A good start to life at school is of utmost importance. We spend time getting to know the children prior to starting school and believe in working closely with parents.
They will be learning through these topics…
We also follow the children’s interests.
To see the learning that takes place please look at the topic webs that will be updated throughout the year on this site.
From the links above you can download this term’s topic web, which details the curriculum your child will be learning this half term.
The topics at Pinewood all begin with a ‘Wow’ start. These are designed to introduce the new topic and motivate the children about what they are learning. Our topics in Year R are loosely planned to allow room for the children’s interests to be incorporated into the topic. Learning is planned to lead up to a ‘Quality Outcome’ at the end of our topic, which is often decided by the children as to the form of media this will take and the intended audience. This provides the opportunity for the children to communicate their learning to others and feel a sense of achievement.
Children in the reception year follow the Foundation Stage curriculum which is based on seven areas of learning and development. These areas are divided into three prime areas and four specific areas.
These are fundamental, work together and move through the curriculum to support development in all other areas. These consist of…
Personal and Social Development
Your child will be encouraged to make relationships, develop self-confidence and self-awareness and manage their feeling and behaviour, expressing emotions appropriately.
Physical Development
Your child will be encouraged to move and use a range of equipment confidently and imaginatively with increasing control. They will handle a range of tools and objects safely developing increasing control. They will learn independence, self-care and about how to live healthily.
Communication and Language
Your child will be encouraged to develop their listening and attention skills, understanding of instructions, stories and events and speaking skills to express themselves effectively, linking ideas and events.
These areas include essential skills and knowledge for children to participate successfully in society.
These consist of…
Literacy
Your child will learn the phonic skills of hearing and saying the ‘sounds’ related to the English language and linking them to the alphabet. They will learn to blend these sounds to read words and segment them to spell words when writing. They will learn to read and write some high frequency words to use in their reading and writing of sentences.
Maths
Your child will develop an understanding of maths through skills such as accurate counting. They will explore numbers within contexts, will compare amounts as more or less and look for patterns. They will explore the language and concepts of size, weight, capacity, position, time, money and shape.
Understanding the world
Your child will explore and find out about the world around them, asking questions about it, observing the environment, plants and animals, noting any changes. They will learn about everyday technology and what it is used for. They will find out about different cultures and beliefs, and how to be sensitive to differences.
Expressive Arts and Design
Your child will be encouraged to explore sound, colour, texture, shape, design, form and function. They will learn to use a variety of materials, tools and other resources safely to express ideas and communicate their feelings through design, technology, art, music, dance, imaginative play and stories.
How will your children learn all this?
Effective learning takes place through playing and exploring (engagement), active learning (motivation) and creating and thinking critically. This is developed through careful facilitation during child initiated learning. Adults play alongside the children focusing them on goals and the process they are going through verbalising and modelling. Children’s skills and thinking are challenged through questioning to develop learning further.
At Pinewood we use the ‘ELS scheme to teach and learn phonics. This focuses on learning the sounds that letters make when on their own and when in grouped together as digraphs or trigraphs. It incorporates how to blend sounds together in order to read words and how to segment sounds in order to write words.
Our early reading books focus on phonics and decoding that is linked to the phonics they are learning. As the children pass the phonic screening and become more confident in decoding, they also take home colour band books, that are made up of a variety of different schemes. This enables the children to develop tastes in reading books at the same time as developing the skills of decoding texts and comprehending them.
PSHE and Citizenship is integrated into our curriculum to ensure children are prepared for life in modern day Britain. We follow SCARF themes aiming to ensure children develop their social and emotional aspects of learning. We have a strong focus on Me and my relationships, Valuing difference, Keeping myself safe, Rights and responsibilities, Being my best, Growing and changing.
