Ash Class
Welcome to Ash Class! We are Reception and Year 1.
Our teachers are Mrs May and Mrs Mathers on a Friday. We are supported by Mrs Skinner, Mrs Venner and Mrs Nicholson. We are a positive, friendly and hardworking group of children who love to learn! We are working on developing a growth mindset and know that we can achieve anything we set our mind to!
We are very lucky to have lots of different spaces to use, including Maple provision, Ash classroom and undercover outdoor provision. This helps us bridge the gap from continuous provision in EYFS to more structured learning as our time in Ash progresses.
Here is our classroom:
Each term we explore a new topic, with a geography or history driver. We aim to find the information needed to answer our big question. We make links between all subjects where we can. In Ash, we believe that learning should be engaging, exciting and focused!
All the children have the opportunity to participate in an adult led phonics, literacy and maths activity every morning. We also have exciting challenges to explore within our enhanced provision. We know that purposeful play is REALLY important and we love to explore different challenges within the provision. The children will have many opportunities to learn in our lovely outdoor environment too.
The New EYFS Framework 2021
There are seven areas of learning and development within the EYFS framework. All areas are important and inter-connected. Our children’s learning experiences enable them to develop skills and competency in all areas, not just academically but also socially, emotionally and physically.
The seven areas are split into Prime and Specific areas. The three Prime areas which are particularly crucial for igniting children’s curiosity and enthusiasm for learning, and for building their capacity to learn, form relationships and have the language for learning are:
- Communication and Language
- Personal, Social and Emotional Development
- Physical Development
There are also four Specific areas, through which the three prime areas are further strengthened and applied:
- Literacy
- Mathematics
- Understanding the World
- Expressive Arts and Design
Then, the Characteristics of Effective Teaching and Learning weave through all seven areas of learning. Children in the early years are becoming more powerful learners and thinkers and the characteristics develop as they learn to do new things, acquire new skills, develop socially and emotionally, and become better communicators. Children deepen their understanding by playing, talking, observing, planning, questioning, experimenting, testing, repeating, reflecting and responding to adults and to each other.
We really immerse ourselves in our topics; creating, finding and exploring as well as independently searching and discovering answers for questions that we find interesting. We believe in collaborative conversations linked to learning, sharing ideas and debating different concepts and views. This allows us to have greater responsibility and power in taking control of our own learning and we find this method rewarding and beneficial! Have a look at our rolling programme. More detail, including key learning, subject overviews and curriculum statements, can be found under the Curriculum tab.
Reading is REALLY important in Ash Class. We have daily phonics (Y1) sessions, following the Little Wandle systematic synthetic phonics programme. We also read in small group 3 times a week, developing our fluency, prosody and comprehension. Each week we visit the school library and choose a new 'reading for pleasure' book. The librarians help us vary our reading diet.
