Our Aims

At Maple Tree, we aim to provide the highest quality provision to ensure children develop a broad range of skills and knowledge that lays the foundation for their successful progress through school and life. We work hard to create a welcoming learning environment that inspires our children and facilitates investigation, questioning and challenge. We consider play to be at the heart of children’s learning and this provides opportunities to learn new skills and consolidate existing ones, with sensitive adult support and guidance when needed.

How

Our Early Years classes follow the Early Years Statutory Framework (DfE 2021) which sets the standards for Early Years learning, development and care. Our practice is underpinned by the four guiding principles:

• A Unique Child - every child is a competent learner from birth who can be resilient, capable, confident and self-assured.
• Positive Relationships - children learn to be strong and independent from a base of loving and secure relationships with parents and/or key person.
• Enabling Environments - the environment plays a key role in supporting and extending children's development and learning.
• Learning and Development - where we recognise that children develop at different rates and our teaching responds according to need.

Our Reception Curriculum is based around the 7 Areas of Learning and Development specified in the EYFS Framework (2021). These areas interconnect and, we carefully plan activities and experiences to support and extend children’s learning in these areas.

We consider the three prime areas of Communication and Language, Personal, Social and Emotional Development and Physical Development key to developing children’s skills, helping them to access all learning. The four specific areas of Literacy, Mathematics, Understanding the World and Expressive Arts & Design are woven into our curriculum to ensure that children:

• Learn actively – Where children try their best and persevere even when they face challenges.
• Play and explore – Children investigate and experience things and are willing to ‘have a go’ 
• Create and think critically – Children develop their own ideas both independently and in collaboration with others.

This way we encourage children to understand themselves as learners. As they engage with learning and face increasing levels of challenge, we regularly make observations as part of our ongoing assessment to ensure that our planning is flexible and builds on the children’s interests and motivations. Observation, assessment and planning, in the context of child development knowledge, ensures that we understand how best to support children to make progress from their individual starting points.

What this looks like

During their time in our Early Years classes, children make good progress. We believe this is due to our friendly, nurturing learning environment complimented by rich and engaging play-based learning opportunities, alongside rigorous assessment and teaching. The impact of our curriculum can be seen in the way in which our children are inspired and excited about their learning and how confidently they communicate their experiences. We work to ensure our children develop into independent and positive learners who have the skills to move with confidence in to KS1 and continue their learning journey.

 

Click the image below for a more detailed look at what our Early Years curriculum looks like.