A Day in EYFS
Nursery
A typical session in our nursery begins with a warm welcome, then children immediately engage with ‘continuous provision’, selecting where they would like to be actively involved in learning. Later children will gather together as a class to pray and go through the visual timetable. Direct adult teaching will follow, either as a whole class or in key person groups. Children can then choose indoor or outdoor learning time and have a healthy snack of fruit and milk or water (water is available throughout the day.) At the end of the session they join their key person group for some more adult directed teaching and story time, a prayer and then home time.
On specific days children may also use the school hall for PE, have music time with Miss Barrett (our music teacher) or take part in Welly Wednesday or Forest Friday activities.
Reception
Our day begins with the children independently organising their coats and book bags, signing in and settling to a ‘walk into learning’ Literacy or Numeracy focus task. Following a prayer session led by the children, every child joins a specific Read Write Inc phonics group, where they actively take part in a 30 minute daily phonics session. During the rest of the morning every child will take part in a focus mathematics session and enjoy free choice learning time, both indoors and outside to explore, develop and display their knowledge, skills and understanding. A healthy snack and drinks are available daily, free of charge for the children to enjoy. Following lunch in the hall and an outside play, we gather together for more adult led learning. During the rest of the afternoon the children are exploring the indoor and outdoors environments during free choice and completing adult led activities such as shared reading or a focused writing activity. Our day finishes with a whole class song and story time. On specific days we enjoy Forest activities (whatever the weather!), use the hall for PE activities and enjoy a music session with Miss Barrett.
Transitions
We know that transitions can be challenging for children, particularly our youngest learners, so we have a carefully planned approach to supporting them with this, initially with the daily transitions from one part of the day to another, using visual timetables and now and next boards.
We begin to prepare our nursery children for transition into our Reception class from the Spring term, when they take part in a weekly ‘freeflow’ session.This involves them being in mixed groups with children from the Reception class, then spending time in one of three areas: Reception class, Nursery or outside. The staff rotate around these spaces, enabling children to become familiar with all of the team and every EYFS learning space long before it is time for them to progress to the next year group.
We also liaise with other settings, when children are moving to or from a different school or nursery, and where possible we visit the child in that environment, enabling us to gather information and get to know about their likes and interests.
When children transition from Reception to Year 1 we plan sessions for them to meet their new teacher in the Reception class environment, before allowing them to visit their new classroom. Staff hold detailed transition meetings, sharing and gathering all of the information needed to support the next stage of their learning journey.
At SS Peter and Paul we pride ourselves on ensuring that our children and families feel welcomed, safe, nurtured and develop a sense of belonging.
