Intent
At Crowan Primary School we believe that early childhood is the foundation on which children build the rest of their lives. Our aim is to provide a caring and stimulating environment where every child feels empowered to develop as an independent learner. Our practitioners will provide first- hand opportunities that build upon children’s experiences and interests to enable all children to reach their potential in every aspect of their development.
Our aim is to provide an highly stimulating environment, incorporating both indoor and outdoor learning opportunities with the Characteristics of Effective learning weaving throughout all activities to encourage resilience, awe and wonder and a joy for learning.
We follow a child centred approach to learning, building upon the skills and knowledge that children already have when starting at Crowan and developing a true partnership with parents and carers in order to encourage individualised, exciting and unique learning experience for all children within our care.
Implementation
At Crowan, we offer a balance of child-initiated and adult-led learning using continuous play and small group activities too. We understand that play is an essential part of the early years and encourage child-led play, that which is supported and extended by adults and play which is guided towards specific educational outcomes. We aim to scaffold the children in being able to become more independent learners and achievers and are always aiming to embed a true love of learning!
Impact
At Crowan, we feel it is vitally important to ensure that we are making a difference. We ensure that staff collaborate in a planning cycle thinking about what we want the children to be able to do, what they already know, how we can build upon interests and vocabulary, activities that can maximise learning and assessing any interventions we can provide to move learning on. We aim to be constantly observing and noting where the children are within their learning and which next steps we can provide to extend their learning further.
How do we organise transition at Crowan?
From the moment parents think about applying for a school place for their Reception aged child, we aim to support parents in showing what Crowan has to offer. We run an open evening for prospective parents in November, then follow up with home visits, pre school visits, stay and play sessions at school and an information session for parents in the summer term before starting school. We are fortunate to have good links with our onsite preschool. However, attending this is certainly not a pre-requisite to joining our Reception Class as we very much welcome everyone joining our school family!
How do we teach early reading at Crowan?
At Crowan, we aim to foster a real love of reading and books. We have a 'vote for a story' policy, where by we vote each day for a class book (fiction/ non-fiction/ poetry) every day. These, at times, may form part of a discrete Maths or Literacy session/ be linked to our topic or simply be a book that we think they may enjoy! Furthermore, when children join our Reception class, they will begin to learn their 'phonics' each day. These are letter sounds that the children practice daily to help them to be able to read independently. We teach these within a teacher led session before following up with independent practice and sending these home for children to practice within their own time too. We ensure that children read daily, starting with picture books to focus upon language and storytelling before moving on to books which match the children's phonetic ability and sounds that they are being taught at school. We feel reading is vital in unlocking every aspect of the curriculum and love to use books within all areas of our learning.
How do we engage parents in their children's learning?
We feel learning happens best when there is a true partnership between parents and practitioners. We hold a parental consultation within the first half term of children starting school to let parents know how well their child has settled into school and hold another within the Spring term too. We also hold regular open afternoons throughout the year to allow parents to come into school and look at their children's work and classroom. We use a class dojo messaging system to allow parents and teachers to remain in close contact and complete Tapestry online learning journeys, which parents can contribute to. At the end of the year, a school report is shared with parents too, highlighting their children's progress in line with the Early Learning goals.
