Early Years Parent Portal
Welcome to the Early Years
The wellbeing of the whole child is paramount at Park Lane and we work hard to ensure that each child is supported academically as well as socially. Our school is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people. The school's Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) for Early Years is Mrs Dawn Warby. If you have any concerns relating to the wellbeing of your child in school, please contact your child’s class teacher or you can contact the Head of Primary and Early Years or the Deputy Head of Primary.
The framework that we follow enables our children to learn in an exciting environment, fosters their independence and gives them the perfect introduction to their educational journey. Pre Nursery to Reception follow the 'Early Years Foundation Stage' framework. This carefully planned, play based framework ensures that each child learns skills and acquires new knowledge through 7 areas of learning and development.
Meet the Site Leaders
Ms Debbie Burgess
Prague 6
Sibeliova Site Leader
Mrs Dawn Warby
Prague 5
Nessie Site Leader
What will my child do in the Early Years?
At this stage of their learning, your child will be mainly learning through play-based activities. They will also be learning about routine and developing early literacy and maths skills, learning about the world around them and learning social skills.
The importance of play
Your child will begin to learn by doing things for themselves, by exploring and investigating, watching and listening, talking and discussing, creating and communicating – in other words, playing. Play is children’s work and playing hard is very tiring! Play can also be very messy as your child will be learning both inside with sand, water and paint, and also in the outdoors with mud, leaves and so on, so you can expect some mucky clothes at the end of the day!
The Early Years Foundation Stage
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is a framework for children aged three to five years old. This is broken down into three prime aspects and four specific areas of learning.
The three prime aspects of learning are:
In addition there are four specific areas:
Personal, social and emotional development
One of the main aspects of your child’s time at nursery will be a focus on their personal, social and emotional development. They will be encouraged to develop positive relationships, to play with a variety of friends and to understand the feelings of others. There will be opportunities to build confidence and self-awareness, and also to manage their feelings and behaviour.
Literacy
The ‘Communication’ section above outlines some activities to develop speaking and listening skills. In addition to sharing lots of stories, your child will probably be encouraged to handle and look at books independently and to begin to learn about how stories are structured. There will be opportunities for your child to recognise their own name. Your child will be encouraged to draw, paint and make to develop control and hand-eye co-ordination. They may begin to learn to copy the letters in their name.
Communication
Communication is a key area of your child’s learning in nursery. They will spend lots of time sharing rhymes, songs, stories and playing games to develop their speaking and listening skills. They will be encouraged to learn to listen carefully, to develop concentration, to respond to questions and instructions, to share ideas and experiences and to take part in conversations.
Mathematics
At nursery, your child will be given many opportunities to explore numbers and shapes in their play. For example, they may be encouraged to count objects they are playing with and to compare two groups of objects. They will probably begin to represent numbers using their fingers, marks on paper or pictures.
Physical development
Your child will be given lots of opportunities to move in different ways, for example, running, jumping, balancing and playing with balls. Another important aspect of physical development at this stage is learning to hold and use tools, such as scissors, and also to use pencils and pens to draw lines and shapes. Your child will also begin to understand how to look after themselves and be healthy.
Understanding the world
Your child will learn about the world around them and they will be encouraged to use simple technology and equipment.
Expressive arts
Finally, imagination and creativity are explored and developed in the area of expressive arts. Your child will explore different media and materials and be encouraged to use their imagination in a range of different experiences.
Most of the time your child will be learning all seven areas of learning together, in a fairly jumbled way. So if they spends lots of time in the sand area there’s no need for concern! They may well be covering all kinds of important learning: working with different materials; finding out about shape, quantity and volume; creating imaginative worlds; feeling different textures; and even developing motor skills and strength for writing!
At Park Lane, we teach the children to read accurately and fluently with the Read Write Inc. Phonics programme.
Click here to know more about Read, Write Inc.
