In our EYFS classes at Westwood Academy we intend to ensure all children’s interests and needs are met throughout the curriculum. Our intent is provide a safe secure learning environment for children to grow and develop through play to a high standard.
How do we promote these intentions?
- We can all learn from one another.
- We want children to develop self-confidence: to be proud of who they are and what they achieve.
- We work closely with parents to help children reach their potential throughout the year, teaching those skills, concepts and values which will serve them well in future life.
- Whenever possible we provide first-hand experiences which make our curriculum purposeful and relevant.
- We encourage children to form positive relationships with others and to work cooperatively in groups, developing their social skills.
- We encourage independence by allowing children to make choices and drive much of their own learning in a stimulating and nurturing environment where it is ok to make mistakes along a learning journey.
- We want our children to feel part of our school community and our wider community and to begin to understand their role in contributing to this.
Implementation
In EYFS we support children to learn and develop by teaching, encouraging and promoting all aspects of development across the seven areas of learning. These are split into Prime areas and specific areas;
Phonics in Nursery
What happens before formal phonics is taught? In Nursery we immerse children in activities providing opportunities to tune into sounds.
There are six aspects taught:
- Environmental Sounds
- Instrumental Sounds
- Body Percussion
- Rhythm and Rhyme
- Alliteration
- Voice Sounds
All the aspects are taught through group times and total immersion in a rich language environment. We aim to do this by providing a totally immersive nursery experience with lots of rhymes, singing time, rhyming stories, clapping rhythms, musical instruments taught through play at every opportunity. Informal ways to explore letters: e.g. sand moulds, sounds of the week, phonics awareness through modelling writing, or sounding out words.
We also use short discrete group times to model a variety of activities with all 6 aspects taught during the week and use carefully chosen books every day to over learn rhyming words and voice sounds. We encourage children to join in, especially with the repetitive parts to build confidence and learn.
During the Spring Term pupils in Nursery will access more formal teaching of phonics through the delivery of the RWI Nursery programme.
Moving on to Read Write Inc
In the Early Years, pupils will receive more formal lessons taught using the Read, Write, Inc Synthetic Phonic Programme. All our staff are highly trained and receive regular coaching to deliver this. It is taught daily, systematically both to whole class at the correct phonological stage and to discrete groups.
It is important that the teaching of reading is matched to the teaching of phonics. As such, all children must have a home RWI reading book that matches the sounds they have learnt or are learning in their phonics lessons. Families are encouraged to read daily at home and record this is their child’s reading diary.
