Early Years
At Hatchell Wood Primary Academy our aim is to prepare children for the future and for lifelong learning in a diverse and ever changing world with opportunities as well as challenges. Early years at Hatchell Wood Primary Academy promotes the skills that the children need to develop independence, resilience, self-motivation, resourcefulness, and creativity. We want our children to achieve their very best and support every child in doing this through open-ended, exciting, challenging and purposeful play. We promote learning through play and plan around the needs and interests of children giving them the opportunity to learn about the world around them. We provide opportunities for children to engage in activities that they plan or initiate for themselves alongside carefully planned adult directed learning.
Early Years Curriculum
At Hatchell Wood Primary Academy, we follow the Early Years Statutory Framework. This framework specifies the requirement for learning and development in the Early Years and provides prime and specific areas of learning we must cover in our curriculum. There are seven areas of learning that we cover in our setting. The areas of learning are split into 3 prime and four specific areas of learning.
3 Prime Areas of learning which underpin all other learning areas:
· Personal, Social and Emotional Development
· Communication and Language
· Physical Development
4 Specific Areas, which include essential skills and knowledge:
· Literacy
· Mathematics
· Understanding the World
· Expressive Arts and Design
Phonics
What is Phonics?
Phonics is a way of teaching children to read quickly and skilfully. Children are taught how to recognise the sounds each individual letter makes and to identify the sounds that different contributions of letters make such as ‘sh’ and ‘oo’. Children are taught to read by breaking down words into separate sounds or ‘phonemes’. They are then taught how to blend these sounds together to read the whole word. We use Little Wandle Letters and Sounds revised to teach phonics at Hatchell Wood Primary Academy.
Detailed information about the curriculum can be found by either enquiring in the academy or by looking at the documents on this page. The long term plan is in place but we are flexible in order to meet the interests of the children and the needs of each cohort.