If you want a child’s mind to grow, you must first plant the seed.
Nursery Teachers – Mr Croft, Miss Collier, Mrs Foley, Mrs Wilcox, Mrs Hedger, Miss Maconachie
Awe and wonder can be found in the simplest of things – a rainbow after an April shower, the first buds in spring, the smell of rain falling on a summer’s day, a frosty cobweb in the garden or raindrops plopping in a puddle. We relish these moments and our children do too!
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) includes 7 areas of learning and development:
Nursery provide a balance between adult-led and child-initiated experiences. Children are supported in their development through play and exploration opportunities. The teacher’s guide their learning every step of the way and grasp every opportunity to further support children in their overall development. We create high quality provision that aims to ignite a child’s passion for learning. We work as a team to role play, provide imaginative opportunities and create awe and wonder.
3 Prime Areas
- Personal, Social and Emotional Development
- Communication & Language
- Physical Development
We focus predominantly on the prime areas within our Nursery and our planning and provision is designed to develop these skills at the core. Language development is a focus and adults spend a lot of time interacting with the children in order to build these fundamental, early communication skills. We build vocabulary from the very start and introduce children to new and exciting words.
We centre a lot of our learning around stories and use the language, illustrations and themes to hook children into new learning.
We aim to develop lifelong readers at Kader Academy, so having this love of stories drive forward our Nursery curriculum, helps to promote this aspiration. Children are encouraged to recite stories and join in with actions and drama.
4 Specific Areas
- Literacy
- Maths
- Understanding of the World
- Expressive Arts & Design
Phonics
Listening skills are fundamental to a successful educational journey. We develop these early listening skills through phase one phonics.
The teachers plan for and incorporate lots of the strategies to build key listening skills. Once we feel that children have this solid foundation, we begin to teach phase 2 phonics.
We do this in a fun and exciting way – with stories, picture hooks and writing prompts.
We use Read, Write, Inc as a base for our phonics teaching, but have adapted it to suit the needs of our own children at Kader Academy. We have seen fantastic progress in phonics and children within Nursery leave us with firm foundations ready for their next step.
Below you can find information from Twinkl discussion what phase 1 phonics:
https://www.twinkl.co.uk/teaching-wiki/phase-1-phonics
Our children also enjoy singing the Jolly phonics song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRtjQEcnsoc
Writing
Early Years writing is all about getting the muscles in our bodies ready for mark-making. To become amazing writers, we need learn to control our BIG movements (including those involving our whole bodies!) before we can develop our little ones (like the muscles in our hands).
In Nursery, we develop our fine and gross motor skills without even realising we are doing it because we are having so much fun!
We are incredibly lucky to have an amazing outside space and love to spend our time digging, climbing and getting messy and creative in our mud kitchen! With so much space to play in, we love to use those big muscles in our bodies to run, jump, hop, bend and stretch. These are all precursors to writing that we will need as we move through school!
We have opportunities to mark-make in all areas of our Nursery setting, and we will learn, over time and discussions with grown-ups, that the marks we make have meaning. When we are ready, we will be exposed to the letters of our language in our phonics sessions and will begin to write simple words.
Cycle 1
Autumn Term
Why do you love me so much?
What is special about me? How do we show that we care? We will explore these questions and more in this topic about love, families and how people are the same and different.
Where does snow go?
Why does snow melt? Why do icicles hang down? We will explore these questions and more in this topic about winter.
Spring Term
Which was the biggest Dinosaur?
We will explore the prehistoric world of dinosaurs and their lives, explore different types of dinosaur, investigate things that are big and small in size and measurement. Talk about things that are heavy and light. We will discuss carnivores and herbivores.
Are eggs alive?
What are buds? We will explore these questions and more in this topic about the things that happen in the world around us in the season of spring.
Summer Term
Can we explore it?
Can you find me? We will explore these questions and more in this topic that captures children’s natural curiosity about the world around them, from the smallest holes and hiding spaces to great adventures in far-away places.
How many pebbles on the beach?
Which creatures live by the sea? We will explore these questions and more in this topic about the seashore.
Cycle 2
Autumn Term
Why do you love me so much?
What is special about me? How do we show that we care? We will explore these questions and more in this topic about love, families and how people are the same and different.
Why do leaves go crispy?
We will look at the way plants and animals adapt to the changing seasons. We will learn all about hibernation and the way animals and bird prepare for winter. We will speak about various fruits and seeds that plants produce in Autumn and how they are harvested.
Spring Term
How many colours in a rainbow?
What happens when you mix red and blue? We will explore these questions and more in this topic about colours in the natural and man-made world
Can I have a dog yet?
We will look at different pets and how we look after and care for them. We will investigate the life processes common to all living things and the changes that take place as they mature.
Summer Term
How does that building stay up?
We will investigate different types of buildings, speak about each other’s houses and homes and investigate the different types of building materials and their qualities.
How high can I jump?
How high can I jump? How fast can I run? We will explore these questions and m ore in this project about sport, movement and physical challenge. We will learn about a range of different movements and how we can keep our bodies healthy and fit.