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

‍

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.