Learning and Development

The Characteristics of Effective Learning underpin learning and development in the EYFS.  They include:

Playing and Exploring – Practitioners support and provide opportunities for all pupils to investigate and experience things, and ‘have a go’.

Active Learning – Practitioners support and provide opportunities for all pupils to concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties, and enjoy their own achievements.

Creating and Thinking Critically – Practitioners support and provide opportunities for all pupils to have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things.

There are seven areas of learning and development that shape the educational programme at Barrow Hedges. All areas of learning and development are important and interconnected.

These areas are particularly important for building a foundation to ignite children’s curiosity and enthusiasm for learning, building on their senses and movement and support children to form positive relationships with others. 

These are the prime areas:

• Communication and Language
• Physical Development
• Personal, Social and Emotional Development

We also support children in four specific areas, through which the three prime areas are strengthened and applied.

The specific areas are:

• Literacy
• Mathematics
• Understanding the World
• Expressive Arts and Design

The development of children’s spoken language underpins all seven areas of learning and development.

Children’s back-and-forth interactions from an early age form the foundations for language and cognitive development. The number and quality of the conversations they have with adults and peers throughout the day in a language-rich environment is crucial. By commenting on what children are interested in or doing, and echoing back what they say with new vocabulary added, practitioners will build children's language effectively.

Reading frequently to children, and engaging them actively in stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems, and then providing them with extensive opportunities to use and embed new words in a range of contexts, will give children the opportunity to thrive. Through conversation, story-telling and role play, where children share their ideas with support and modelling from their teacher, and sensitive questioning that invites them to elaborate, children become comfortable using a rich range of vocabulary and language structures.

Here's an example of high quality interactions that support communication and language development, captured on our electronic platform, Tapestry.

 We are so excited to have a jewellery shop in Fox Class. (N) "I think I'm going to make a Batman watch because I'm dressed like Batman. He is my favourite super hero." (J) "Yeah I'm going to make a Spider-Man watch so he knows what the time is when he need to get the baddies." (J) "I'm going to make something to be Batman but not a watch." (A) "I need to be a girl one. I'm going to be Super Girl. I need to make a Super Girl jewellery." (T) "I be Spider-Man. Spider-Man do webs." Mrs Hutchison joins us and asks us why superheroes are called superheroes? (N) "Erm because they do super things like fighting and lifting cars up." (J) "Actually it's because they have super powers I think." (J) "Yeah like Spider-Man can do webs out of his fingers." (T) "Spider-Man shoot webs." (A) "What power does super girl have?" Mrs Hutchison tells us that we might be able to find out more about our favourite super heroes using the computer. (J) "Yes you can Google things on the computer and it tells you about things in real life, and things that are not real life as well." (J) "That's like Alexa that can tell you things as well." With Mrs Hutchison's help we find out lots about our favourite superheroes. (N) "See batman can fly and he can shoot things out of his belt." (A) "I didn't know Super Girl can fly." (T) "Spider-Man climb high. Spider-Man climb to top." We then get busy designing new powerful jewellery for our superheroes to wear. (N) "This batman watch can tell the time but it's also magic because it can call the goodie and it can shoot power lasers at the baddies. J can you help me measure my arm." (A) "I'm making a super girl bracelet. It can make me do invisible, then the baddies can't find me. Can you hold this for me J while I cut it please." (J) "I made a spidey watch. It shoots coloured fire to get the baddies. I need to press this button and it all shoots out. N can you help me stick it, it's a bit tricky." (J) "I'm making a laser crown so when batman is in the dark he can make it all light up. Can you help me put the paper round my head so I knew the right size." (T) "I make fire shoot. Bracelet do fire shoot. Get baddies. Spider-Man bracelet." After we have finished designing our bracelets we get busy making them. We use different materials and tools to help us join objects together and we're all super careful when we use the scissors. Once our designs are finished we proudly show them off then get busy saving the world! Finally we label our designs so our friends know how to make them. We use our phonics to help us sound out and stretch the words we want to write, matching sounds to letters. We try really hard to write some sentences remembering to use captain letters, full stops and fingers spaces.

Wow what fantastic super heroes you are. Your new super hero jewellery will definitely help you save the day! I love how you used your words to initiate requests, make choices and express ideas.
Great Job

Children’s personal, social and emotional development (PSED) is crucial for children to lead healthy and happy lives and is fundamental to their cognitive development.

Underpinning their personal development are the important attachments that shape their social world. Strong, warm and supportive relationships with adults enable children to learn how to understand their own feelings and those of others.

Children should be supported to manage emotions, develop a positive sense of self, set themselves simple goals, have confidence in their own abilities, to persist and wait for what they want and direct attention as necessary. Through adult modelling and guidance, they will learn how to look after their bodies, including healthy eating, and manage personal needs independently. Through supported interactions with other children, they learn how to make good friendships, cooperate and resolve conflicts peacefully. These attributes will provide a secure platform from which children can achieve at school and in later life.

Here's an example of high quality interactions that support personal, social and emotional development, captured on our electronic platform, Tapestry. 

We are having lots of fun dressing up. (A) "I want to be this dress because I like this princess best. It's a Belle dress." (E) "Can you help me find the frozen dress. I want to be Elsa." (S) "This dress so beautiful, it's like a fairy. I want this one. My favourite princess is Elsa though. She has a blue dress not a white one." We happily share and change our costumes, helping each other if we find it tricky. (E) "Can you help me do this up please?" (S) "Sure. It's got sticky bits at the back. I can stick it for you." Once we've finished getting ready we get busy having a tea party together. We even take a phone call from a prince! (E) "The prince wants chocolate cake." (A) "I can make it for him. I need to bake it in the oven."
Wow girls what busy princesses you are. I love how you could use your words to talk about what you like to play best. And what great friends you are by being so helpful to each other.
Well done

Physical activity is vital in children’s all-round development, enabling them to pursue happy, healthy and active lives.

Gross and fine motor experiences develop incrementally throughout early childhood, starting with sensory explorations and the development of a child’s strength, co-ordination and positional awareness through tummy time, crawling and play movement with both objects and adults. By creating games and providing opportunities for play both indoors and outdoors, adults can support children to develop their core strength, stability, balance, spatial awareness, co-ordination and agility. Gross motor skills provide the foundation for developing healthy bodies and social and emotional well-being. Fine motor control and precision helps with hand-eye co-ordination, which is later linked to early literacy. Repeated and varied opportunities to explore and play with small world activities, puzzles, arts and crafts and the practice of using small tools, with feedback and support from adults, allow children to develop proficiency, control and confidence.

Here's an example of high quality interactions that support physical development, captured on our electronic platform, Tapestry. 

We have all been busy spending time in the Reception garden. (K) "It's a nice day today because it's sunny. When it rains you can't come right outside can we, we need to just stay under that cover bit." We all start to notice changes that are happening in our garden. (L) "Look at these flowers, these are all yellow." (E) "I see these flowers near my house like these." (A) "I helped my mummy to plant some seeds. She had to help me open the seed packet. Then we planted the seeds " (K) "Look I can see some pink ones as well, them ones are hiding a bit. They have lots of flower bits on them, they are so pretty." (F) "Pink Flowers." Mrs Covey tells us that the flowers are starting to grow because the seasons will be changing soon. She reminds us of all the things we learnt about winter and that things begin to grow during the spring time. Mrs Covey suggests that we could all be gardeners and plant some more flowers. (K) "We can wear gloves to plant to stop us being dirty." With Mrs Covey's help we find lots of different gardening equipment, she helps us learn the names of the tools and explains how we use them. (A) "This one looks like a giant fork, like what I eat my dinner with." We all decide that it's important to be careful with the tools as some of them look a bit sharp. (K) "Sharp things do cut." (E) "I can dig a hole with this spade. See now flowers can go in hole." (F) "Spade do dig." (L) "I can make all the soil get chopped up. See I dig with this fork. I dig down." We make sure to handle the flowers carefully. (K) "We need to put the roots bits at the bottom so they can grow. The roots give the plants water from the soil" (E) "You need make sure you don't chop the flowers bits with the spade." After we have finished planting we take it in turns to water the flowers. (A) "They need water to help them grow." Finally we get busy ordering pictures to show our friends how to plant. We label our pictures, sounding out our words and stretching them so we can hear the different sounds. We try really hard to match sound to letter and remember to use a letter card if we find it a bit tricky. We even write sentences to show how they grow.

Wow Foxes what fantastic gardeners you are. I love how you used all of the different tools safely and correctly and made our garden look so pretty!
Great Job

It is crucial for children to develop a life-long love of reading. Reading consists of two dimensions: language comprehension and word reading. Language comprehension (necessary for both reading and writing) starts from birth. It only develops when adults talk with children about the world around them and the books (stories and non-fiction) they read with them, and enjoy rhymes, poems and songs together. Skilled word reading, taught later, involves both the speedy working out of the pronunciation of unfamiliar printed words (decoding) and the speedy recognition of familiar printed words. Writing involves transcription (spelling and handwriting) and composition (articulating ideas and structuring them in speech, before writing).

Teaching and Learning for Reading

In addition to adult led learning for reading such as guided reading and phonics teaching, the enabling environment provides a rich reading resource. We ensure that our book areas are as inviting as possible. We have comfy chairs, cushions, puppets and props to make the experience engaging.

We also have books in numerous areas of the indoor classroom (and outdoors when appropriate) – craft books in the creative area, cookery books in the role play, construction and reference books in the small world area, for example.

The children have their own book bag with their home-school reading book, which they can take out and read if they wish. Reading games and activities to consolidate and embed new learning are always available. Practitioners are the most valuable resource, encouraging children to read words in our print rich environment as well as reading stories to groups of children during the session. Story Time is an invaluable resource to support teaching and learning as children make progress towards the ELG for reading:

Children at the expected level of development will:

• Say a sound for each letter in the alphabet and at least 10 digraphs.
• Read words consistent with their phonic knowledge by sound-blending.
• Read aloud simple sentences and books that are consistent with their phonic knowledge, including some common exception words.” (ELG for reading)

Here's an example of high quality interactions that support literacy development, captured on our electronic platform, Tapestry. 

We love looking at books and sharing stories. Today Mrs Hutchison is going to read us the story called 'The three little pigs' (C) "I know that story I had that at my house before." Mrs Hutchison shows us the title on the front page and explains that this story is very old and that even when she was a little girl she used to read it. She tells us that lots of different people have written this story but today we are reading one by Brenda Parkes. Mrs Hutchison explains that she is the author and an author is someone who writes books. (F) "Like us, we authors. We write book about tall tall grass." We really enjoy listening to the story. (F) "I had story with once upon time before. It different story though. It do have goats in it." (A-M) "All the pigs boy pigs, they got boy clothes." (A) "My house is got bricks. Lots and lots of bricks." (C) "The wolf do huff and puff and blow and all the straw come down because straw not strong." (F) "Sticks do blow down in the wind. Like the storm." (T) "I got brick house." (C) "Why them pigs not live with them mummy." (A-M) "That wolf got sharp teeth. He not kind. He want eat the pigs." (T) "He huff puff blow." (C) "I think they should all build brick house. One house altogether. Then they be safe from the wolf." (F) "Why that wolf want eat them pigs. He need eat apple." (A-M) "That wolf go down chimney, he fall in water." (A) "He get burn because them pigs make fire." (F) "He gonna burn his tail." (C) "Yeah then he need go hospital."

Wow boys and girls what fantastic listening. I love how you commented on the story asking questions and sharing your thoughts. I'm also very impressed that you are beginning to adapt different parts to solve a problem differently.
Great Job!

Click here to view our Reception Reading Evening Presentation.

Story Time

Story time is a special time in Reception and Nursery where we come together to enjoy stories, poems and rhymes that helps us to remember our learning, to consolidate themed learning through information books and listen to stories for pleasure.

Phonics Teaching

At Barrow Hedges, we have created our own robust systematic synthetic phonics programme using Pearson’s Bug Club Phonics progression of sounds and decodable books. We prioritise the importance of teaching phonics by starting with Phase 1 in Nursery and consolidating this knowledge in Reception, before moving on to Phase 2.

Nursery Phonics

Children learn Phase 1 Phonics in Nursery:

1. Environmental Sounds
2. Instrumental Sounds
3. Body Percussion
4. Voice Sounds
5. Rhythm and Rhyme
6. Alliteration
7. Oral Blending and Segmenting

In Nursery, children become aware of sounds in their environment through play and exploration. They go on listening walks to see what they can hear. Children will be able to identify sounds such as cars, emergency services, birds, wind and talking for example.

Children then move on to instrumental sounds. Children learn to identify a range of musical instruments such as a drum, bells and a shaker and will notice the difference between loud and quiet sounds. As this sound discrimination continues to develop, children will be able to use their own bodies to make sounds and we call this body percussion. We explore what noises/sounds we can make with our mouth, hands and feet, alongside singing lots of songs and action rhymes.

Then children move on to distinguishing between different voice sounds and will explore using deep, squeaky, whispering, happy voices for example. We use mirrors and look at our different faces for when we make different sounds. Later, Rhythm and Rhyme is developed. Rhythm is when we can hear a beat in a song, nursery rhyme or poem. Rhyme is when you can hear the same sound in different words. The children notice whether the words sound the same at the beginning or at the end. Children love to play ‘Silly Soup’ where different objects or pictures have to rhyme (sound the same either at the beginning or the end). For example, ‘dog’, ‘frog’ and ‘log’. This then leads children on to learning about Alliteration.

Alliteration is when more than one word begins with the same sound.  For example, ‘Sammy slithers.’ Both words begin with the ‘s’ sound. Another example is, ‘big, brown bear.’ Children learn to play a range of alliteration games including ‘Bertha goes on the bus’ and ‘I-spy’ activities. This also develops children’s ability to distinguish between initial sounds by hearing them.

Finally, children learn about ‘Oral blending and segmenting’. This is where children learn to say a word, then stretch the word to hear and say all of the sounds within the word. For example, in the word ‘cat’, children will hear ‘c-a-t’ and know there are three sounds that make up the word 'cat'. Children will also practise and identify initial sounds in words through playing lots of different games with objects.

Reception Phonics

Children learn Phase 2 and Phase 3 Phonics in Reception. We follow the sound progression from ‘Bug Club’ Phonics books. Please see the order below:

Phase 2

Unit 1: s, a, t, p

Unit 2: i, n, m, d

Unit 3: g, o, c, k

Unit 4: ck, e, u, r

Unit 5: h, b, f, ff, l, ll, ss

Phase 3

Unit 6: j, v, w, x

Unit 7: y, z, zz, qu

Unit 8: ch, sh, soft th, hard th, ng

Unit 9: ai, ee, igh, oa, long oo, short oo

Unit 10: ar, or, ur, ow, oi

Unit 11: ear, air, ure, er

We use a multisensory approach to enable our children to know more and remember more by bringing the learning to life through our use of songs, stories, videos and physical props to enhance our teaching. Children in Reception have an awareness of technical vocabulary such as phoneme, grapheme, digraph (two letters together which makes one sound), trigraphs (three letters together which makes one sound), phoneme buttons and phoneme lines and use this knowledge in their daily phonics lessons. We support our children to segment and blend words in order to decode captions and sentences. Children track the text by using their ‘pointy finger’ which enables them to know where they are when they are reading. Children are encouraged to re-read their sentences back once the words have been decoded, in order to build fluency and support children’s automatic sight reading, as they rely on their segmenting and blending skills less. Children develop their comprehension skills through using picture clues and their understanding of the text to answer questions. Children are encouraged to talk about what is happening in the story at different points, to explain how they how a character is feeling and what they think will happen next for example. Children make fantastic progress in Phonics in Reception and by the end of the year, the vast majority of children are able to read and understand simple sentences containing at least ten digraphs.

Here's an example of phonics teaching in Reception:

Teaching and Learning for Writing

In addition to adult led learning sessions for writing and phonics, the enabling environment supports writing development. Young children combine their different types of mark-making – they make a card and write a message; they draw a picture and write a story; they create a robot and add labelled controls. Therefore, we have created a resource centre where the children can come and select from a wide range of mark-making tools, resources and writing equipment. We also provide mark-making equipment in each area of the indoor classroom. Outside provides the opportunity for bigger mark making. For example, children can make marks in the shaving foam or on the floor with a big paintbrush. They can keep score of a game on the large chalkboards.

We review our provision in terms of levels of involvement. If an area or a resource is not engaging children in purposeful play, then we remove it or change it. Observing children’s play provides further opportunities for writing. Practitioners will skilfully support the children to record their play by writing for a purpose. Every child is much more engaged in learning to write when they are in control of their learning. For example, drawing and labelling a plan for making a bird table in the woodwork area gives an exciting purpose and real-life context for writing. Practitioners are on hand to support this process helping the children to say their word or sentence aloud, to count the words in the sentence and to count the sounds in words for example.

Teachers monitor progress in writing carefully. They plan follow up work from identified next steps from children’s independent writing. The use of SMART targets supports the children to make good progress towards the ELG (Early Learning Goal) by the end of Reception:

Children at the expected level of development will:

• Write recognisable letters, most of which are correctly formed.
• Spell words by identifying sounds in them and representing the sounds with a letter or letters.
• Write simple phrases and sentences that can be read by others. (ELG for writing)

Click here to view our Reception Writing Evening Presentation.

Developing a strong grounding in number is essential so that all children develop the necessary building blocks to excel mathematically. Children should be able to count confidently, develop a deep understanding of the numbers to 10, the relationships between them and the patterns within those numbers. By providing frequent and varied opportunities to build and apply this understanding, such as using manipulatives, including small pebbles and tens frames for organising counting; children will develop a secure base of knowledge and vocabulary from which mastery of mathematics is built. In addition, it is important that the curriculum includes rich opportunities for children to develop their spatial reasoning skills across all areas of mathematics including shape, space and measures. It is important that children develop positive attitudes and interests in mathematics, look for patterns and relationships, spot connections, ‘have a go’, talk to adults and peers about what they notice and not be afraid to make mistakes.

Teaching and Learning for Maths at Barrow Hedges

In addition to adult led learning sessions for maths, children experience maths in all areas of indoors and outdoors provision. For example, children might count how many ‘fossil bones’ they have found hiding in the stony area, they may sort animals that have ‘wings’ or ‘no wings’ in the investigation area, they explore distance when rolling cars down a ramp. The possibilities for exploring mathematical concepts in play are endless. We ensure that there is equipment in all areas to facilitate this. The children work towards the ELG for Number and Numerical Patterns:

Children at the expected level of development by the end of Reception will:

• Have a deep understanding of number to 10, including the composition of each number
• Subitise (recognise quantities without counting) up to 5
• Automatically recall (without reference to rhymes, counting or other aids) number bonds up to 5 (including subtraction facts) and some number bonds to 10, including double facts.” (ELG for Number)

Children at the expected level of development by the end of Reception will:

• Verbally count beyond 20, recognising the pattern of the counting system.
• Compare quantities up to 10 in different contexts, recognising when one quantity is greater than, less than or the same as the other quantity.
• Explore and represent patterns within numbers up to 10, including evens and odds, double facts and how quantities can be distributed equally.” (ELG for Numerical Patterns)

At Barrow Hedges, adults support children’s learning of mathematics through using engaging resources. The children love to learn through Numberblocks.  Numberblocks provide a stimulus and an engaging context to support children’s knowledge. We even love to make our very own ‘Numberblocks Land’ where children can consolidate their understanding on counting, number recognition, addition, subtraction, shape and much more.  

Here's an example of high quality interactions that support mathematics development, captured on our electronic platform, Tapestry. 

We are having a lovely time exploring the sweetie shop. We have fun chatting about our favourite sweets. (N) "I love lollipops. I like to suck them and I like strawberry ones." (C) "I love starbursts, they are square sweets in wrappers and you can get different coloured ones. I like purple but you don't get purple. They are really chewy and sometimes they stick to your teeth." (R) "I like the ones that are like chocolate in the ice cream but I don't know it's name. Sometimes I make my own sweets cause I mix it up and then put in the freezer, then I add sprinkles on. Oh my it's so yummy!" (S) "I love hazelnut chocolate and also sticky toffee. I love it cause it's so sticky and it's made out of toffee." (T) "My favourite sweeties are marshmallows cause I like putting them in hot chocolate and that makes them melt." We filled the jars to get the shop ready. We looked carefully at the numbers on the front to tell us how many sweeties needed to be in each jar. The picture of Numicon helped us to read the number. Everyone filled up their jars using the tools to keep all the sweeties clean for the customers. (C) "Yes because your hands might be dirty so we shouldn't touch them unless we are eating them ourselves." Good thinking C! (R) "I made 14. Look it has a ten Numicon and a 4 one. Ten and four makes 14" (T) "I need 16. So 1, 2, 3, (T counts carefully to 16 really concentrating.) I need ten and six. That makes 16." T chats with Mrs Covey about how there is one group of tens or ten ones, everyone finds this is a bit tricky. we are only just learning about how many tens and ones are in each number. (C) "I need 51." C counts all the way past 15 to 17. Ah let's look at your number again. C finds the number on the number line. "Oh, number 15. I need to take some away, two I think." C then matches the Numicon too. (S) "I need 13. That's a blue Numicon with ten and a yellow one." (N) "I need ten and 1 more to make 11. Eleven is ten and one." Fantastic learning! I love how you all count carefully, how you match teen numbers and use the tools carefully and with control. Later we are all excited to write about our favourite sweets.

We can use the sounds we know and even remember finger spaces this time. Super writing. Have a look!

Watch this video to found out more about mathematics teaching and learning in Reception:

Understanding the world involves guiding children to make sense of their physical world and their community. The frequency and range of children’s personal experiences increases their knowledge and sense of the world around them – from visiting parks, libraries and museums to meeting important members of society such as police officers, nurses and firefighters. In addition, listening to a broad selection of stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems will foster their understanding of our culturally, socially, technologically and ecologically diverse world. As well as building important knowledge, this extends their familiarity with words that support understanding across domains. Enriching and widening children’s vocabulary will support later reading comprehension.

Children at Barrow Hedges love to explore the world around them, they are naturally curious, as all children are. They enjoy looking at what nature has to offer. For example, using magnifying glasses to hunt for minibeasts and using gardening tools to plant flowers and dig for weeds. Children have first-hand opportunities to develop their knowledge and understanding through leading their own investigations, which are carefully supported through the resources on offer, as well as adults intervening at the right moment to extend children’s learning through targeted questioning.

Here's an example of high quality interactions that support understanding the world development, captured on our electronic platform, Tapestry. 

We are so excited to see the chicks. (T) "I love these chicks, I love them so much that I wish I was fertilised and came out of an egg and hatched! Why do you think they are together in the middle?" (I) "I think they might be fighting." (C) "I think they are trying to keep warm cause they are only babies and the mummy hen would look after them on the farm." (I) "Cor, when I went to say hello he just ran away. I think I scared him. They are so cute." (K) "I think they are just so cute. I think I would like to name the chicks. I would call the girl one Bella, cause that's my name." (T) "I would call the boy one Tweet Tweet cause that's the sound he makes but his real name would be William. I think I know a bit of chick language, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet." (S) "I think they go under the light to keep warm. They hatched out of an egg into the brooder box when they were stronger." (C) "There are two poorly birds, they are in the incubator." (K) "I would like to hold them. You can tickle the backs of their head and make them go to sleep." Mrs Covey comes to help the children hold the chicks carefully. Everyone knows to take great care and to be kind and respectful. They hold the chicks so gently. (S) "They feel all tickly on my hand. I am being so careful so I don't drop him." (I) "He feels so warm and fluffy. Oooh he's tickling me!" (C) "He feels very warm. His feathers are so soft." (K) "I am tickling his head. I think his feet feel all prickly." (T) "His body is so warm, I think he feels really nice." We learn about the features of the chick and draw a picture of a boy chick. We look at the different body parts and look carefully at the colours. We write about the features using our sounds like 'The chick is yellow' or 'The chick has a beak.' I really like the way you all remembered to use finger spaces to help your writing make sense.

Wow everyone, I can really see that you know so much about chicks already. I know that you really enjoyed learning all about how we can look after them and about how they will change and grow. Super learning today. I love how you were able to initiate requests, make choices and express ideas.
Great Job!

The development of children’s artistic and cultural awareness supports their imagination and creativity. It is important that children have regular opportunities to engage with the arts, enabling them to explore and play with a wide range of media and materials. The quality and variety of what children see, hear and participate in is crucial for developing their understanding, self-expression, vocabulary and ability to communicate through the arts. The frequency, repetition and depth of their experiences are fundamental to their progress in interpreting and appreciating what they hear, respond to and observe.

Children love to explore paint and colour mixing and are very curious about how colours are made and how they can be changed. They become more confident with their use of tools through Expressive Arts and Design as they explore scissors, glue spreaders, sellotape dispensers and paintbrushes for example.  Children enjoy various art activities but in particular junk modelling, as this encompasses all of the above skills related to using tools.  

Here's an example of high-quality interactions that support arts and design development, captured on our electronic platform, Tapestry. 

We all love junk modelling. Recently we have been showing lots of interest in different types of technology and are excited today to see that Mrs Hutchison has put some different technological items on the junk modelling table. (M) "Look at this long keyboard. It's got so many letters on it. I can write my name on it see this is a m and then I need a i and then an a...that spells M." (J) "I think this is a phone. It's different to my mummies phone because it's got number on the button. You don't touch the screen." (N) "On my mummies phone she has apps, I can't see any apps on this phone." (N) "My daddy has a keyboard on his laptop but the keyboard isn't just on its own." Mrs Hutchison joins us and asks us what we are going to make? (N) "I want to make a phone like my mummies ones. I can put apps on it and talk to my church friends. You know like my mummies one because you can play games on that and also talk to people. I play a app called playtime island app." (J) "I want to make a laptop like my daddy has. He uses it for his work. It's got a screen at the top and a keyboard at the bottom. I don't use that I use my iPad. That's just a screen that you touch. I watch ninja kids on it." Mrs Hutchison helps us use the Fox class computer to search the Internet to look at different types of technology that we want to make. (J) "See I like that computer. I think it's a laptop one because that top bit can open and close. My daddy has a laptop for all his work. He uses it at home." (N) "I want to make a laptop as well because my daddy has one. I want to make a mini laptop though because I'm smaller." (M) "I like that laptop. It's got lots of buttons and a big screen. You know you can move a laptop around but a computer like Fox class one just stays on the desk." Once we've all chosen what we want to make Mrs Hutchison asks us to think about what junk would be best to use. She reminds us to think about the shape of the object we want to make and how best we would join all the pieces together. (J) "I can't use a milk carton for the laptop because it's a bendy shape. This box would be good because a laptop is a box shape. I can glue this paper card bit on the top for the laptop buttons." (N) "See this funny lid, this be a good phone because it's got a big bit for the apps at the top. I can draw numbers on it as well. I need to put the glue on the paper first and then stick the paper on the lid bit." (M) "I need to use this box. I need to cut around the out bit so I can make it into the screen. I can draw a picture on the screen so it looks like a real laptop." (N) "This box is a good one because it isn't too big and it isn't baby small size. It's a mini laptop size. Can you pass me those scissors so I can cut a screen bit. I need to clue this bit down so I can draw the buttons on. I think I can use this stencil, see look it looks like the letters on the laptop." (J) "I need to cut the sellotape so I can stick these side bits down. See this is where I'm going to draw the buttons on, then I can type all the words." After we've finished putting our creations together we decide to use them with our friends in the Fox class jewellery shop. (M) "I can put on the computer all the things the people have brought. This is my work." (J) "I can help you find all the necklaces on the Internet. My laptop has a finding button." (N) "Hey F we can use my phone to call all the superheroes. Look you need to press 3,5,6,9... That's the superhero phone number." (J) "I can do all the typing on this laptop. Look you press these buttons." (N) "N do,you wanna borrow my mini laptop to find out all about unicorns?" Finally we get busy writing how we made our creations on pictures that Mrs Huchison took of us. We try really hard to write sentences, remembering to hold our pencils correctly, use capital letter, fingers spaces and full stops.

Wow Foxes Mrs Hutchison can't believe what a great job you did on your technology creations. I love that you really though about what you wanted to make. You could all handle the different tools correctly and made sure you were super safe with the scissors. You could also ask for help if you found a particular tool a little tricky.
Great Job boys and girls

Play underpins the delivery of all the EYFS at Barrow Hedges.

Children have opportunities to play indoors and outdoors. Most children play spontaneously, although some may need adult support, and it is through play that children develop intellectually, creatively, physically, socially and emotionally.

Providing well-planned experiences based on each child’s spontaneous play, both indoors and outdoors, is an important way in which we support young children to learn with enjoyment and challenge. In playing, children behave in different ways: sometimes their play will be responsive or boisterous, sometimes they may describe and discuss what they are doing, and sometimes they will be quiet and reflective as they play.

Through play, in a secure but challenging environment with effective adult support, children can:

• Explore, develop and represent learning experiences that help them to make sense of the world
• Practise and build up ideas, concepts and skills
• Learn how to understand the need for rules
• Take risks and make mistakes
• Think creatively and imaginatively
• Communicate with others as they investigate or solve problems

Planning for Play

Teaching should not be taken to imply a ‘top down’ or formal way of working. It is a broad term that covers the many different ways in which adults help young children learn. It includes their interactions with children during planned and child-initiated play and activities: communicating and modelling language, showing, explaining, demonstrating, exploring ideas, encouraging, questioning, recalling, providing a narrative for what they are doing, facilitating and setting challenges. It takes account of the equipment adults provide and the attention given to the physical environment, as well as the structure and routines of the day that establish expectations

At Barrow Hedges we plan for play understanding that children are experiencing and learning in the here and now, not storing up their questions until tomorrow or next week. “It is in that moment of curiosity, puzzlement, effort or interest – the ‘teachable moment’ – that the skilful adult makes a difference. By using this cycle on a moment-by moment basis, the adult will be always alert to individual children (through the use of observation), always thinking about what it tells us about the child’s thinking (on-going assessment), and always ready to respond by using appropriate strategies at the right moment to support children’s well-being and learning (planning for the next moment).

From National Standards document Learning, Playing and Interacting P.22 – 23

‘In the Moment’ Planning

“Practitioners must consider the individual needs, interests, and stage of development of each child in their care, and must use this information to plan a challenging and enjoyable experience for each child in all the areas of learning and development.” (Revised EYFS)

Our practitioners continually plan ‘in the moment’. Each time they interact with a child, they are observing, assessing, planning for, and responding to, that individual child. The traditional cycle of observation, assessment and planning is recommended in numerous documents including Development Matters and The National Strategies document “Learning, Playing and Interacting”.

In practice we organise the setting- including the time, the resources and the adults to ensure that each child displays deep levels of engagement for the majority of the time. We measure each child’s level of involvement using the Leuven Scales of well-being and involvement.

When each child is highly engaged in their learning, we can be confident that they are making good progress. When deeply engaged, their brains will be “lit up”, we notice when support is needed, and interactions will ensure that obstacles are overcome or that new directions and possibilities are available and learning will be meaningful and fun.

We support children’s learning and development by closely matching what we provide to every child’s current needs. We use a range of ongoing formative and summative assessment to decide what each child needs.

Learning through play is captured through the use of a personalised electronic learning Journey. ‘Tapestry’ is the platform we choose to use to collate each child’s attainment and achievements. Tapestry supports us to monitor and track each child’s progress through their next steps rigorously to ensure that all pupils are making at least good progress across all seven areas of learning and development. Pupils share their ideas and thinking using a variety of media, captured in each child’s paper learning journey folder.

Planning for Teaching and Learning at Barrow Hedges

We use a long-term plan for Nursery and for Reception, developed by the EYFS Leader, based on the EYFS Statutory Framework 2021, Development Matters 2021 and Birth to Five Matters documents and guidance. This long-term plan shows adult led themes and provides skills progression for planning. The skills progression provides Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for each term.  Using the KPIs for planning ensures that all children make good progress towards end of year expectations. Medium term, weekly and daily planning are all learning led to enable children to meet the KPIs. Daily Structures support the delivery of a broad and balanced curriculum. Practitioners reshape provision, provide additional learning materials and deploy adult resources flexibly to ensure that no child is left behind. 

See this table for our adult led themes:

Adult Themes Include:

As the children explore each theme, the practitioners skilfully weave the children's interests, ideas, knowledge skills and understanding, building upon existing knowledge and providing further challenge to ensure that children's developmental needs are being met. 

Click here to view the Long Term Plan that forms the basis for our Nursery Curriculum.

Click here to view the Long Term Plan that forms the basis for our Reception Curriculum.

Daily Structures

Structures change to meet the needs of the children as they grow and develop throughout the Nursery and Reception year. For example, at the beginning of the academic year in Reception, pupils self-register and then play immediately. The children are supported to explore the environment to see what’s available, to select the resources they would like, to use them appropriately and to tidy the area when they have finished. Children are in control of their own learning and can develop their own interests further, supporting them to be happy and engaged and to have high levels of well-being. When the children are happily settled at school we introduce carpet times where the children learn together. The length of each session increases as the children mature.

At Barrow Hedges the pupil’s day or session is structured with an excellent balance of child and adult led learning opportunities. All pupils learn in a variety of ways including; whole class learning sessions, small group work and 1:1 work. The biggest majority of the time is spent with each child engaging in play.

Examples of Adult Led Learning in Nursery

In Nursery the children learn in key worker groups. They come together for small group sessions covering all aspects of development from fine-motor control to Phase 1 phonics.

Themed Learning Time

Themed learning time is a fun and engaging session where children build upon previous experiences and understanding to learn new things and to try new activities relating to their interests. They participate fully and actively in a variety of engaging learning experiences. For example, when exploring the story, The Tiger who Came to Tea, the teacher dressed as a tiger and the children tried different teas to share with the tiger. When learning about celebrations the children planned their own birthday party for Laura (the nursery puppet friend). They had a bouncy castle in Nursery, made cakes and played games following the children’s ideas and suggestions.

Key Skills

Every day, the children participate in a key skills session to support the development of communication and language, personal, social and emotional skills, fine motor control, mathematics, elements of understanding the world and expressive arts and design.  This session is planned carefully to meet the children needs and next steps in these areas. 

Examples of Adult Led Learning in Reception

In Reception the children have structured times of the day when they come together to learn as small group or as a whole class.

Themed Learning Time:

Themed learning time in Reception is also a fun and engaging session. Children experience new learning about various themes and topics. Teachers pose a question, for example, ‘Does a penguin live in a hot place?’ or ‘Do dragons exist?’

The teacher’s plan using the children’s ideas, building upon existing knowledge, skills and understanding, and to provide further challenge. For example, in our ‘Are eggs alive?’ topic the children watched chicks hatch. They made observations of how they changed over time. They built a chicken run so they could race the chicks together. When learning about the Polar Regions the children went on a polar expedition and wrote their own books; Explorer

Explorer, what can you see?  Themed Learning time supports learning across all seven areas of the curriculum.

Number Time 

Number time supports the children to develop all aspects of numeracy. Learning intentions support the stages of development in mathematics. The teachers use the Mastery Maths approach to develop a deep and secure knowledge and understanding of mathematical concepts. The teachers follow and ‘I’, ‘we’, ‘you’ approach. The teacher’s model learning clearly, the children then practice new learning and then apply strategies taught independently in each session.

Story Time in Nursery and Reception

Story time is a special time in Reception and Nursery where we come together to enjoy stories, poems and rhymes that helps us to remember our learning, to consolidate themed learning using information books and listen to stories for pleasure.

Stories play a vital role in the growth and development of children. Characters become friends. Reading skills are important for success in their future lives.

Reading helps children with their confidence levels, helps them to understand and cope with feelings and emotions, and supports language development. The use of props, sound effects and actions encourage the children to join in with texts aloud and to fully engage with the content.

In both Nursery and Reception small group or 1:1 adult/child ratio work supports any identified next steps and observed misconceptions or provides further challenge. Teachers will actively re-shape provision, provide additional learning materials or deploy adult resources flexibly to ensure that no child is left behind.

Phonics in Nursery and Reception

At Barrow Hedges, we have created our own robust systematic synthetic phonics programme using Pearson’s Bug Club Phonics progression of sounds and decodable books. We prioritise the importance of teaching phonics by starting with Phase 1 in Nursery and consolidating this knowledge in Reception, before moving on to Phase 2.

Nursery Phonics

Children learn Phase 1 Phonics in Nursery:

1. Environmental Sounds
2. Instrumental Sounds
3. Body Percussion
4. Voice Sounds
5. Rhythm and Rhyme
6. Alliteration
7. Oral Blending and Segmenting

In Nursery, children become aware of sounds in their environment through play and exploration. They go on listening walks to see what they can hear. Children will be able to identify sounds such as cars, emergency services, birds, wind and talking for example.

Children then move on to instrumental sounds. Children learn to identify a range of musical instruments such as a drum, bells and a shaker and will notice the difference between loud and quiet sounds. As this sound discrimination continues to develop, children will be able to use their own bodies to make sounds and we call this body percussion. We explore what noises/sounds we can make with our mouth, hands and feet, alongside singing lots of songs and action rhymes.

Then children move on to distinguishing between different voice sounds and will explore using deep, squeaky, whispering, happy voices for example. We use mirrors and look at our different faces for when we make different sounds. Later, Rhythm and Rhyme is developed. Rhythm is when we can hear a beat in a song, nursery rhyme or poem. Rhyme is when you can hear the same sound in different words. The children notice whether the words sound the same at the beginning or at the end. Children love to play ‘Silly Soup’ where different objects or pictures have to rhyme (sound the same either at the beginning or the end). For example, ‘dog’, ‘frog’ and ‘log’. This then leads children on to learning about Alliteration.

Alliteration is when more than one word begins with the same sound. ‘Sammy slithers.’ Both words begin with the ‘s’ sound. Another example is, ‘big, brown bear.’ Children learn to play a range of alliteration games including ‘Bertha goes on the bus’ and ‘I-spy’ activities. This also develops children’s ability to distinguish between initial sounds by hearing them.

Finally, children learn about ‘Oral blending and segmenting’. This is where children learn to say a word, then stretch the word to hear and say all of the sounds within the word. For example, in the word ‘cat’, children will hear ‘c-a-t’ and know there are three sounds that make up the word cat. Children will also practise and identify initial sounds in words through playing lots of different games with objects.

Reception Phonics

Children learn Phase 2 and Phase 3 Phonics in Reception. We follow the sound progression from ‘Bug Club’ Phonics books. Please see the order below:

Phase 2

Unit 1: s, a, t, p

Unit 2: i, n, m, d

Unit 3: g, o, c, k

Unit 4: ck, e, u, r

Unit 5: h, b, f, ff, l, ll, ss

Phase 3

Unit 6: j, v, w, x

Unit 7: y, z, zz, qu

Unit 8: ch, sh, soft th, hard th, ng

Unit 9: ai, ee, igh, oa, long oo, short oo

Unit 10: ar, or, ur, ow, oi

Unit 11: ear, air, ure, er

We use a multisensory approach to enable our children to know more and remember more by bringing the learning to life through our use of songs, stories, videos and physical props to enhance our teaching. Children in Reception have an awareness of technical vocabulary such as phoneme, grapheme, digraph (two letters together which makes one sound), trigraphs (three letters together which makes one sound), phoneme buttons and phoneme lines and use this knowledge in their daily phonics lessons. We support our children to segment and blend words in order to decode captions and sentences. Children track the text by using their ‘pointy finger’ which enables them to know where they are when they are reading. Children are encouraged to re-read their sentences back once the words have been decoded, in order to build fluency and support children’s automatic sight reading, as they rely on their segmenting and blending skills less. Children develop their comprehension skills through using picture clues and their understanding of the text to answer questions. Children are encouraged to talk about what is happening in the story at different points, to explain how they how a character is feeling and what they think will happen next for example. Children make fantastic progress in Phonics in Reception and by the end of the year, the vast majority of children are able to read and understand simple sentences containing at least 10 digraphs.

Here's an example of phonics teaching in Reception:

Supporting Transitions

Children are well supported throughout the year to cope with change. Structures are flexible. They change to meet the needs of the children as we prepare them for life in Reception or in Year 1. For example, in Nursery the children are taught to discriminate sounds so that they are well prepared to hear sounds in words in Reception. In Reception children join the whole school at break times and lunchtimes in the summer term. Both Nursery and Reception make use of the whole-school facilities such as the Studio Hall and the School field as appropriate. The EYFS is very much a part of the whole-school. In Reception children participate in P.E lessons from Spring 1. Reception pupils come to school in their P.E kit so that the focus of the lesson is to develop P.E skills. In the summer term the children change into their P.E kits so that they are fully independent, ready for Year 1.