Nursery

At Raglan we believe that every child is a unique individual and we celebrate and respect differences within our community. We work in partnership with parents, carers and other settings to provide the best possible start at our school, taking into consideration pupils' needs and starting points as they begin their learning journey with us. We aim to provide motivating first-hand experiences to enable children to learn and remember more. We provide a learning environment that supports and invites curiosity, confidence and individual competence, allowing children to follow their own interests. It helps and supports children to flourish regardless of background. 

We intend:

• To work in partnership with parents/carers to encourage happy, independent and resilient learners who thrive at school and make good progress from their starting points

• To create an engaging learning environment inside and outside that helps children achieve their potential and supports those with additional needs 

• To support children to become skilful communicators who can talk about their feelings, negotiate with others and develop a rich vocabulary 

• To support the transition from nursery to reception and reception to year 1

• We strive to ensure that a higher percentage of children than the national average reach the Early Learning Goals at the end of the reception year 

Our Curriculum follows the Early Years Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage and uses Development Matters as a starting point. This document specifies the requirements for learning and development in the EYFS and provides the prime and specific areas of learning we must cover in our curriculum.

Using the knowledge of our children and formative assessments we carefully plan our curriculum which will involve following a class theme where we will use cross-curricular links to cover all areas of learning and will also include following the children’s interests and using information shared from home by parents and carers about the unique child. This is delivered through a range of exciting and engaging activities where children enjoy learning and are supported to grow in confidence and independence. There is a mixture of adult-led activities and child-initiated play. Adult-led activities and direct teaching time is carefully planned to provide support and challenge and meet the needs of all children. Rosenshine’s principles are fully embedded through the key teaching techniques that the teachers use to help ensure children remember more and apply it in their self-directed activities.

The children will learn new skills, acquire new knowledge and demonstrate understanding through the seven areas of the curriculum. This begins with our youngest children in the nursery who we strongly believe should develop the prime areas first. As the children grow and progress, the prime areas will support them to develop skills in the specific areas.

Children in the EYFS learn by

• Playing and exploring - children investigate and experience things, have a go

• Active Learning - Children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties, and enjoy their achievements

• Creating and thinking critically - children have a and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas and develop strategies for doing thighs

• We strive to ensure that our children’s progress is at least good from their varied starting points 

This takes place both inside our classrooms and in the outside area. Our outside area is open all year round and children can free-flow between the classroom and the outside area. Each area has focused activities which are carried out with an adult, independent activities and opportunities to access a variety of resources in the continuous provision to allow the children to develop their ideas thus supporting skills such as independence, enquiry, creativity, innovation and problem-solving. 

At Raglan, we follow the Little Wandle phonics and early reading scheme. In reception, the children are read in small groups three times a week and have daily phonics lessons. We provide focused intervention for those children who find learning challenging. We also provide targeted intervention for those children who are struggling with speech and language.

Speech and language is a priority for us and the children in the nursery are also read to in small groups three times a week, helping to develop their vocabulary and foster a love of reading. Children in the nursery are also carefully targeted for the speech and language intervention ‘chatterbox’.

To support the wider curriculum we take all children on visits to the local area. Children in the nursery and reception all have the opportunity to go to places such as the library, the park and the local shops. We also have visits from the local police, vet and a dinosaur workshop. We ensure all our visits are learning-related and liked to the learning in the classroom. Parents are invited into our termly book bistro (reception) or bookies and cookies (nursery)  to engage in activities and enjoy a story.

We support the transition into school by inviting the children in to stay and play sessions and for a meeting with their class teacher. We also contact the children’s previous settings to gather essential information about them. When our children transition from nursery into reception we take the children over to the reception classes in small groups so they get used to their new environment. We support the transition to Year 1 by meeting the teacher, spending some time in their new classroom and playground at the end of the reception year. The year 1 learning environment is similar to the reception environment for the first half term.

We offer a variety of preschool activities each week including stay and play, messy play and singing and rhyme time. We encourage parents who intend to bring their children to our school to come along so that we can establish relationships with children and parents as early as possible.

Monitoring of the early years provision is completed formally and informallly and this enures that we continually reflect on the learning environment and it is adapted meet the changing needs of the children.

• Walk to the post box to post letters

• Walk to Ridge Avenue Library 

• Trip to Bury Lodge Park - Pond Dipping

• Farm animals visit school

• Bus ride to Bush Hill Park