Our Philosophy and Aims
Our philosophy at Truro Learning Academy is 'Aspire to Achieve.' We want all of our children to receive the best possible start in life, and to achieve academically, socially and personally. We embed this throughout everything we do in our Nursery and Reception classes. We encourage and support our children to be engaged, motivated and resilient learners.
To facilitate this, we have designed a progressive, sequential and challenging curriculum for our Early Years pupils. We have aligned learning in our Nursery and Reception classes to form a single EYFS curriculum, broken down by key developmental stage, which ensures that our children have breath and progression in learning right from the start of their EYFS journey.
Our approach to learning in the Early Years covers a mixture of child-led learning and adult-directed activities. We allow our children to take some ownership of their own learning through our continuous provision, while also guiding their learning through more formal inputs and activities led by skilled practitioners. This gives our children the independence and skills they need to be well prepared for learning in our Year 1 class.
Continuous provision refers to the resources which are consistently on offer throughout the year in our Early Years classroom. These resources are carefully planned to meet the learning needs and interests of our pupils. Our children have access to high quality, well organised resources which provide them with opportunities to revisit and extend their learning. We regularly add enhancements and provocations to our continuous provision, which act as a stimulus for new learning and ideas.
In the Early Years, our planning is flexible, and we are often guided by our children's needs and interests. We endeavour to provide opportunities to meet the needs and interests of all of our children through our planning and continuous provision.
There are seven key areas of learning in the EYFS, which consists of three prime areas and four specific areas. The three prime areas are Communication and Language, Personal, Social and Emotional Development and Physical Development. The four specific areas of learning are Literacy, Mathematics, Understanding the World and Expressive Arts and Design. Please see further details of our intent and implementation in each of the prime areas of learning below.
Communication and Language
Communication and language sits right at the heart of our Early Years curriculum. We want our children to learn a wide vocabulary and use this confidently to participate in extended conversations with adults and peers. We want our children to learn to communicate with confidence in 1:1, small group and whole class scenarios, understanding the value of both speaking and listening. We want our children to learn to be fascinated by books, stories, songs and rhymes, listening to a wide range of texts, and knowing many key stories by heart.
We develop children’s vocabulary and communication skills through high-quality interactions every day. We use the ShREC approach (EEF) as a basis on which our interactions are modelled. Practitioners use their professional judgement to carefully target their interactions such that vocabulary and communication gaps between pupils are minimized as much as possible. Practitioners model careful listening to children daily.
Children read and discuss a wide variety of stories each week, including weekly key texts for each classroom, with carefully selected focus vocabulary to extend our pupil’s vocabulary further. Practitioners re-read stories regularly to build familiarity and enjoyment, resulting in children knowing many stories by heart by the time they leave EYFS.Children sing songs daily within the setting, as well as learning weekly focus rhymes to ensure all of our children know a broad range of songs and rhymes by the end of their EYFS journey. Our focus texts and rhymes are mapped out along with key maths texts and recommended reads in our reading spine below.
Children’s communication and language development is screened using the Wellcomm toolkit within their first 6 weeks at our setting. Children not making expected progress in communication and language for their age receive twice weekly communication and language interventions through the Wellcomm toolkit. Practitioners are also mindful of children’s targets on the Wellcomm scheme in their interactions with these children.
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
At Truro Learning Academy, we want our children to learn to be kind, respectful and resilient learners, ready to access the national curriculum. We want our children to have confidence in their academic, social, and personal abilities and feel proud of what they achieve. We want our children to learn to understand, communicate and manage their feelings, and to use these skills to build supportive and respectful relationships with their peers. We want our children to speak freely about their emotions with confidence and to learn the basic skills necessary to have a healthy and balanced lifestyle.
We develop children’s personal, social, and emotional development every day through the warm, positive relationships we form with the children in our care. All children have a key person, which allows practitioners to deepen these relationships further with their key children. Practitioners verbalise the emotions and social dilemmas which children experience, which supports children in overcoming these. Practitioners also model self-regulation strategies and positive social behaviours when interacting with children, helping them to learn to navigate their emotions and the social world.
Alongside this, the PSHE scheme of learning ‘SCARF’ is used throughout the school. Children engage in a short, practical, age-appropriate input each week, covering a wide range of topics to support their learning in personal, social, and emotional development. Additionally, the ‘WE Thinkers’ social learning scheme is used in the children’s reception year. This aims to explicitly teach children social skills which they need to navigate the social world. Children in reception engage in a short, practical, age-appropriate input each week.
Lead practitioners plan opportunities to teach children explicitly about healthy and balanced lifestyles, as well as modelling this through a carefully thought-out daily routine, for example offering fruit at snack time and encouraging regular physical activity within the setting.
Physical Development
Physical Development is a key priority across our Early Years classes. We want our children to develop the confidence and competence required to play and move energetically. We want our children to learn the fundamental skills required to participate in and enjoy a wide range of sports and physical activities in a safe way. We want our children to enjoy being physically active and to create and play games regularly. We want our children to learn independence in daily routines and play, being able to manipulate objects of all sizes to reach their desired goals. We want our children to learn to manipulate a wide range of small tools and to eventually develop a well refined pencil grip and pencil control.
We develop our children’s physical development through the careful planning of our EYFS environments, which ensures that children have access to a range of large- and small-scale resources, as well as continual access to a wide range of tools. Practitioners use their professional judgement to plan enhancements and provocations targeted at furthering the physical development needs and interests of our children, as well as providing practice of fundamental skills. Each of our classrooms benefit from their own dedicated outdoor learning environment, as well as a dedicated field. This encourages our children to be physically active in their daily child-initiated learning within our continuous provision. Practitioners encourage children to be active and play games throughout their child-initiated play. Children also receive explicit instruction on tool use and pencil grip from key practitioners, as well as modelling and instruction of fundamental physical skills.
Children in nursery experience direct instruction in weekly sessions from the ‘Healthy Movers’ scheme designed by the Youth Sport Trust, to support their physical development and promote enjoyment in physical activity right from the start of their EYFS journey. Children in the reception year access direct instruction through our bespoke TLA P.E. curriculum, designed to teach children the fundamental skills required to access a range of physical activity and sport. Children in the Early Years also have access to a set of balance bikes which they use weekly on our school mountain bike track which we have constant access to on site. Children learn the fundamentals of riding a bike throughout the Early Years, enabling them to progress onto our set of larger bikes in later year groups.
