At Fishwick, our Early Years includes our S27 Nursery and Reception. We want children to feel safe, settled and excited to come to school, while giving them the strong foundations they need for future learning.

Our children learn best through a mixture of carefully planned teaching and purposeful play. Each day includes short adult-led sessions alongside plenty of time to explore our indoor and outdoor provision. Children build, create, talk, investigate, role play, make marks, solve problems and learn how to play and work alongside others.

Stories are at the heart of our curriculum. We use high-quality books to develop children’s vocabulary, imagination and knowledge of the world. Important ideas and vocabulary are revisited throughout the year so that children have lots of opportunities to remember and use what they have learned.

In Reception, children are taught phonics through Red Rose Letters and Sounds and develop early reading and writing skills every day. Our maths teaching follows the NCETM Mastering Number programme, with a strong focus on number sense, subitising, counting, composition and mathematical thinking. 

Across Nursery and Reception, children also develop important foundational knowledge through CUSP Early Foundations. They learn about themselves and their families, their local community, seasons, animals, plants, celebrations, different places and how the world around them works.

We place a strong emphasis on communication and language and using a Shrec approach, adults model new vocabulary, extend children’s conversations and give children lots of opportunities to talk, listen and communicate in different ways.

Our provision is adapted to meet the needs of individual children. Some children may access additional support such as sensory activities, Attention Autism/Bucket Time, Intensive Interaction, small-group learning or time in our calm and sensory spaces. We work closely with families and our SENCo to make sure children can access learning in a way that works for them.

We also believe that children need to develop independence, confidence and resilience. From learning to put on their own coat to tidying away resources, taking turns, making choices and persevering when something is difficult, these everyday skills are an important part of life in Early Years.

Outdoor learning is part of our day throughout the year, so children will often get wet, muddy or messy!

Please send a named bag of spare clothes into school. We recommend including underwear, socks, trousers/leggings and a top, as children may need changing after messy play, water play or outdoor learning. 

Reception children should bring their book bag to school every day. This allows us to send home reading books, letters and other important information.

We use Class Dojo to keep families updated with reminders, messages and snapshots of what the children have been learning.