Early Years

Early Years Unit

In the Esh Winning Early Years Unit, the children’s interests and choices are at the heart of our ethos. Through interactions with the world and the people around them, we encourage children to construct their own knowledge and ideas. Practitioners offer physical, emotional, and intellectual support. Our priority is to support active learning; with practitioners expanding children’s thinking with diverse materials and nurturing interactions. Through supporting and gently extending children’s current level of thinking and understanding (known as scaffolding), practitioners help children gain knowledge and develop creative problem-solving skills.

Our school’s vision statement: To create a safe, inclusive and nurturing environment where the curriculum is creative, inspirational and relevant to the children’s present needs and future aspirations, is ever present both inside our classrooms and out in our gardens. We strive to support out children to develop in all areas, our aims are:

Understand that everyone has the opportunity to excel and flourish in their learning

Nurture through respect, honesty and tolerance in a safe and challenging educational environment

Involve children, parents, teachers, governors and the community to ensure that everyone is working in partnership

Quality teaching to help all children achieve their potential

Utilise skills to promote independence and resilience that will secure a positive future for our children

Embrace the principle that every child matters.

An area we place a great deal of focus on in our Early Years Unit is to instil a love of reading in every child. Across Nursery and Reception we use a wide range of stories, including traditional tales, nursery rhymes and essential children’s literature, to inspire every child to want to become a reader. We have at least one story a day and these often lead to other activities and provision in the classroom and outside. This allows children to revisit the story, become characters and act out their favourite parts in their play with friends. It can also help support other elements of the Early Years curriculum, such as mark making, writing, maths and more. Instilling a love of reading early in life is seen to have a fantastic effect on children’s attainment and achievement in the future, which is why this is an essential part of our Early Years provision.