Early Years - Reception
Nurture, Aspire, Achieve
At Gildersome Primary School we pride ourselves in providing an excellent education throughout the primary age range, but this all starts in Nursery and Reception. Where we want all children to achieve their full potential and become well rounded members of the community. If you are looking for a school for your child, we would love to welcome you for a visit where we can show you around our open and friendly environment both inside and out. We can share lots of information about our school and answer any of your questions.
Inside we have access to 2 open and bright classrooms filled with open ended provision to support the children’s own fascinations and investigation skills. We have a lovely outdoor space which we share with Nursery. This has recently been revamped to ensure we are supporting children’s physical skills which then support their reading and writing skills. We find that having a shared area with Nursery also supports the children’s Personal and Social development as they support and help the younger children which is lovely to see.
If you choose us and are offered a place, we ensure that our welcome process is thorough. We begin with a welcome meeting for parents to ensure you have all the information you need about school, Reception and transition. We then visit children in their present setting, so they are familiar with one of the adults when they come to visit. Next, we invite you and your child to come to stay and play sessions to help you settle in before transition sessions for your child. We know these times of change can be unsettling for children and parents and endeavour to work closely with you to ensure this move is as smooth and relaxed as possible.
In order to achieve this, we will work with you to add additional transition visits and meetings if needed to best support your child. If your child in our school nursery you will be included in all the above transition but we also work with the nursery staff to open up the unit and allow the children to further explore the provision and get to know the Reception Staff. We believe that if we work together then a child’s experience of starting school can be extremely positive and happy. We work hard to ensure that this good relationship extends all the way through school with our open-door policy – Nurture is part of our vision as we believe that if children feel safe, happy and have their emotional needs met, they are more likely to meet their potential.
The Early Years curriculum is very diverse, and this is covered in a variety of ways in the areas of provision within our inside and outside spaces. Aspire – we aspire children to develop a love for life-long learning. This beginning in Early Years through our provision, which responds to the children’s needs and interests. Our “Mini Me Challenges” ensure that children access a range of experiences and learning at a level appropriate to them across all the areas of learning.
During the school day there is a balance of child-led learning and adult-directed tasks which are carefully planned to practise taught skills. These cover all 7 areas of learning. We believe a broad curriculum supports children’s natural curiosity and fosters a love of learning. We do this through a range of topics, covering things like Ourselves, Our Families and The Natural World.
The children’s progress is recorded and tracked using Tapestry which parents are encouraged to view and contribute to. These observations will then feed into future learning to ensure the children are progressing throughout the Early Years Curriculum.
Achieve – The children in Reception make good progress during their time with us which lays the foundations for the next part of their learning journey. 73% left Reception at Governments Good Level of Development which is a raise of 10% in the last 4 years, We were above the Leeds average (71%) and above National average (72%).
For further information and ideas of activities please visit the websites at the bottom of the page.
Early years curriculum
For more information about the EYFS curriculum and expectations, please click here.
