Reception & Nursery (EYFS)

At Edgar Sewter, we are absolutely focussed on building positive relationships with our pupils and their families. We work hard to make sure that each and every individual is comfortable, and at ease in our care. Our phase of the school is made up of the Nursery and two Reception classes. 

We work together with our families to deliver successful transition into our Nursery and Reception classes, as well as then moving the children on into Key Stage One at the end of their journey with us in the Early Years Foundation Stage. We have a range of transition events that we offer, but are open to adapting our offer, and providing alternatives where needed, to cater for each individual. 

In the Nursery, children can attend for a morning session - 8.45am until 11.45am, an afternoon session - 12.30pm until 3.30pm, or for the full day, (with a payable lunch-club), if entitled to 30 hour provision.

The Nursery and Reception classes work very closely with each other and all the adults in the department know the children well and create close bonds with them. This is excellent for transition. We create learning journeys for all the children using Google. Each child has an individual folder on the school’s google drive, which can be added to in school, and at home. This helps to build up a picture of each child’s learning from the moment they join us, until they move on to the rest of the school. It also helps us to plan for each child’s next steps in their learning.

We are proud of our practice and know that the activities that we plan and deliver are irresistible, and capture the children’s interests, helping them to learn and respond to challenges. As proud as we are with our current practice, we also know that we can always improve on it, and that we can adapt our teaching and learning to make it even better. As such, we are always learning as adults, and exploring new ways of working. We are very lucky to have a great team of early years practitioners who are dedicated to providing the children with the very best learning opportunities. 

We have engaging and dynamic inside learning environments, where all seven areas of learning are treated equally. We are also very lucky to have our own designated outside classroom in which we support the children to work on all areas of learning, on a larger scale than it is possible to do inside. We access the outside classroom in all weathers, to cater for all learning styles, so we do ask that all children have suitable all-weather gear with them at all times. 

Our children have their own outside play areas and are looked after in these areas at busy times, such as lunchtimes. However, we do lots of things in line with the whole-school practice, and support the children to access these activities as and when they are ready. 

You may have heard that the EYFS curriculum has recently been updated? If you want to find out more about it, you can look at these online documents:  

Development Matters Nonstatutorycurriculumguidancefortheearlyyearsfoundationstage                                                                           

Children are encouraged to bring a water bottle from home each day. They may also bring a healthy snack with them. The bottles and snack tubs should be labelled, to keep them safe. Some people might wonder what the parameters for a healthy snack are. Essentially, we are discouraging lots of packaged goods that are high in sugar, salt and fat. We are happy for the children to have a range of fruit and vegetables, as well as cheese, crackers or home-baked goods. The children should not have chocolatey treats for their snacks and NUTS ARE NOT ALLOWED IN SCHOOL!