Early Years

Early childhood is the foundation on which children build the rest of their lives.

At Holy Trinity, the Early Years consists of Nursery and two Reception classes.

Nursery and Reception start the children on their exciting learning journey with all its adventures and discoveries. It is a nurturing and caring place where children feel safe and secure and where parents/carers and staff work together to support each child’s learning and development.

In the Early Years we aim to ignite a love for learning, nurturing and encouraging all of our children to become confident, curious and independent thinkers, ready and motivated to continue their learning journey.

Nursery Website

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Our curriculum

Reception

Our curriculum is play based and our learning environment is stimulating and sensitive to all the needs of all our children. Learning may take place in our large indoor setting or in our outdoor space to which the children have continual access. There is a balance between adult-directed and child-initiated activities, supported by overarching learning themes but driven by the children’s interests, through planned, purposeful play. Adult-directed activities can take place as whole class carpet sessions or in small groups and are differentiated to enable each child to progress at their own pace.

Our Reception curriculum is broad and balanced and follows the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Curriculum and will continue to follow the new EYFS curriculum from August 2021 when changes come into effect.

The EYFS has and will continue to have seven, interconnected areas of learning and development encompassing end of Reception Early Learning Goals for each area.

The three prime areas are crucial for igniting children’s curiosity and enthusiasm for learning, and for building their capacity to learn, form relationships and thrive. The prime areas are (the Early Learning Goal in brackets are for the new EYFS from August 2021):

Personal, Social and Emotional Development (self-regulation, managing self and building relationships)
Physical Development (gross motor skills and fine motor skills)
Communication and Language (listening, attention and understanding and speaking)

The additional four specific areas are:

Literacy (comprehension, word reading and writing)

Mathematics (numbers and numerical patterns)
Understanding the World (past and present, people, culture and communities, the natural world)
Expressive Arts and Design (creating with materials, being imaginative and expressive).

The EYFS also recognises three main areas that encompass the characteristics of effective learning. These are:

Playing and Exploring (engagement) – children finding out and exploring, playing with what they know and being willing to “have a go”.
Active learning (motivation) – children being involved and concentrating, keeping trying and enjoying achieving what they set out to do.
Creating and thinking critically (thinking) – children having their own ideas, making links and choosing ways to do things.

Life in Reception

A typical day in our setting generally consists of literacy, maths and phonics carpet sessions, as well as one-to-one focus work with an adult, snack and story and most importantly lots and lots of child initiated learning through play. The children explore the world and nature though continuous provision both inside and outside, our outside play space provides opportunities for exploration and physical development as well as construction and role play. The children can choose maths resources and writing and reading activities throughout the setting and they love to be imaginative in their small world play and in the creative area.

Music, dance and drama form a crucial part of our curriculum and across the year, as well as performing on our outside stage, the children sing daily and have a dedicated music lesson each week from a specialist music teacher.

As well as teaching children to be kind and gentle to one another, we also help them to show care and concern for living things and the environment. The children have the chance to care for chicks and watch butterflies emerge from their chrysalis, ultimately releasing them into the environment.

writing in reception Holy Trinity School

Other Activities

The children love to have visitors in the setting. Smudge the dog visited to help the children learn about caring for pets and the fire brigade, police and paramedics visit, linking real life learning to our theme about people who help us.

We love to have parents in to read and accompany us on our trips to the post box and Bocketts Farm.

Each term the children participate in dedicated Forest School days when they make shelters, explore the school wildlife area and use saws and hand drills to make jewellery from wood.

Each Christmas the children love to dress up and perform in their very own nativity with Nursery.

Early Years

Our curriculum

Life in Reception

Other Activities

Love learning, Love one another, Love God