Aspin Park Academy

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In the EYFS at Aspin the children learn through a balance of child-initiated play and adult-led focus activities and challenges. We believe that play has a pivotal role in developing children’s confidence, collaboration and love of learning through children following their own interests and fascinations. We create opportunities and experiences in a stimulating environment to promote discussion, exploration and curiosity. We are extremely lucky to have our two indoor rooms and an outdoor area for the children to free-flow during learning times.

Curriculum

Early Learning Goals

In the EYFS there are 17 Early Learning Goals which the children are expected to reach by the end of the academic year in Reception. Please see link to view the Early Learning Goals.

Our long term plan shows the learning themes we cover throughout the year. We also allow for time to get to know your child and follow their own interests.

Reading

In Reception, reading is primarily taught through daily phonics teaching. We follow the Read, Write, Inc (RWI) scheme, which encourages children to learn sounds through catchy phrases and how to blend these sounds into real and nonsense words using the famous character Fred the frog. In every lesson, children have the opportunity to write words that contain the sound they are learning as well as words containing previously taught sounds.

As the scheme progresses the children are also introduced to a story, which is pitched at their phonic level. They read the story a minimum of three times with a focus on accuracy, fluency and comprehension. It is in our reading lessons that the children are introduced to ‘red words’. These words are tricky for the children as they are unable to segment and blend the words but instead must learn to read them by sight.

We value your support at home when helping your child to learn how to read. Please read the following document which is guidance for you to support your child to learn to read.

Read Write Inc. Parent Information

In addition to our daily RWI reading lessons, we also have daily Fab Five oracy lessons. We choose our favourite five books each half term and study one book a week. We read and re-read these books in order to develop story language and expression. These books are high-quality and contain at least two tier two vocabulary words per sentence. Each day we focus on a different reading domain (VIPERS - vocabulary, inference, prediction, explanation, retrieval and sequencing).

Writing

Once the children are ready to write we will begin by learning to write their name, and practising letter formation. Then we will move onto writing simple words and phrases. Once the children are confident we will write simple sentences and short descriptions.

Maths

Maths is taught daily following the White Rose scheme and using Numberblocks resources to capture the interests of the children and encourage discussions around mathematical vocabulary and concepts. We learn about each number for a week or two to really gain a deep understanding of numbers, comparison, composition and how to represent them.

Each half term we have a Key Instant Recall Fact which we practice everyday. Please use the following link to view the KIRFs and support your child with this learning at home.

PE

To teach PE we follow PE Pro. Miss Selway's PE day is a Thursday and Mrs Bolton/Mrs Windsor's class is a Tuesday.

Our PE kit is

White t-shirt
Black shorts/ joggers
Trainers/plimsolls

Homework

We encourage you to read to your child as well as listen to your child read as regularly as you can. In addition to this, once the children are settled we will send home phonics videos on a Friday for you to watch alongside your child. On a Monday the children will choose a 'reading for sharing' book from the classroom. The purpose of this is for you to read this book to your child and talk about the vocabulary and plot. Your child may wish to predict and join in with familiar phrases.

In Reception we use Tapestry to share your child’s learning journey. We will share photos and videos of the activities and learning that your child has been involved in during school for you to see and comment on. We love to see the children’s experiences and hobbies out of school and therefore encourage parents to upload photos and videos. We will upload a weekly diary to Tapestry to outline all the learning we have covered each week as well as questions to promote discussions with your child about their learning as part of their talking homework. We upload lots of other useful documents to help you understand what your child is learning at school. You can also use Tapestry as a tool to communicate with your class teacher.