Welcome to the Wonderful World
of Early Years
At Harbury School, our aim is to give children the best possible start to their school life and inspire a passion for life-long learning. In the Early Years Foundation Stage, we strive to give children a strong foundation to grow, explore and succeed as learners. We want the children to feel secure, safe and happy, in an enabling environment where every individual is respected and valued.
At Harbury, the children’s unique learning opportunities are centred around topics that form our rich curriculum, providing a range of indoor and outdoor experiences for children to develop physically, academically and creatively.
Our curriculum is designed to give children the foundational knowledge and understanding needed to prepare them for year 1 and beyond.
Our Intent is to:
● Use our own bespoke curriculum and the educational programmes, as a framework to build on when deciding what we intend the children to learn and develop.
● Establish an environment that is nurturing, bright and exciting and one that is full of interesting and challenging activities in which learning can take place.
● Deliver a curriculum based on entitlement for all, that considers each child’s existing knowledge and experiences, and where the children can engage in first-hand experiences.
● Give children opportunities to practise, revise and extend knowledge and skills in a consistent and stable environment.
● Enable children to develop characteristics of effective teaching and learning, which will enable them to become independent, resourceful and resilient learners now and throughout their education. These are:
○ playing and exploring - children investigate, experience different opportunities, and ‘have a go’.
○ active learning - children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties, and enjoy achievements.
○ creating and thinking critically - children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things.
We aim to design a curriculum which is broad and balanced and which builds on the knowledge, understanding and skills of all pupils, from individual starting points.
Our Approach
In the foundation stage we have a balanced approach – we combine motivating adult led activities, opportunities for sustained and prolonged child led experiences, and daily phonics sessions. By learning through play, enabling environments, outdoor learning and building positive adult-child interactions we strive to ensure our provision allows the children to build on previous learning using taught skills.
Early Years Principles
Running all the way through our early years is the principle of learning through play, the best and most meaningful way for young children to learn.
We offer lots of open ended exploratory experiences, and the structure of our day includes periods of uninterrupted play, so that children can get deeply involved in their learning. We provide rich, enabling learning environments, inside and outdoors, which promote exploration and discovery. The classroom and outdoor areas are organised so that opportunities in all areas of learning are offered. Children can access resources by themselves, make choices, follow their own interests and extend their own learning independently. This all leads to greater involvement and deeper learning.
Our aim is for children to leave the EYFS as confident, happy, independent, resilient learners, emotionally and academically ready for Year one.
A Day in the Life of EYFS
Maths in the Early Years
Phonics and Early Reading
In reception, we love to read. We use exciting, high quality books as a hook to immerse and engage children in their learning. At the end of each day we enjoy sharing a story together from a book vote in our reading area. The children's understanding of new vocabulary is highlighted as they listen to stories, the new words are then added to our 'words of wonder' hoop, which the children revisit and use regulary in their conversations.
Words of Wonder
Book Vote
It is wonderful to share the joy of reading with parents and carers. They have the opportunity to join their children, in class, at various points throughout the year, either during phonics stay and learn workshops or just by enjoying a favourite story together at the end of the day.
At Harbury we follow Read Write Inc phonics.
Children learn sounds in school which help them to read and write. They then practise these skills through reading 'Book Bag Books' at home which are specifically pitched to both consolidate learning and provide challenge in an engaging and fun way!
Children are first introduced to set 1 sounds. Set 1 Sounds are taught with rhymes to help children form the letters correctly and instantly recognise sounds ready for blending.
Fred Talk
Blending to Read
Spelling with Fred Fingers
Nonsensense Words- What a lot of Nonsense!
A Few Hightlights From Our Curriculum
Physical development experience days
Our exciting learning opportunities
Parents as Partners
What our parents say about Harbury School Induction afternoon and new parents evening prior to their child starting school.
" Lovely to see inside the classroom"
" My nerves were calmed"
" Very informative and useful"
" Well thought out, so as not to be so overwhelming"
Transition to school
"The class teacher's warmth and positivity enables the children to feel safe, valued and supported"
" Having regular feedback from the class teacher"
" Settling in sessions were great"
" It is obvious the class teacher and whole team genuinely care about each child"
"The transition day really helped make my child excited and helped him picture what starting school was like. The video from his teacher the night before was very helpful. He felt his teacher knew him and was excited to see him"
" The class teacher was incredibly supportive of the whole family"
" Preschool visits from the class teacher were great"
" The support we have had from the class teacher and Headteacher"
"Communication with the class teacher and school"
"Everything felt very welcoming and inclusive"
" I feel my child had a very positive start to school"
Any other comments
" We feel supported with learning and development"
"Extremely pleased with how smooth our transition has been, my son clearly loves to be at school and it’s so heartwarming"
"Our son feels heard and supported by his teacher which is ultimately when children do their best learning. She has a beautiful way with the children. We can’t thank her enough for starting him off on the right foot."
"It’s been a really positive experience for the whole family."
Now lets hear from the really important people!
Our fabulous reception children.
I like learning at Harbury school.....
New to Reception
Meet the Harbury Reception Team
Teachers
Miss Zoe O'Malley
Mrs Rea- Wednesday afternoons
Learning Support Assistants
Mrs Clarke
Mrs Hooper
Mrs Hunt
Welcome to Reception
School readiness
We know that when children start school, they arrive with a host of different experiences. At Harbury school we want to work together with you as parents and carers to help your child start school confidently and with a curiosity to learn new experiences. It is also about more than just your child being ready. Their transition to school involves a careful balance of support from home and school in order to make school an enjoyable and positive experience. To do this our communication and co-operation together is key in enabling your child in having a succesful start to their school life at Harbury school.
