Logo Logo Logo Logo Logo
  • Home
  • About Us
    • About SJSJ
      • Headteacher’s Welcome
      • School Vision
      • Safeguarding
      • Our Church
      • Anti-Racist Statement
      • Staff List
      • Awards & Achievements
      • Inclusion & Equalities
      • SEND: Special Educational Needs and Disabilities
      • We are a Rights Respecting School
      • Facilities for Hire
      • Current Vacancies
      • COVID Catch Up Funding
      • School Development Priorities
      • School Self Evaluation
    • School Policy
      • School Policies
      • Primary Advantage Policies
      • OFSTED & SIAMS Reports
      • Results
      • Pupil Premium Strategy
      • PE & Sport Premium
      • Financial Benchmarking
      • Union Officials Information
    • Governance
      • Our Governors
      • Local Advisory Board
    • Primary Advantage
      • Introduction
      • Our Partnerships
      • Our Teaching Schools
      • Primary Advantage Vacancies
  • News & Events
    • News Archive
    • Calendar
    • Newsletters
    • Term Dates
    • Letters for Parents
  • Curriculum
    • Teaching & Learning
      • Our Curriculum
      • Homework & Home Learning Links
      • Assessment
      • Early Years
    • Subjects
      • Art
      • Computing
      • Diverse Britain
      • Geography
      • History
      • Maths
      • Music
      • Oracy
    • Subjects
      • Physical Education
      • PSHE & Citizenship
      • Reading
      • Religious Education
      • Science
      • STEAM
      • Spanish: Modern Foreign Languages (MFL)
      • Writing
  • Wellbeing
  • COVID-19
    • Managing the Virus
    • COVID Related Communication
    • Year Group Learning Resources
    • Home Learning
    • Useful Resources & Support
  • Children
    • Year Groups
      • Nursery
      • Reception
      • Year 1
      • Year 2
      • Year 3
      • Year 4
      • Year 5
      • Year 6
    • Pupil Voice
      • RRS Team
      • School Council
      • Green Team
      • Digital Leaders
      • Sports Crew
      • Wellbeing Leaders
  • Parents
    • Admissions
      • Admissions Process
      • Extended Nursery Provision
    • Parent Information
      • Introduction & Important Information
      • The School Day
      • Behaviour
      • Attendance, Punctuality and Absence
      • School Meals
    • Parent Information
      • School Uniform
      • Online Safety
      • Seesaw
      • FAQs
    • Extended School
      • Clubs
      • Holiday Camp
  • PTA
  • Contact
  • Home
  • About Us
    • About SJSJ
      • Headteacher’s Welcome
      • School Vision
      • Safeguarding
      • Our Church
      • Anti-Racist Statement
      • Staff List
      • Awards & Achievements
      • Inclusion & Equalities
      • SEND: Special Educational Needs and Disabilities
      • We are a Rights Respecting School
      • Facilities for Hire
      • Current Vacancies
      • COVID Catch Up Funding
      • School Development Priorities
      • School Self Evaluation
    • School Policy
      • School Policies
      • Primary Advantage Policies
      • OFSTED & SIAMS Reports
      • Results
      • Pupil Premium Strategy
      • PE & Sport Premium
      • Financial Benchmarking
      • Union Officials Information
    • Governance
      • Our Governors
      • Local Advisory Board
    • Primary Advantage
      • Introduction
      • Our Partnerships
      • Our Teaching Schools
      • Primary Advantage Vacancies
  • News & Events
    • News Archive
    • Calendar
    • Newsletters
    • Term Dates
    • Letters for Parents
  • Curriculum
    • Teaching & Learning
      • Our Curriculum
      • Homework & Home Learning Links
      • Assessment
      • Early Years
    • Subjects
      • Art
      • Computing
      • Diverse Britain
      • Geography
      • History
      • Maths
      • Music
      • Oracy
    • Subjects
      • Physical Education
      • PSHE & Citizenship
      • Reading
      • Religious Education
      • Science
      • STEAM
      • Spanish: Modern Foreign Languages (MFL)
      • Writing
  • Wellbeing
  • COVID-19
    • Managing the Virus
    • COVID Related Communication
    • Year Group Learning Resources
    • Home Learning
    • Useful Resources & Support
  • Children
    • Year Groups
      • Nursery
      • Reception
      • Year 1
      • Year 2
      • Year 3
      • Year 4
      • Year 5
      • Year 6
    • Pupil Voice
      • RRS Team
      • School Council
      • Green Team
      • Digital Leaders
      • Sports Crew
      • Wellbeing Leaders
  • Parents
    • Admissions
      • Admissions Process
      • Extended Nursery Provision
    • Parent Information
      • Introduction & Important Information
      • The School Day
      • Behaviour
      • Attendance, Punctuality and Absence
      • School Meals
    • Parent Information
      • School Uniform
      • Online Safety
      • Seesaw
      • FAQs
    • Extended School
      • Clubs
      • Holiday Camp
  • PTA
  • Contact

Early Years

Early Years

Home > Curriculum  > Teaching & Learning > Early Years

Our Early Years setting is an exciting and nurturing place where children learn through play and creativity. Our curriculum celebrates diversity and supports the children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development allowing them to feel safe and secure, cared for, valued and respected. Every child is recognised as a unique individual who is constantly learning and we aim for our children to become capable, confident and self-assured learners. Children leave reception with strong foundations which enable them to thrive in year 1.

We understand that children develop at their own rates and ensure that all focus work is tailored to children’s varying abilities. We encourage children to be independent and our indoor and outdoor environments enable children to select their own resources to further their learning.

We extend and enrich the children’s vocabulary through story time, rhymes, role-play, group discussions and a language rich environment. We have carefully designed our literacy curriculum using quality texts that reflect our wonderful and diverse school community. We are passionate about reading and it is one of our fundamental aims that we support and encourage the children to develop a love of books and lifelong reading for pleasure.

We aim for children to achieve mathematical understanding and a firm foundation for mathematics through practical and problem-solving activities. Children are given opportunities to solve problems, investigate, make decisions and experiment in all areas of learning.

We take pride in creating a highly inclusive environment, where children of all abilities demonstrate high levels of enjoyment in their education. Learning is carefully designed to ensure all children have the opportunity to reach their full potential. Those who are most able, are challenged to master a concept and learning is extended. Pupils who are identified as needing more support are given additional opportunities to work in a small group to embed skills, to develop at their own pace and learn in a way which is suitable for their individual needs.

Teaching in Reception and Nursery is organised through a range of approaches and provides a balance of child initiated and adult led activities:

  • planned focused activities where adults work with a small group of children at a time. Teachers will differentiate the activity to meet the needs of every child participating and build on pupils’ prior learning
  • small group teaching of early reading and writing through our phonics based programme and talk for writing for approach
  • whole class teaching for short periods of time such as shared story time, direct teaching (for example of maths), songs, rhymes and discussions
  • opportunities for teacher to work alongside children as they develop their own interest in particular areas of the curriculum
  • develop children’s enthusiasm and promote a love for reading as this is fundamental in helping to develop their language skills and in closing the word gap.
  • use core texts that stimulates discussion about the world around us and enable us to promote a love of learning through real-life and engaging experiences.
  • provide high-quality interactions with adults where staff act as role models to the children they teach in order for children to develop their own speaking and listening skills.
  • use high-quality questioning and interactions to check understanding and address misconceptions.
  • value the importance of effective communication which encourage all our children to communicate effectively using a wide range of strategies.
  • carefully assess what the children are doing and then using this to inform the next steps of learning

 

In the Foundation Stage the curriculum is made up of seven areas of learning:

The Prime areas are fundamental and work together, and filter through all other areas to support development:

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

The Specific areas include essential skills and knowledge for children to participate successfully in society:

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

 

Clear and open communications with parents and carers is a priority for us. We work with parents to ensure that every child settles quickly into the setting and continue to work in partnership with them throughout their child’s time in the early years.

EYFS News

  • Latest News
    What's happening in Reception - Week 6
    This week in Reception, we have been immersing ourselves in the fantastic art of Yinka Shonibare. Yinks Shonibare is a Nigerian British textile artist, who creates beautiful and fascinating costumes u...
  • Latest News
    What's happening in Nursery - Week 6
    This week in Nursery, children started their art project, inspired by Chris Ofili. Nursery took inspiration from Chris' painting ‘Affrodizzia’ and created a mixed media artwork. Ofili was also heavily...
  • Latest News
    What's happening in Nursery - Week 5
    In Nursery, linked to our ‘planting’ topic, the children have been mark making rectangles to resemble the stem of a flower.
  • Latest News
    What's happening in Reception - Week 5
    This week in Reception we have finished our core text Jack and the Beanstalk by demonstrating fantastic story writing skills. We identified the key parts of the story and particularly worked on finger...
  • Latest News
    What's happening in Reception - Week 4
    This week in Reception, we have begun to reap the benefit of all our hard gardening work by tasting our first produce - cress! Most children enjoyed eating the salad they had grown by themselves and w...
  • Latest News
    What's happening in Nursery - Week 4
    Nursery have been learning about different types of mini-beasts. The children were provided with a range of natural materials (leaves, log slices, pine cones, twigs, bamboo rings, etc) to use when cre...
  • Latest News
    What's happening in Reception - Week 3
    This week in Reception, we have immersed ourselves even further in understanding and caring for plants. Our focus text Jack and the Beanstalk was an inspiring link, as we watched our own runner beans ...
  • Latest News
    What's happening in Nursery - Week 3
    On Wednesday, nursery visited ‘St John's Church’ for a tour as part of our Summer 1 RE topic ‘What makes a place special?’ This allowed us to further discuss why churches are a special place for Chris...
  • Latest News
    What's happening in Reception - Week 2
    As Reception class has become more confident as writers, we have enjoyed using different implements to write and draw. This week we enjoyed writing spy messages to each other using invisible pens. The...
  • Latest News
    What's happening in Nursery - Week 2
    Each week in Nursery we have a maths song of the week. This week we focused on the nursery rhyme '5 little speckled frogs' to support and develop children's ability to count and find one less. Childre...
  • Latest News
    What's happening in Reception - Week 1
    This week in Reception, we began our topic on planting and growing. The children worked to write instructions on how to grow seeds and then planted their own. They used runner beans that they had ...
  • Latest News
    What's happening in Nursery - Week 1
    This week in Nursery, linked to our new topic 'Minibeasts' and core text 'Aaaarrgghh Spider!' we created a 'Nursery's facts about spiders'  book by gathering information from non-fiction books and vid...
Related Pages
  • Our Curriculum
  • Homework & Additional Learning Links
  • Assessment
  • Early Years
Get in Touch

St John and St James C of E Primary School,
Isabella Road,
Hackney
E9 6DX

Tel: 020 8985 2045
Fax: 020 8985 5768
Email: office@johnjames.hackney.sch.uk

Executive Headteacher: Joanne Smith
Head of School: Grace Gladstone

Primary Advantage

The Primary Advantage Federation are a group of 8 schools working together because we believe our schools can gain many benefits from working collaboratively.

Visit Website