EARLY YEARS
at The Winterton Federation
We want children to feel cared for, develop a love of learning and to strive to be the best that they can be.
At The Winterton Federation, we believe that the Early Years of a child’s life are the most important as a foundation for a child to grow and develop into a healthy, happy, confident and independent person.
The following statement taken from the Early Years Statutory Framework summarises the importance of the Early Years and why we strive for excellence in our early years setting.
‘Every child deserves the best possible start in life and the support that enables them to fulfil their potential. Children develop quickly in the early years and a child’s experiences between birth and age five have a major impact on their future life chances. A secure, safe and happy childhood is important in its own right. Good parenting and high quality early learning together provide the foundation children need to make the most of their abilities and talents as they grow up.’
Our Early Years curriculum is unique to Winterton, planned and developed around the specific needs of our children and our community and covers all aspects of the Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework . Our curriculum is centred around the importance of developing pupils’ communication and language skills, whilst learning about the world in which we live.
Our core Christian values of ‘Friendship, Joy, Perseverance and Respect’ also underpin everything we do. We encourage all children to show kindness and consideration to others, to be able to share, negotiate and work well as part of a team. We support pupils to develop a ‘can-do’ attitude, to believe in themselves and to not give up when facing challenges. Developing these skills by the end of Reception ensures that our pupils are prepared for KS1 and beyond, in order to achieve and exceed in life.
Our curriculum is based on topics which have a focus on ‘Understanding the World’ and we use stories and non-fiction books to support our teaching. There is a clear progression of knowledge and skills from Nursery through to Reception.
We ensure that flexibility is built into our curriculum so that children’s own learning journeys can be supported and their individual talents, interests and needs are always nurtured.
The EYFS statutory Framework
- sets the standards that all early year’s providers must meet to ensure that children learn and develop well
- ensures children are kept healthy and safe
- ensures that children have the knowledge and skills they need to start school
The three characteristics of effective learning describe the behaviours children use in order to learn:
- Playing and exploring – children investigate and experience things, and build the resilience to ‘have a go’
- Active learning – children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties, and enjoy achieving
- Creating and thinking critically – children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things
The three prime areas are particularly important for building a foundation for igniting children’s curiosity and enthusiasm for learning, forming relationships, and thriving, underpinning the specific areas of learning.
The Prime Areas
- Communication and Language
- Personal, social and Emotional Development
- Physical Development
There are four specific areas through which the prime areas are strengthened and applied.
The Specific Areas
- Literacy
- Mathematics
- Understanding the world
- Expressive arts and design
Link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-foundation-stage-framework–2
Phonics is taught in Reception and Key Stage One through the Read Write Inc programme which is a systematic synthetic phonics programme and a highly effective approach used for the teaching of early reading and writing.
Our Nursery phonics teaching consists of developing children’s listening and attention skills and their phonological awareness. This is taught through daily phase 1 activities, incorporating the aspects of: environmental sounds, instrumental sounds, body percussion, voice sounds, rhyme and alliteration. Children listen to and join in with songs and rhymes, sound games and syllable clapping activities. This early stage of phonics supports children to develop the listening and attention skills and sound awareness, ready to begin the Read Write Inc programme. In the summer term prior to beginning the Reception year, our Nursery children play ‘Fred games’ from RWI which develops oral blending skills in preparation for learning the letter sounds.
Implementation
Our timetable is carefully planned to ensure that we maintain a careful balance between adult-led and child-initiated learning for all children. During child-initiated time, the adults take on various roles to support, extend and challenge the children in their learning. Some adults will teach specific skills within the areas of provision, planned based on the interests or needs of the children. Other adults work alongside children in their play, whilst sensitively questioning, modelling, developing children’s language and social skills and promoting independent thinking. We ensure that children develop positive characteristics of effective learning by encouraging children to persevere, be resilient, test their ideas and solve problems.
The curriculum we have designed at The Winterton Federation is personalised to ensure that language development is central to our work. As a result, children make rapid progress in communication and language, which has a positive impact on pupils’ self-confidence, social skills and their ability to flourish in all other areas of the curriculum. Adults listen and respond to children, play with them and show a genuine interest in what they say and do. The impact of these positive relationships ensure that pupils feel valued and there is a mutual respect between adults and children. The careful balance between adult-led and child-initiated learning ensures that pupils achieve the necessary skills in reading, writing and maths whilst developing characteristics of effective learning through their play. As a result, children learn to be independent and think of their own ideas, whilst developing perseverance and resilience, when things don’t go to plan. Our children understand the importance of kindness and will know that this begins with themselves and extends to friends, family, community and our world. Strong personal, social and emotional skills will enable them to engage fully in teamwork and through our teaching and modelling of respect, children learn to accept and appreciate the contribution of others. Our children will be fully prepared for their transition to Key Stage One. They have developed the personal, social and academic skills to become a successful learner and a love of learning that will help them reach their full potential.
Our Outcomes
At The Winterton Federation we have high expectations of all children regardless of their backgrounds, experience or learning needs. We ensure that all pupils make good progress across all areas of learning and ongoing assessments identify pupils who may need more support to achieve this. Our curriculum and provision takes into account children’s interests and differing learning needs. Adult interaction and support is also differentiated according to pupils’ developmental stages. We support and empower children to believe in themselves and strive to be the best they can be.
‘Pupils and staff flourish in this caring school community. The vision that everyone here will grow and learn is truly lived out in all the school does.’ – OFSTED 2025
A big thank you to all the parents of the new starters for Nursery/Reception 2026. It was a pleasure to talk to you and we cannot wait to have the children with us in September .
Also a big thanks to Little Frogs and Happy Feet childcare providers and of course Chartwells catering for letting us taste the yummy school meals .
Little Frogs Daycare Ltd
HappyFeet Kidzone ... See MoreSee Less
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Nursery have been enjoying their new outdoor equipment today #outdoorlearning ... See MoreSee Less
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Enjoying our music area ,making sounds in the sun 🎶🎼🎵#music #reception ... See MoreSee Less
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