Welcome to Class 1

Welcome to Class 1! Our teacher, Mrs Newton teaches us throughout the school week.  We are very lucky to have our Teaching Assistants –  Mrs Hindle, Mrs Barker and Mrs Smith – who help us with our learning across the week.

Class 1 is where the fun happens! Every day is set up by our teachers to make sure we enjoy our learning and make the most of the exciting indoor and outdoor learning space at our disposal!

Nursery:

In Nursery, we love to lead our own learning, choosing how to plot our path through each day and how to explore the amazing setting that our staff have provided for us. This means: building and creating with sand, water and playdough, dressing up and making our own stories in the home corner, going on adventures every day outside, whatever the weather, and telling our own stories with small world toys and construction materials. We also love to create our own models and artwork at our craft table and we have displayed our finest creations in our very own art gallery inside the classroom!

We learn to communicate with one another as a class to make sure everyone can access our classroom. All of this sets us up to believe that learning is fun and this means we leave our Nursery year confident, resilient, fascinated by the world around us and ready for anything!

Reception:

In Reception, the fun continues as we enjoy plenty of space and time in our school day to carry on adventuring. Alongside our choosing time, our teaching team help us to develop our core skills in reading, writing and maths. We have daily lessons in phonics, handwriting and maths, where we begin to link sounds to letters, read and write meaningful sentences and apply our counting and number work in real-life scenarios. As the year develops, we then begin showing off our new skills in our play, ending Reception as confident and independent readers and writers! Alongside all this, we develop as well-rounded children, able to solve problems, try out new things without fear and form close bonds with our friends and teachers.

Year 1: 

In Class 1, we know how vital it is for our families to be as involved as possible in our learning journey. By sharing information back and forth across Nursery, Reception, and Year 1, we build an accurate, holistic picture of each child’s unique development, interests, and progress as they grow.

Key Features of Our Class 1 Provision

  • Smooth Transition from Reception to Year 1: We bridge the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) framework and Key Stage 1 seamlessly. By maintaining strong links between year groups and gradually introducing structured learning tasks alongside familiar continuous play environments, children build confidence, independence, and emotional readiness for Year 1 without feeling overwhelmed.
  • Fun & Engaging Curriculum for All Learners: Our play-based, child-led curriculum adapts to every child, supporting children as they progress from early developmental milestones through to the Key Stage 1 curriculum. We spark curiosity through vibrant provision, sensory exploration, and interests that motivate all children to thrive.
  • Hands-On Learning & Enabling Environments: Children learn best by doing. Our classrooms and continuous provision areas act as a “third teacher”—carefully arranged with accessible resources, open-ended materials, and inviting spaces that encourage independence, problem-solving, and critical thinking across all stages of Class 1.
  • Outdoor Learning Opportunities: Learning happens just as much outside as inside! Rain or shine, our outdoor environment offers rich opportunities for gross motor physical play, risk assessment, natural scientific discovery, and collaborative problem-solving tailored to all stages of early primary education.
  • Termly Curriculum Newsletters: Every term, families receive a newsletter outlining our core focus and Year 1 curriculum expectations, offering practical ideas to extend learning naturally at home.
  • Half-Termly Open Classrooms: Every half term, we open our doors to families so you can step inside, explore the learning on offer across both EYFS and Year 1, and share in your child’s classroom experience alongside them.

In Class 1, we know that it is really important for our mums, dads, grandparents and carers to be as involved as possible in our learning, so that we can build an accurate, holistic picture of where we are up to. For Nursery and reception children, all of our ‘wow moments at school’ are put onto our online learning journal, ‘Tapestry,’ so that our mums and dads can see what we have achieved during the school day.

Every term parents receive a curriculum newsletter which explains the focus for the term and a little bit more about how our families can support this at home.