At Upperby Primary School's Early Years Phase, we put our children at the heart of everything we do. We work hard to create a safe, stimulating environment where all children are happy, enjoy their learning and thrive, growing in confidence and becoming independent, resourceful and enthusiastic learners. Warm and positive relationships between staff and children are fundamental to our approach. We encourage our children to be respectful of others and their thoughts and ideas, demonstrating kindness and a caring attitude towards others.

Our environment, curriculum and learning opportunities are planned to build on the children's previous learning and experiences, from their homes as well as their pre-school settings and Nurseries. We view each of our children as a unique individual and through ongoing, careful observation and assessments we are able to plan and provide for opportunities across the Early Years curriculum that support individual learning and development.

We actively support our children in developing a sense of pride in themselves and their achievements, feeling successful and having a positive attitude to school and a love of learning. With this in mind, we work collaboratively with our parents and carers to provide a positive, strong and united support network, valuing the children's individuality, recognising and encouraging their unique skills and abilities, promoting the possibilities for change and enhancing lives,

At Upperby Primary School, we actively safeguard and promote the welfare of all of our children. We know that children learn most effectively when they are healthy, safe and secure, when their individual needs are met and when they have positive relationships with the staff who care for them.

We follow the Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework, made up of four overriding principles on which our Early Years education is based:-

• Unique Child -Every child is a unique child, who is constantly learning and can be resilient, capable, confident and self -assured.
• Positive Relationships -Children learn to be strong and independent through positive relationships.
• Enabling Environments -Children learn and develop well in enabling environments, in which their experiences respond to their individual needs and there is a strong partnership between staff and parents/carers.
• Learning and Development -Children develop and learn in different ways. The framework covers the education and care of all children in early years provision, including children with special educational needs and disabilities.

We ensure that there is a broad, balanced and progressive learning environment and curriculum. The children will learn new skills, acquire knowledge and demonstrate understanding through the seven areas of the EYFS curriculum:-

• Personal, Social and Emotional Development
• Physical Development
• Communication and Language
• Literacy
• Maths
• Understanding the World
• Expressive Arts and Design

Our curriculum is flexible and designed to accommodate children's interests throughout the year, aiming to develop the characteristics of learning which will support and encourage lifelong learning. We support our children in:-

• Learning actively -trying their best and persevering in the face of challenges
• Playing and exploring -investigating, experiencing and being willing to "have a go"
• Creating and thinking critically -developing their own ideas, both independently and in collaboration with others

We ensure that we have a careful balance between child initiated play and adult led activities to maximise opportunities for learning, developing and practising new skills and knowledge with the opportunity to consolidate this within the continuous provision. We value the importance of children learning through their play. Staff use this time to observe and interact appropriately, modelling, demonstrating, facilitating, communicating and questioning. This process helps staff gain a deeper knowledge of individual interests, capabilities, next steps and where we can offer age-appropriate challenges.

Throughout our Early Years, we prioritise the development of Language and Communication and create a language rich environment through the daily use of songs, nursery rhymes, stories and making time for quality interactions with adults and peers, encouraging children to become confident communicators. We recognise the importance of reading and ensure that our Read Write Inc trained staff provide daily high quality phonics sessions.

Parental support and engagenment is key to ensuring our children make the most progress and our parents are encouraged to interact with our 'Class Dojo' online profiles, attend our termly 'Stay and Play' sessions and weekly 'Share a story' sessions. We share regular observations of the children in school and a termly update of their children's progress and their next steps in learning.

Our children have a smooth transition between Nursery, Reception and into Year 1. We have transition meetings so that staff can share information appropriately and a series of visits to new environments ensure that children are confident and excited to move to their next stage of learning.

We work hard to ensure that all children make good progress from their various starting points. Our assessments track termly progress and this helps staff and SLT to identify individual strengths and areas for development, as well as plan for our provision. Each child has a termly 'focus week' where snapshot observations are gathered to share current abilities and identify next steps in their learning journey with parents, via the online journal.

Our staff take part in internal and external moderation of judgements made, to ensure consistent and accurate assessments of children's achievements and progress. We regularly review our own practise and learning environments to ensure that we are meeting the needs of every child, offering an environment in which they can develop into successful learners.

Phonics

We teach children to read using the systematic synthetic phonics scheme, Read Write Inc. Whole class or small group teaching takes place every day in Reception, while Phase 1 of the 'Letters and Sounds' programme is taught initially in Nursery and continues throughout Early Years.

In Phase 1 children are taught about:

• Environmental sounds
• Instrumental sounds
• Body Percussion ( eg, clapping and stamping)
• Rhythm and rhyme
• Alliteration
• Voice sounds
• Oral blending and segmenting (hearing that c-a-t makes 'cat')

Activities for Phase 1 might include listening walks, playing and identifying instruments, action songs, learning rhymes and playing fun games such as 'I Spy'. This phase is very important for developing children's listening, vocabulary and speaking skills.

In Reception, soon after children have started in September, we begin the structured phonics programme, Read Write Inc. 

What Is Phonics?

https://youtu.be/p_6Jb0-3qz8

How to say the sounds -a video guide for parents

https://youtu.be/KUbrJPAt65g

Staff monitor the children's progress each half term for all Reception children, so that children who may need extra support can access interventions quickly.

Staff also assess children during every phonic lesson as we go along, noting which children are not secure with a particular sound or skill, so that we can meet children's needs on a daily basis.

The phonics lessons last for 10-15 minutes when we are learning the initial speed sounds and will take longer as more skills and learning opportunities are added, following a teaching sequence which is implemented throughout, ensuring a seamless transition into Key Stage 1.

How to Blend Sounds with your child?

https://youtu.be/vhLjXT1jP9M

We offer the RW Inc sound packs for sale at a discounted price to parents as children begin to learn the sounds in the first half term of Reception. The first pack contains all the Set 1 speed sounds, a handy frieze to put up on the wall, a handwriting practise book so that you can see how we teach children to write the sounds and a parent pack with lots ofextra information. You can also access the 'Ruth Miskin - Read Write Inc' channel on Youtube to watch more videos for parents.

Once children are confident at blending sounds to read words, they will bring home individual reading books, which match their level of ability and use the sounds they know. Children are  given lists of the Reception high frequency key words to practise at home -

• Words on green card are easily sounded out and can help to develop fluent reading when recognised quickly
• Words on red card are the Tricky Words, containing Tricky letters and cannot be sounded out. They are taught as sight words and can also help to build fluency when recognised quickly.

Why read to your child?

https://youtu.be/2UmwXQwx5gk?list=PLDe74j1F52zSCiOMSn3zQDSzgu9TrbQ1c

We also encourage children to take home a library book each week of their own choice, during our 'Share a Story' session. This book encourages children to read for many different reasons and should be read to the child frequently at home, helping to -

• develop a love of reading and enjoying stories together
• introduce new and unfamiliar vocabulary
• develop imagination and language

We use the 'White Rose Maths' scheme to plan our Maths sessions throughout the Early Years. 

Early Number Sense - a super video for parents, explaining all the learning involved in the  Number Curriculum area.

https://youtu.be/2Ow8vEmh8lA?t=475

There's more to maths than counting!

At Upperby Primary School, our children learn about maths through play and their daily experiences.! Our learning environments are full of mathematical opportunities for children to explore, sort, compare, count, calculate and describe. We provide a safe environment encouraging children to be creative, critical thinkers, problem solvers and to be confident to have a go.

We want all our children to develop firm mathematical foundations in a way that is engaging and appropriate for their age. This means actively learning using resources and activities found in the environment. In addition to this, maths is explicitly taught daily as short whole class sessions and then followed up with small group work within the environment.

Maths is everywhere...

• Sand and water play -can develop mathematical concepts and language, e.g. heavy / light, 

       empty / full, big / little...

• Malleable -dough play can develop mathematical language, e.g. short / long, fat / thin 

       - make shapes of different dimensions -flat 2-d / solid 3-d

• Imaginative play - setting the table to develop counting skills, sorting clothes into different colours or types, 
• Physical play - sorting out a jigsaw, threading beads and making a pattern, sequencing for size and colour and understanding weight and dimensions in block play, tidying toys for sorting and colour names...
• Outdoors - might include planting seeds and watching them grow, using measures and developing size and comparative language
• Books and rhymes - so many rhymes and songs help to support the development of number concepts... e.g. 5 currant buns, 10 green bottles, 1,2 Buckle my shoe... 

Counting Songs...a collection of counting songs from the BBC 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/school-radio/articles/zn67kmn

Parents -the first and most important influence on their child's development and future outcomes. 

As they grow and develop, children will have two main educators in their lives - their parents and their teachers. We all have crucial roles to play and the impact on a child's education is greater if parents and schools work in partnership. 

We use Class Dojo as a way to celebrate progress and WOW! moments made by each child. All those 'WOW!' moments can be captured by both home and school to create a story of each child's special time in the early years and through into Year 1.

We also use Dojo to post messages or homework challenges throughout the year, so we need to get all of our parents logged on!

We will send all parents an invitation to join Dojo when your child enters school using your email address...all you need to do is follow the instructions in the opening email and set your own password.