Oxclose Primary Academy pupils in forest school

Share This Page

Early Years

Vision and Aims

At Oxclose Primary Academy we are passionate about working hard to ensure we provide a safe and nurturing environment to allow the children to develop and grow as a unique individual. We strive to provide opportunities for them to succeed in all areas of their development. We aim to encourage children to develop independence and confidence to support risk taking and to challenge themselves within the learning environment.

We believe that the Early Years Foundation Stage is crucial in securing solid foundations that children are going to continue to build upon throughout their lives. Children in our Reception classes follow the EYFS curriculum which has seven main areas of learning.

The Prime Areas:

Personal, Social and Emotional Development
Communication and Language
Physical Development

The Specific Areas:

Literacy
Mathematics
Understanding the World
Expressive Arts & Design

Sequencing Rationale

Mathematical skills are fostered through the White Rose Hub for Maths, which offers a progressive structure that builds on children's understanding of core concepts. This scheme promotes problem-solving and reasoning skills, thereby enabling pupils to apply their mathematical knowledge in various contexts. We use practical resources to teach and reinforce mathematical concepts.

For writing, we use the Literacy Tree programme, which is designed to enrich children’s literacy skills through storytelling and has a focus on high-quality texts. The sequence of learning in writing is crafted thoughtfully to develop vocabulary, comprehension, and composition, nurturing a love for literature from an early age.

Additionally, we employ the ELS Phonics scheme, which plays a vital role in developing phonetic awareness and early reading skills. This structured phonics programme ensures that children acquire critical decoding skills in a logical sequence, facilitating their transition into proficient readers.

Early Years Intent

Our Learning Enviornment

Parent Partnership in Reception

Implementation

At OPA the child is the centre of our curriculum and we plan open ended activities designed to stimulate ideas, initiative and imagination allowing the child to follow their own path of learning.

We use a plan-do-review approach during continuous provision allowing our pupils to take charge of their own learning and to become reflective as they play. We believe children have potential and are curious, eager to participate in social interaction, establish relationships and build lessons for themselves, as well as the ability to adjust to the environment wonderfully.

At Oxclose we see the environment as the third teacher. We believe children flourish in environments that adapt to their interests and steps of development. We aim within the learning environment to foster children’s imagination, creativity, and curiosity. It is designed to provide a range of age and stage appropriate resources to ensure continuous provision and provocations build and extend on the children’s learning.

Our routine underpins a balance of adult led and child-initiated activities, catering to the children’s developmental needs. Children have access to both indoors and outdoors throughout the day. We aim to ensure provision is organised, tidy, stimulating and exciting allowing children to engage, be motivated and think critically in their play.

Our experienced practitioners play a vital role in scaffolding, listening and facilitating the learning to further establish how to plan or continue to enhance the learning of children. They assess continuously through observations in order to plan next steps, challenge and inform future planning ensuring children reach their full potential.

We have key texts and themes to support the curriculum based on the interests of our children.

We strive to embed the early skills of both reading, writing and mathematics within the Early Years curriculum.

We recognise that parents are the first educators in children’s lives and we actively encourage our parents to be involved in their children’s learning in school.