At Priory, it is our intent that our children will develop knowledge that will last a lifetime, along with strong skills to prepare them for the world, enabling them to lead a successful life and make a positive contribution to their community.
At Priory, we equip our pupils for the future by making sure they are prepared for a world beyond school. Our Early Years offers a positive start to school life: pupils benefit from developing strong relationships through a child-centred learning experience. Our intent is strong and through our learning environment, children build relationships that support, enhance, and invite children’s curiosity, confidence, and individuality to flourish regardless of backgrounds, circumstances and needs. Children in our EYFS begin their lifelong learning journey by developing physically, emotionally and cognitively. High quality teacher led and child-initiated learning takes place both indoors and out and continuous and enhanced provision allows our children the freedom to take ownership of their own learning. We expect that both approaches foster the characteristics of effective learning and produce deep level learning and skills. Our children are eager to come to school right from their first day as a result of positive transitions and our parents are kept fully informed of aspects of their child’s development.
Parents As Partners EYFS
At Priory CE Primary School we value the input, and recognise the importance, of our parents and guardians to the children’s learning and development. Because of this, we ensure that there are numerous opportunities available for you to get involved with school life; some of which are whole school and some which are just Early Years orientated.
For instance, over the year we like to offer opportunities for parents and guardians to come into the Early Years for activity afternoons. These offer the chance for you to experience the environment and kinds of activities that the children are able to access on a daily basis as well as providing opportunity to talk with staff on an informal basis and get rather messy!
There are two formal parents evenings each year where you will get the chance to speak with your child’s key worker about all aspects of their attainment and development. As a school, we use a downloadable app called ‘Class dojo’. This links with our behavior system. This allows you to email teachers directly and is a valuable tool for communication. We have an open door policy where you can speak to key workers before and after school or make arrangements to speak to staff at any time. Our door is always open, we highly value contact with parents and carers.
Each end of a term your child will bring home their Record of Achievement. This book contains information about the progress they make each half term and what their next steps for learning are. Parents get the opportunity to comment in the Record of Achievement as to how well you think your child is getting on at school and if there is anything that we can do to help. By completing the Wow Stars (detailed below) we can build a picture of what your child gets up to at home and use this to inform their attainment record.
We conduct various curriculum events throughout the year where parents are invited to come and experience the activities that the children get up to and also parents learn how best to support at home. These events address issues such as early reading, writing and maths.
In Nursery and Reception we visit our new children in their preschool environment and have a chat to their keyworker about their development and if there is anything which we can do to ensure a smooth transition into school life. We offer ‘Stay and Play’ sessions to all children in the Early Years, which allows them to meet staff, explore the environment and get to know their peers.
We value what your child gets up to and achieves at home, to share this with us we have Wow Stars for you to write on. These can be found on the planning board in the entrance as well as downloadable from this section of the website. We like to hear about all things such as staying in their own bed all night, trying their vegetables to writing their name or learning to skip. We use this information as evidence in your child’s Early Years Foundation Stage Profile which is the document we keep to track attainment and help us to plan your child’s next steps for learning.
All of the staff in the Early Years team, and at Priory Primary look forward to working with you in partnership to support your child’s development and learning. We all strive together to “Be the best that we can be”. Please let us know if you feel that there is anything you need help with or that we can improve upon.
Development Matters 2021 (this is the “ages and stages” of development which we use to assess and plan next steps for learning)
Here are some useful links to support your child’s journey: