Welcome to Reception class at King’s Meadow Academy. We have 45 places in Reception with the class teacher Mrs Moore and a teaching assistant, Miss Needham, working together.
We believe every child should enjoy coming to school and feel happy and safe while they are here. We nurture individuals and provide support to children and families throughout their time in Early Years. We want their first experience of school to be exciting and memorable.
We provide high quality experiences that are engaging, motivating and relevant to our learners. These are based on an excellent knowledge of how children learn, their personal needs and interests as well as the curriculum. We develop all aspects of a child; academic, physical and social skills, aiming to develop a resilience and thirst for learning that they will carry with them for life. Children have access to a high quality learning environment and resources both indoors and outdoors.
It is our role to provide meaningful opportunities for children to learn, practise and apply skills in a range of contexts. This includes returning to concepts regularly to build on prior knowledge and skills in order to develop a deep understanding. We encourage children to make links in their learning across all areas of the curriculum, so that they are able to draw on the necessary skills to solve new problems. In order to succeed, we believe children need to be encouraged to take risks and learn from their mistakes. This only occurs if there is a culture in the classroom that is supportive and the children feel safe. Our classrooms are a space where children are encouraged to work in collaboration both with peers and adults to find answers to the questions that interest them. Through working in partnership with children we have found that they begin to understand that learning is a lifelong process and that we can find things out together.
We believe that in order for learning to be effective, children need to be engaged and feel connected to their learning. We may provide ‘hooks’ at various points throughout out topic that really spark a child’s imagination and interests which lead to high quality outcomes as the children have real enthusiasm for their learning. The adults may take the child’s lead and follow their own learning interests. This is a powerful approach and encourages children to take responsibility for their own learning with the adults providing appropriate feedback and challenge to move the learning forwards. This ‘in the moment’ planning and use of assessment ensures that each child is treated as a unique individual and is appropriately supported in a way that is personal to them.
We invite parents in to see their children’s learning in action and have an open door policy as we know that through building positive relationships we can all work together to support the children in the best way possible.