The Orchard Nursery at Hilperton and Cygnets Nursery at Wingfield

At our school, children are given irresistible opportunities through playful learning and adult-led activities, making full use of learning environment indoors and outdoors. Both our Hilperton and Wingfield sites have nursery provision onsite to provide high-quality pre-school experiences for our children.

Our vision is that all children are happy, thrive and succeed during their first year at school. A carefully planned curriculum, which is informed by the children’s interests, ensures children are active participants in their learning and development. Our enabling environments allow them to have early learning experiences through play-based collaborative interactions and exciting provocations. Our highly-skilled staff are passionate about Early Education and supporting children to have the very best start to their learning journey at school.

The Early Years Foundation Stage is a compulsory legal framework for children aged 2 – 5 years old. It sets out seven ‘areas of learning’ as well as drawing attention to how young children develop and learn. These ‘characteristics of effective learning’ underpin everything we do and embrace all areas of learning and development. By fostering children’s learning attitude, we are laying the foundations for success throughout their schooling.

Prime areas

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

Specific areas

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

Teaching and learning ensures that the opportunities to explore key skills within these seven areas are provided through enabling, exciting and supportive approaches. In Reception we use Read Write Inc. Phonics and Talk Through Stories approaches to support the teaching of Early Reading. We use the NCETM: Mastering Number programme to support our teaching of Mathematics.

Observation of children in their play, by all adults including parents, supports the curriculum and informs next steps in the children’s learning. Photographs of learning are shared with parents and carers through Seesaw each week. Cross-curricular opportunities are skilfully planned to enable children to maximise on learning together with the opportunity to learn and develop new skills.

Before children start school, there are several opportunities for them to visit their new learning environment and staff in the school. Children are visited at home by two of the Reception Team staff and parents are invited to an open evening to find out about life at our school before commencing their first day at school. We believe that strong relationships between home and school are essential to support children most effectively with their learning and work hard to build these relationships as soon as children get a place at school.

Enrichment opportunities are planned throughout the year to provide learning opportunities for first hand, real life experiences. These have included visits to local farms, visits from local policing teams and the fire brigade, and watching for seasonal changes on local walks.