We would like to welcome parents, carers and pupils to our reception page! We hope that you find this information useful. If you have any additional questions, please speak to a member of the Early Years team.

At St Anselm’s, children in the Early Years are viewed as competent, curious, natural researchers who are full of knowledge and are interested in connecting with the world around them. We always try to motivate and engage the children in their learning by incorporating their prior knowledge, experiences and interests in our planning.

Our children make accelerated progress from their individual starting points through targeted teaching and planning to suit the individual learners. Children at St Anselm’s learn through a balance of teacher directed learning, where the children are engaged in activities and learning decided by the adult, and child-initiated learning, where the child decides how they will learn and develop through play.

Our teacher directed learning opportunities include daily Read Write Inc phonics lessons, alongside writing tasks and maths activities, linked to topics and themes that the children have shown interest in. We also have a weekly religious education and physical education lesson.

During child-initiated learning, the children enjoy free-flow access to a range of activities inside the classroom and in the outside area, including reading areas, maths areas, construction play, small world play, investigation areas, creative areas and role play.    

We use a ‘Plan, Do, Review’ approach in child led learning, where children carefully plan their learning before they start, share their plans with a partner and offer suggestions on how they can extend their learning and the learning of others to make it challenging and new.

Our reception learning environment is set out to encourage independence, investigation, exploration and discovery.  All areas are designed to provide rich opportunities to enable children to initiate their own learning and develop the learning characteristics that support lifelong learning.

At St Anselm’s. we use the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum to plan all learning opportunities and ensure we are covering the following areas:

We evidence and assess children’s learning in reception through records of adult initiated sessions in folders and books, accompanied by observations of children’s child -initiated learning in the form of observations of 'wow' moments on an online journal called Tapestry.

If we spot significant learning taking place that shows a development in knowledge and skills, we take a photograph and comment on the learning that has taken place. We use this information to influence future teaching and learning opportunities to enable the children to move onto their individual next steps. We invite parents and carers to take active roles in contributing to their child’s learning journey and encourage them to share the ‘wow’ moment learning that has taken place at home so that we can celebrate all of the children’s achievements and gain an accurate picture of the whole child. These contributions are also added through Tapestry.

Parents are children’s first and most enduring educators and have a huge influence on their development.  Alongside providing ‘wow’ moments from home, we also encourage parents to support their child’s learning by reading with them daily and also supporting the reception teachers by acting on guidance given in the weekly newsletters on how to consolidate learning at home.

Parents have the opportunity to meet three times a year with the reception staff at 'Meet the Teacher' sessions, where information about  the term ahead is explained. Parents also will be invited to individual consultation appointments with their child’s class teacher twice a year to discuss where the children are in their learning and how this can be further supported at home. Parents then work with the school to discuss and plan for how next steps in each child’s learning can be maximized through working together.