Shenton Primary School

Empowering and nurturing young minds to achieve excellence



Nursery & Reception

 

Every child deserves the best possible start in life and the support that enables them to fulfil their potential. Children develop quickly in the early years and a child’s experiences between birth and age five have a major impact on their future life chances. A secure, safe and happy childhood is important in its own right.

Good parenting and high quality early learning together provide the foundation children need to make the most of their abilities and talents as they grow up. If you need help with establishing routines, encouraging your child to eat healthy foods and/or managing their behaviour please talk to us. Our children make excellent progress in the Early Years. 

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) sets the standards that all early years providers must meet to ensure that children learn and develop well and are kept healthy and safe. It promotes teaching and learning to ensure children’s ‘school readiness’ and gives children the broad range of knowledge and skills that provide the right foundation for good future progress through school and life. For a parents guide to the EYFS please click here

 

These four themes underpin the curriculum within the EYFS :Please click here
 
A Unique Child
 
Positive Relationships
Enabling Environments
Learning and Development
Every child is a competent learner from birth who can be resilient, capable, confident and
Self-assured.
 
Children learn to be strong and independent from a base of loving and secure relationships with parents and/or a key person
The environment plays a key role in supporting and extending children’s development and learning
Children develop and learn in different ways and at different rates and all areas of Learning and Development are equally important and inter-connected

How We Teach

The classes will have a variety of stimulating and engaging activities for your child to interact with. Children are supported by practitioners in the choices of activities they choose. During their play adults will help your child to develop  a variety of skills that address several learning areas.  These include core personal, social and emotional skills as well as early language and mathematical skills.  During these activities your child will also be introduced to new ideas to extend their play and learning. We encourage your child to learn by providing different experiences e.g. inviting a fire engine and firemen/women into school. At Shenton we feel it is important to plan from the children’s interests where possible. This enables your child to develop understanding of concepts they are interested in and means that learning is personal to them.  As your child gets older and progresses, adults will encourage your child to play different games and try new activities more often.

Remember your child is learning well if they are exploring the environment by themselves, making strong friendships and talking about new things they have learnt at home.

Settling in

When your child arrives they will be welcomed with a smile and a familiar face to make them feel safe and comfortable. As your child gets to know us, we expect them to wave 'goodbye' to you with a smile and look forward to playing and learning with their friends.

If your child has never been away from you, they may find this challenging. We do not want your child to be upset. You will be asked to stay with your child to help them get used to the setting for a while. Once they are beginning to leave your side to play, we will ask you to leave for a short amount of time. This time away will be built up gradually depending on how confident your child becomes, until they are happy to come into the setting on their own. This can take up to 6 weeks, particularly in nursery, but it is much better that your child separates from you slowly so that they are happy coming to school.

Children who Speak Another Language

If your child speaks another language we need to make sure they are ready to learn English. Children should be able to speak in full sentences, be able to talk about yesterday and tomorrow using appropriate tenses and ask questions in their first language. It is important that your child is speaking with confidence in their first language before we begin teaching them English as this stops a lot of confusion that will slow your child's learning in the future if it is not addressed now. Please come and talk to us about this, if you are not sure.

 

What If My Child has Special Educational Needs or a Disability (SEND)?

The school has a clear policy to ensure any children with a SEND is supported. Click here to read more.

How Do I Know If My Child is Progressing Well?

If the adults in school have any concerns about your child's development, they will discuss this with you first. Sometimes children behave differently in school to the way they behave at home.

If your child is making good progress, they will want to come to school, they will be exploring and trying new games/activities, they will be talking to you about their friends and what they have done. Adults in school will talk to you on a daily/weekly basis about particular moments in your child's learning, and will formally invite you to discuss your child's progress each term. During these meetings teachers will be talking to you about targets for your child that are appropriate to their stage of development. You can ask at anytime of course, particularly if you have concerns.

We also run a variety of workshops that can help build your knowledge of several topics such as how you can manage your child's behaviour effectively, how you could build more effective routines, healthy eating advice, as well as workshops on how you can help your child with Reading, Writing or Maths. If you are interested in any of these please talk to your child's teacher.

Reception Baseline

 

When your child starts Reception their class teacher will carry out a Reception Baseline Assessment (RBA) for your child.

This is a statutory requirement by the Government, for all Reception aged children which needs to take place within the first six weeks after they have entered school. 

The RBA is a short, practical assessment of your child’s early literacy (reading and writing), communication (speaking), language and mathematics skills.

You do not have to prepare anything or do anything with your child beforehand. The RBA helps your child's teacher to get to know your child better as they will spend  valuable one to one time with them.

The link below gives you more information and explains the process in more detail. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1004560/2021_Information_for_parents_reception_baseline_asses

 

This is included in our Shenton’s privacy notice for parents, as we share your child’s assessment information with the Government. Our privacy notice can be found here https://www.shenton.leicester.sch.uk/home/gdpr-regulations

If you have any questions please come and talk to us.