Leven Valley Early Years
Here at Leven Valley our Reception children are part of Class 1 - a mixed class of Reception, Year 1 and Year 2. Being a small class allows us to provide personalised learning experiences and enables the children to develop strong and secure relationships with their teachers and peers throughout the first three years of school.
To help your child with the transition process from pre-school settings, they will be offered sessions in school during the summer term, before starting school in September. In September you will be offered a home visit from your child's class teacher. This will give you the opportunity to ask any questions and discuss your child’s next steps on their education journey as they start at Leven Valley.
Early Years Provision
Reception children follow the Early Years Foundation Curriculum which consists of seven areas of Learning.
Prime Areas:
- Personal and Social Development
- Communication and Language
- Physical Development
Specific Areas:
- Literacy
- Mathematics
- Understanding the World
- Expressive Arts and Design
In order to give our children the best possible start to their education here at Leven Valley, we carefully plan and implement teaching and learning opportunities that help support them in reaching their full potential as individuals. We value the importance of learning through play and adventure. The children have access to both indoor and outdoor provision in which they are encouraged to build on their learning through play, exploration and challenges. This allows them to become independent in making choices.
Four main principles
We follow four main principles which help guide our planning and give the children the best possible start. These are:
- Every child is a unique child, who is constantly learning and can be resilient, capable, confident and self-assured.
- Children learn to be strong and independent through positive relationships.
- Children learn and develop well in enabling environments with teaching and support from adults, who respond to their individual interests and needs and help them to build their learning over time.
- The importance of learning and development. Understanding that children develop and learn at different rates.
Daily Routines
Our daily routines help support the children to settle into school life and become part of the school community.
During the morning, the children have a short phonics session which is fun, engaging and interactive. Our phonics is also integrated into English sessions and across the wider curriculum.
The children have focused English and maths activities to help them meet their Early Years Goals. These activities are planned to be engaging and meet the individual children's needs. Our continuous provision is carefully designed to enable the children to put their newly learnt skills into practice through their play.
In the afternoons the curriculum is planned and implemented using a thematic approach, which rolls over a three-yearly cycle.
Assessment
Assessment plays an important part in the Early Years, helping to recognise children’s progress, understand their needs and to plan further activities. Ongoing assessment through informal observations is an integral part of the learning and development process. Assessing the children in this way allows us to tailor our planning and help support the children’s next steps. We use the online learning journal Evidence Me to help support us in capturing assessments and observations, as well as a physical learning journal to keep a record of their first year at school.
At the beginning of Reception, a Reception Baseline Assessment is completed for each child. The purpose of the assessment is to provide the starting point for a new measure that will help parents understand the progress between reception and year 6. The RBA is a short, interactive and practical assessment of your child’s early literacy, communication, language and mathematics skills when they begin school, using materials that most children of your child’s age will be familiar with. It became statutory for all schools from September 2021. The Standards and Testing Agency have produced a booklet with more information, which is available here.
Reception Baseline Assessment Information Booklet
At the end of the reception year we provide a summative report which provides you with a well-rounded picture of your child’s knowledge, understanding and abilities, their attainment against expected levels, and their readiness for Year 1. Each child’s level of development is assessed against the Early Learning Goals and the progress that they have made throughout the year. This is done through assessments and our knowledge of the children and their abilities.
Our Reception children are happy, confident and have a sense of belonging within the school. We give our children the broad range of knowledge and skills that will provide the right foundation for future success through school and life.