The Early Years
Welcome to Early Years
Thank you for choosing Adswood Primary School for your child to begin their learning journey. At Adswood Primary School children always come first. Their happiness and well-being is our priority. We aim to ensure that all children, staff and parents/carers embrace our school vision, ‘Enjoy, Believe, Achieve’. We are very excited to meet you and your child and our aim is to make their transition in to our Early Years is smooth as possible.
You will receive an introductory call from your child’s class teacher and a welcome pack containing lots of information about our school. We are always able to answer any questions from you as we plan for your child's first day.
On your child’s first day:
Please arrive from 8.40am where the team will greet you and your child at the classroom via the back school playground.
Children will go in to the classroom and be shown where to put their coats and belongings in their individual lockers/pegs.
Throughout this day we will be learning names, playing games and getting to know one another.
Please arrive to collect your child at 3pm. Staff will call for your child upon seeing you. For the first few days please be patient as we learn your faces!
Talk about their first day in the Early Years at home. Did they make any new friends? What did they enjoy? What did they play with? Talk about what they might do tomorrow.
School Uniform
Children must wear school uniform. The colours are red, grey, black and white.
It consists of:
White shirt or polo shirt
Grey / black trousers / skirt / pinafore dress (no jeans or tracksuits)
Red sweatshirt / cardigan / jumper (these with the logo can be purchased from our school office) or plain red jumpers can be purchased at Asda/Tesco
Black shoes (no heels or trainers)
We provide sunhats, fleeces and splash suits for our outdoor areas and a PE kit.
Please provide a pair of Wellington Boots
Please ensure all uniform, coats and lunch bags are clearly labelled with your child’s name.
P.E. Kit
We provide all children with a P.E. kit consisting of red t-shirt and shorts. They are washed regularly and kept in your childs locker.
Snacks
There is a snack available during the day in the Early Years. We offer a variety of healthy snacks so please do not send your child to school with any food other than a packed lunch. We have a water/milk station available in the classroom but children are welcome to bring their own drinks bottle filled with water to school if they wish.
Our Learning Environment
The Early Years team provide all children with a safe, positive and vibrant environment, through which they can imagine, create and explore experiences and opportunities. We will nurture and support children in becoming happy, confident and resilient learners. Our Early Years is an open-plan learning environment and is updated each half-term to reflect our themes. It provides children with exciting and engaging opportunities to develop their learning. We have an open-door policy within our setting which enables children to access both indoor and outdoor provision. We are passionate about outdoor learning and have two vibrant outdoor areas for children to access.
Our Learning
Your child will be learning skills, acquiring new knowledge and demonstrating their understanding through 7 areas of learning and development; Communication and Language, Physical Development, Personal, Social and Emotional Development, Literacy, Mathematics, Understanding the World and Expressive Arts and Design.
The prime areas are those most essential for your child’s healthy development and future learning;
Communication and Language, Physical Development and Personal, Social and Emotional Development.
As children grow, the prime areas will help them to develop skills in 4 specific areas. These are:
Literacy, Mathematics, Understanding the World and Expressive Arts and Design.
Children in the Early Years Foundation Stage learn by playing and exploring, being active, and through creative and critical thinking which takes place both indoors and outside. We carefully select topics to ensure that we provide children with exciting, stimulating and purposeful experiences.
We teach early reading using the 'Read Write Inc' scheme building on any prior knowledge that children may have or starting from tuning in to sounds. Writing is taught based on our half-termly theme where children learn a story or a piece of text and then using taught skills, draw pictures and write labels, captions and sentences. We encourage mark making and writing throughout the whole of the Early Years Foundation Stage environment.
Through our daily maths curriculum, children will develop a secure understanding of number and develop the necessary building blocks to excel mathematically. Children will learn to subitise and develop a good number sense. They will develop a deep understanding of the numbers to 10, the relationship between them and the patterns within those numbers. By providing opportunities to build and apply this understanding, using manipulatives such as pebbles for counters and ten frames for organising counting: children will develop a secure base of knowledge and vocabulary from which mastery of mathematics is built. In addition, it is important that the curriculum includes rich opportunities for children to develop their spatial reasoning skills across all areas of maths including shape, space and measures. It is also important that that children develop positive attitudes in maths and are willing to have a go and take risks. Children will be encouraged to look for patterns, make mistakes and to talk to adults and peers to explain their mathematical thinking.
Home Learning
Talking to children about what they have been learning helps them to make connections, reflect and develop their communication skills. Each week, we share our weekly blog with information about our learning and activities for you and your child to do at home together.
How we assess
Within the Early Years we carry out ongoing assessments by observing children as they play and learn and based on our observations we will set next steps to make sure that children are being challenged at the appropriate level. We very much encourage parents and carers to be involved in our assessment process by telling us about the wonderful things that they do at home. You can do this by filling in one of our WOW notes that we will send home. In our classroom we have a ‘WOW wall’ where we celebrate children’s work by displaying it.
Keeping in touch
You will receive communications from the class teacher via our Seesaw app. Photographs and videos will be shared of your child and their learning. Each week, there will be a weekly blog detailing learning and activities for you to share with your child. School communications will also be sent via the app. This may be newsletters, or any general notices for parents/carers.
Attendance and Punctuality
As a whole school we have an attendance target of 97%.
The school must be informed as soon as possible, usually by telephone, the reason for a child’s absence. The Local Authority, Head Teacher and Inclusion Team regularly monitor attendance and will contact parents/carers if necessary. Whenever possible, dental or medical appointments should be made outside school hours.
If a child arrives at school late, she/he must report to the school office before going to the classroom. This is important so that the attendance registers can be kept accurately.
Safeguarding
The school is completely committed to ensuring the safeguarding of all the children. The school complies with all the requirements. These include Health and Safety, Safer Recruitment, Risk Assessments on trips and visits, entrance and exit arrangements, supervision levels, Managing Medicines in Schools, Fire Safety and Child Protection.
All staff receive the appropriate training. All staff are trained in Child Protection and prevent. The school has Designated Safeguarding Leads for Child Protection – Mrs Smart and in her absence Mr Clarke, Mrs Lennon or Mrs Gee.
First Aid
All staff in the Early Years are First Aid trained and some staff in the Early Years are Paediatric First Aid trained. A record is kept of accidents and first aid treatment.
It is vital that we are kept informed of where you can be contacted in an emergency, especially if you go out to work during the day.
Intimate care of children
During their time at Adswood Primary School your child may need intimate care. This can be when cleaning up a child after they have had a toileting accident or helping them to change clothes when wet. Staff follow our Intimate Care Policy and recognise that there is a need to treat all children with respect when intimate care is given and no child should be attended to in a way that causes distress or pain.
