Nursery Boys Reading Outside

EARLY YEARSLearning

Early Years Centre (Age 3 months to 3 years)

At Sherfield School's Early Years Centre, we embrace the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum, designed to foster your child's growth and development.

To enhance the EYFS framework, we incorporate our own bespoke programmes such as Sticky Kids, World Languages, and Yoga, ensuring a comprehensive and enriching learning experience.

The EYFS Curriculum

The EYFS curriculum includes seven areas of learning, categorised into prime and specific areas:

Prime Areas
  • Personal, Social, and Emotional Development: We nurture children in all aspects of their day, promoting a positive attitude, confidence, self-esteem, relationship building, good behaviour, self-control, and self-care.
  • Physical Development: We enhance physical skills through a variety of indoor and outdoor activities using large and small equipment to develop both fine and gross motor skills.
  • Communication and Language: Our curriculum prioritises communication and language, encouraging active listening, attention, and understanding. Children are given constant opportunities to express their feelings, share thoughts, retell stories, imagine, anticipate, and ask questions.
Specific Areas
  • Literacy: We foster a love for reading and writing by providing a language-rich environment where children can explore books, develop early writing skills, and engage in storytelling and phonics activities.
  • Mathematics: Our rich curriculum builds understanding in counting, calculating, shapes, numerical patterns, measures, and problem-solving through practical and engaging activities tailored to each child's level.
  • Understanding the World: Children explore and investigate, gaining awe and wonder about the world and its events. They confidently use information and communication technology and develop a sense of time and place. We celebrate a variety of cultures and beliefs.
  • Expressive Arts and Design: Creative activities are essential, including music sessions, dance, and imaginative role-play. We explore various media and materials, ensuring each child experiences a rich, varied, and challenging curriculum.

Our two-year cycle of half-termly topics includes:
  • All About Me
  • Celebrations
  • Weather
  • Water
  • Spring
  • AnimalsOK
  • People Who Help Us
  • Summer
  • Transport
     
External shot of Sherfield School

At Sherfield School's Early Years Centre, we are dedicated to providing a nurturing and stimulating environment where every child can flourish and develop a lifelong love for learning.

Reception and Pre-Reception (Age 3-5 Years)

The Early Years Statutory Framework emphasises the significance of each unique child and the positive relationships they must build with other children and adults.

It identifies the importance of enabling environments that allow children to showcase and build upon essential skills. The investment and expertise from EiM will ensure that your child has the best learning experience and will be placed at the centre of everything we do.

Child-initiated learning

Child-initiated learning or ‘Discovery Time’ drives the provision, alongside facilitation of children’s curiosities and objective-led planning.
Phonics Lessons
Children in the Reception class take part in daily phonics sessions, where they begin or continue their journey of learning to read. A love of reading is instilled with reading corners, re-energised and focus books introduced and shared with children and parents. This is alongside a weekly trip to Sherfield Library.
Maths Mastery
The Maths Mastery approach within the provision ensures that key concepts within number are consistently explored with small group activities. Children are encouraged to continue exploring these concepts when initiating their own learning during ‘Discovery Time’.
Creative Activities
A range of creative activities, including woodwork, are available for children. These activities enhance their physical development, support their problem-solving skills and allow them to take supervised risks. Children are taught to understand how to use real tools safely. A visit from an artist in residence also inspires your children’s learning.
Baking Activities
A kitchen area in the Reception provision ensures that your children regularly take part in baking activities. They learn a range of skills whilst planning and making daily snacks and other recipes. Children take it in turns to help prepare and plan rolling snacks for their peers on a daily basis.
Discovery Times
Once settled into their new environments, your children will have access to both the Reception and Pre-Reception settings during Discovery Times. The outdoor area is designed as a shared area and children in Pre-Reception and Reception will have use of this space. The outdoor learning spaces, which wrap around both provisions, ensure that all children have the best chance of achieving a range of their Early Learning Goals. We also make use of the wider Sherfield outdoor environment, as part of a whole school commitment to enriched outdoor learning experiences.
Music and Movement Sessions
Specific music and movement sessions by a specialist teacher take place each week and a communication and language policy underpins learning in all areas.
Four students looking in large dental model
Students painting on back-to-back easels
Students at makeshift recycling booth
Students playing with blocks

Our partnership with you is essential to give your child the best Sherfield learning journey.

For this to happen, we have developed the role of the key person; ensuring that there is great communication with parents as partners. Besides regular dialogue and ongoing observations shared on Tapestry, your child will be spotlighted each term for a more detailed observation. You will then be invited to hold longer conversations about your child’s development in place of parents’ evenings.

There is also an opportunity for parents to come into the setting for parent ‘show and tell’ sessions. You could share a skill, read a story or join in with an activity, such as cooking.


Educational Visits

  • Christmas Pantomime at The Anvil
  • The Sustainability Centre: South Downs – Where is Katy the Caterpillar? This will introduce children to sustainability.
  • Zoolab Visit (Animal Encounters)
  • ‘Incredible Eggs’ Hatching Chicks
  • Miller’s Ark Mobile Farm Visit

 

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A professional learning programme has been developed for all staff and we offer regular workshops for parents to find out more about your children’s learning.