Early Years at Sowerby - Reception 

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It is our belief that all children in the EYFS should have an inspiring educational experience filled with fun and stimulating opportunities to learn, that develops their curiosity and a love of learning. We understand the importance of fostering the knowledge and skills that are necessary as the foundations for their future education. We enjoy extending children’s learning through focusing on their interests and weaving that into their daily curriculum and we create a rich and entertaining learning environment to enable us to do this.

Intent

• At Sowerby Academy our Early Years ignites a lifelong love of learning by nurturing each child's unique curiosity, wonder, and potential.
• We provide a safe, inclusive, and stimulating environment where every child feels valued, empowered, and ready to flourish.
• Through play-based learning, we foster a deep understanding of the world, cultivate strong communication and social skills, and lay the foundation for academic success.
• We also aim to encourage well-rounded individuals who are confident, inquisitive, and compassionate and equip children with the emotional resilience to flourish academically, socially, and personally.
• We celebrate the wonder of childhood, encouraging exploration, discovery, and questioning. We design an environment that sparks imagination and ignites a passion for learning.
• We build strong foundations of self-belief by nurturing each child's unique talents and strengths. We foster positive relationships and celebrate individual journeys.
• We equip our children with essential skills for success, including communication, critical thinking, collaboration, and problem-solving. We weave these skills into every aspect of learning, ensuring they are ready for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead

Implementation

Playful Learning:

We embrace play as the foundation for learning and is the basis for the majority of our curriculum learning. We foster this through creating a safe and stimulating environment where children can explore, experiment, and learn through their natural curiosity; child-led learning spark creativity, problem-solving, and critical thinking. Play is the primary way our little ones learn, explore, and make sense of their world. Our classrooms offer creative exploration, purposeful interactions, and open-ended possibilities. Our learning is experiential and thematic, driven by children's interests and questions leading us to explore an endless array of areas such as the natural world around us, seasons and weather, traditional tales, building and construction, cultures and celebrations around the world, families and fantasy.

 

Environment:

To support our play based education, our vibrant learning spaces are places where curiosity thrives and every child feels empowered to learn and grow. Our spaces are open and flexible, including cozy reading nooks for storytelling, open areas for construction, role play, self-regulation and dedicated messy play zones where creativity can splatter. We use natural inspiration to keep our classrooms calm and welcoming, optimising on natural light and working spaces that are not over stimulating to our learners. Our resources are open-ended and inviting. We embrace manipulatives, loose parts and sensory materials that inspire endless possibilities. Our resources invite imaginative play and collaborative storytelling. Our EYFS environments are constantly evolving and adapting to meet the needs of our children. They are places where every child feels seen, heard, and valued and where learning is a joyful adventure.

 

Curriculum:

Building Strong Foundations for Lifelong Learning

We place foundational knowledge at the heart of our Early Years and Key Stage 1 provision, ensuring every child develops the essential skills and understanding needed for future success. We embrace the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) framework alongside a high-quality, purposeful play-based approach, where learning is carefully structured, meaningful, and progressive.

In Mathematics, our curriculum is built around the NCETM Maths Mastery approach and the engaging world of Numberblocks. This ensures children develop a deep, secure understanding of core mathematical concepts rather than relying on rote memorisation. A strong emphasis is placed on mastering early number knowledge as the foundation for all future mathematical learning. This includes:

• Providing rich, concrete experiences through hands-on resources, exploration, and practical activities to secure understanding.

• Developing fluent recall and mastery of basic number facts, such as addition and subtraction within 10, which are crucial building blocks for later mathematical success.

• Teaching children multiple strategies to approach and solve problems, promoting flexibility, reasoning, and critical thinking.

• Encouraging children to explain and justify their thinking, strengthening conceptual understanding and mathematical language.

• Making meaningful links between mathematics and the real world, applying learning within everyday routines and contexts.

Early reading and writing are also prioritised as key foundational skills. As a school, we follow Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS), a systematic synthetic phonics programme designed to ensure all children develop secure decoding and blending skills, enabling them to become confident readers and writers.

ELS is underpinned by a carefully sequenced progression that supports strong foundations in literacy:

• In Reception, ELS follows a clear and structured progression through Phases 2, 3, 4, and 5, gradually introducing sounds and hard-to-read and spell words to ensure secure understanding before moving on to more complex spelling patterns.

• In Nursery, children currently follow the Letters and Sounds (2007) guidance, with a planned transition to the newly developed ELS weekly planning overviews. This includes rhymes, alliteration, and carefully linked activities within continuous provision to develop early language and literacy skills.

• Daily, consistent phonics lessons provide short, focused opportunities for practice and reinforcement, embedding key knowledge securely over time.

• A multisensory approach ensures children are active participants in their learning, supported by visual prompts such as grapheme flashcards and engaging interactive resources.

• Children are supported to become confident readers through blending and segmenting using fully decodable books, while also developing as competent early writers with a strong phonetic understanding.

Through our clear progression, high expectations, and focus on foundational knowledge, we ensure children leave our Early Years and Year 1 provision well-prepared, confident, and ready to succeed in the next stage of their education

 

Individualised Learning and Development:

At Sowerby we nurture the whole child, addressing all domains of development—cognitive, physical, social, emotional, and linguistic. We weave literacy, mathematics, creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, and emotional intelligence seamlessly into everyday experiences. We understand that every child develops at their own pace and possesses unique interests. We tailor our curriculum to meet individual needs, offering differentiated activities, flexible pathways, and personalised support. We ensure that each child feels valued and challenged. Individualising learning helps us to support our children with special educational needs (SEN, transforming our environment into an inclusive sanctuary. For our SEN children, we ensure to build an environment where every child feels welcome and empowered to participate and that caters to diverse learning styles. We are able to offer visual aids, adapted equipment, smaller learning groups and individualised pacing to ensure all children can access our curriculum and strive for their goals. We work collaboratively with families, SENCOs and specialist SEN educators to build individualised SEN plans outlining specific goals and interventions. With open communication and shared expertise, we can create a holistic approach to support each child's unique needs

Saplings Nursery

Proud to be part of Sowerby Primary Academy from January 2022

Welcome to Saplings Nursery

We are a long established nursery, providing quality nursery school care and education for all families in the Sowerby area.
 
This and our structured curriculum helps the children transfer easily from nursery school.  Saplings has limited places for the term after their 2nd birthday on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  Places for 3 and 4 year olds are Monday to Friday 5 days per week.
We are in receipt of government funding which your child becomes eligible for the term after their third birthday. In order to claim the funding we must see your child’s birth certificate.
 

• All staff are subject to Enhanced DBS checks.;
• Are Ofsted inspected and approved;
• Have fully qualified staff;
• Are fully insured;
• Hold regular fire drills.

 
To achieve our aim Saplings Nursery will provide:

• A curriculum based on The Early Years Foundation Stage Framework (EYFS).
• Individual care and attention made possible by the high ratio of adults to children.
• Fun and friendship with children and other adults which will develop their social interaction skills.
• The support of a key person.
• Regular feedback on your children’s progress and development.

GOVERNMENT FUNDING

 

For more information or to arrange to look around Saplings please call our Administrator Val Clark. 01845 523037 Option 2