give your child the best possible start with their English development. It is taught in Reception and KS1.

Nursery phonics concentrates on developing children’s speaking and listening skills through their ability to respond to sounds, play with sounds, songs and rhymes. These are all important skills for listening to others, understanding questions and developing concepts of things and lays the foundations for the phonic work which starts at the beginning of Reception. This early stage of phonics, supports children in getting attuned to sounds, preparing them for hearing sounds in words (segmenting). It also prepares children with putting these sounds together (oral blending).

Please visit the Phonics page of our website for more information.

Implementation (how we do what we do)

Classes

At Swillington Primary School we have two Early Years classes:

Polar Bears (Nursery)
Snow Leopards (Reception)

Our Learning Environment

At Swillington Primary School our environment is meticulously planned so that it promotes calm and a sense of belonging. This ensures our children feel safe and secure. Carefully planned progression of routines and behavioural expectations ensures that our children develop high levels of respect and care.

Our outdoor area enables our children to explore, be curious and develop important gross motor skills. Our wide range of learning activities engage and inspire and provide challenge, both mentally and physically. At Swillington we offer our children first-hand experiences and opportunities to broaden their knowledge and understanding of the world through visits and visitors.

Our Adults

At Swillington Primary school we have a dedicated and skilled team of adults who have the utmost commitment to all children. The adults within the setting have regular CPD that is relevant specifically to the cohort or any current changes in Early Years.

Our Parents and Families

We communicate with our parents in a variety of ways, first and foremost in person. Our Early Years staff are on the door to greet children each morning and to say goodbye each afternoon. Our staff are committed to developing and sustaining positive relationships with our families.

We use an online tool called Tapestry through which we share photographs and information about children with parents who can also contribute through the app. We also use DOJO which is updated regularly to let you know what events are happening in school and any other important information you may need to know and our half-termly newsletter shares information about the knowledge and skills the children will be learning each term, the key books, rhymes and poems we are focussing on and visits and visitors planned.

We hold a variety of meetings and workshops for and with our parents about starting school, phonics learning and mathematics and we also offer stay and play sessions.

We offer two stay and read sessions per weeks

Our experts

In addition to a carefully planned curriculum, we also make links with the below professional services to provide a further layer of support.

Place 2 Be https://www.place2be.org.uk/
The Yorkshire Speechie https://sites.google.com/view/theyorkshirespeechie

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The result of what we do

The impact of our unique curriculum, language rich environment with our dedicated practitioners will mean the successful development of our children as unique learners who find their talent. Our children will be resilient and understand the importance of kindness, they will understand how this starts with themselves and extends to friends, family and the environment. Our children will understand the value of being unique and respect differences in others. Due to strong, personal, social and emotional skills being taught children will be able to engage in teamwork and be confident to talk to a range of people due to the strength of their language and vocabulary skills and the importance we place on these. Our children leave Early Years fully prepared for their transition to Key Stage One with the motivation and resilience to Succeed.

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