Classes

2 Year Old Provision

We support children aged 2 to 3 years old to thrive and achieve within a warm and nurturing environment. 

Practitioners provide a secure base for children to explore the indoor and outdoor space. Our curriculum is carefully planned and focuses on the three Prime Areas of Learning, Personal social and Emotional Learning, Communication and Language and Physical Development which form the foundations of learning.

We build positive relationships with families and support children with developing their personal and social skills such as toilet training, along with modelling and encouraging children to develop their communication skills.

Our 2 year old provision is housed in a purpose built building which provides a wide range of age appropriate resources and furniture.

Nursery

In Nursery we support children aged 3 to 4 years old to become independent learners, to be motivated, confident and to be ready for starting School.

The Statutory Framework for Early Years Foundation Stage sets the standards for learning, development and care of children aged between birth and 5 years. There are 3 prime areas of learning: Personal social and Emotional Learning, Communication and Language and Physical Development which form the foundations for the specific areas of Learning, Literacy and Mathematics, Understanding the World and Expressive Arts and Design.

Some of the activities the children can choose from are as follows: Junk Modelling, Role-Play Area, Construction Area, Small World Area, Sand Tray, Water Tray, Malleable Area, Maths Area & Writing Area, Jigsaws, Reading Area and an Exploration area.

Reception

We follow the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum which focuses on 7 areas of learning which include; Communication and Language, Physical Development, Personal, Social and Emotional Development, Literacy Development, Mathematics, Understanding the World and Expressive Arts and Design. We also follow the Ruth Miskin Scheme to plan and deliver our daily phonics sessions.

During our first term, we spend time getting to know the children and give them the time to become familiar with the routines that take place. Children learn through child-initiated play, adult-led play and adult-led group session. Children have a variety of areas to choose from including; Role-Play Area, Creative Area, Sand Tray, Water Tray, Construction Area, Writing Area, Maths Area, Small World Area and a Reading Area. Every child will have opportunities to learn in the indoor and outdoor learning environments during the day.

Year 1

We follow the national curriculum for Year One. We use Read Write Inc. to plan and deliver daily phonics lessons. Children read phonetically decodable books to support their decoding, segmenting, and blending skills. We develop comprehension skills through class stories and shared reading sessions. We also follow the White Rose Maths scheme of work.

Children can access Continuous Provision in both Year One Classrooms until Christmas. Some of the activities the children can choose from are as follows: Junk Modelling, Role-Play Area, Construction Area, Small World Area, Maths Area & Writing Area, Jigsaws and games station, ICT Area, Reading Area, Exploration Area and Art Area.

Post-Christmas, continuous provision is removed for the vast majority of the year group but some activities remain in place for children who we feel still require it.

We enjoy a rich and broad curriculum in Year One, consisting of Religious Education, ICT, Design Technology, Music, Geography, History, PE and Dance. We also enjoy weekly PSHE lessons.

Year 2

In Year 2, we are encouraged to follow our Mansel Values of being aspirational, inclusive and resilient in all areas of our learning. We are collaborative and support each other by following our school rules of being ready, respectful and safe. We work hard to learn about ourselves and others including recognising our emotions and strategies to regulate ourselves so that we are able to achieve our highest potential.

We follow the National Curriculum and teach a broad and balanced range of subjects including PE, Music, History, Geography, Design Technology, Art, PSHE, Science, Computing and RE. We have a termly driving subject and aim to provide cross curricular learning linked to a high quality text where possible. We follow the Read, Write Inc. programme to plan and deliver high quality daily phonics lessons.

Year 3

In Year 3, we provide a broad curriculum which is in line with the national curriculum. Opportunities to read and mindfulness activities are provided every day.

We will provide 3 main topics throughout the year, which our learning will centre around. The main topics are, the history of the stone age through to the iron age, a geography topic related to the book ‘Meet me by the steel men’ by the author Theresa Tomlinson, and the Ancient Egyptian Empire.

Our classroom environment allows children to access a range of resources for use across the curriculum alongside which includes a vocabulary rich display and working walls relevant to current learning.

During the year, we will attend an overnight residential at Thornbridge which provides a great opportunity to build relationships with their peers and adults, life skills that are transferable into their lives and showing independence in a variety of tasks.

Year 4

In Year 4 we promote our values of resilience, being aspirational and promoting inclusion every day. We follow the national curriculum for Year Four. We use the national curriculum spellings to focus on teaching key spelling rules and also the statutory spellings. Our weekly vocabulary teaching is planned around the words the children will encounter within the literacy lessons so they can use these within their own writing as well.

Throughout the year in Maths we focus on place value in Autumn 1, we also cover addition, subtraction, division, multiplication, time, fractions, measurement, data and shape throughout the year.

Children are taught a range of curriculum subjects throughout the year and we have a focus on Art, PSHE and History in the autumn term. In the spring term, we focus on History, PSHE, Design & technology and Geography and in the summer term we focus on Geography, Art and PSHE as our main drivers.

Every week the children have weekly Science and PE lessons. Our Science topics range from electricity, states of matter, living things and their habitats and animals including humans. Throughout the year, we have a drive of Computing and Music lessons where we cover a range of topics.

Year 5

We follow the national curriculum for Year Five. Throughout the year we cover a wide range of topics to ensure that a broad curriculum is taught.

During Autumn 1 we focus on PSHE in order to support the children with the transition into a new year group. We spend time focusing on emotions and how to deal with our emotions. Our text type during Autumn 1 is a recount, we use Roman fiction books to focus on recounts. As we move into Autumn 2, our main focus moves to history, where we base our learning around the question ‘What were the cause and consequences of Roman Britain?’ During spring, our topic moves to a geography focus on to the continent of South America. We then move on to the history topic of ‘The Anglo-Saxons and Vikings’ for the summer term. Towards the end of the year we move back to a PSHE focus to prepare the children ready for transition to Y6.

Year 6

In Year 6, we are always encouraged to do our best, be kind to each other and to challenge ourselves. We are rewarded with Dojo points for our hard work and for following our school rules.

Our environment encourages us to work collaboratively, use resources independently to develop new learning, as well as to consolidate familiar aspects of our work. Year 6 is the place for inquisitive, enquiring and resilient children who enjoy a challenge, as well as children who are keen to help and support others.

Although our sights are set firmly on the end of the year, we keep an emphasis on the wider curriculum to give us breadth and depth in our learning. Each term we have a different focus and theme: in Autumn it is History and ‘WW2’; in Spring it is Geography with a focus on ‘North America’; in Summer it is History and we study ‘Migration’.

Reading forms a huge part of our curriculum and our Literacy work is often based around a book. During the first half of the Autumn term, we focus on ‘There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom’ by Louis Sachar. In Autumn 2, our Literacy work is based around ‘Blackout’ by Tony Bradman and in the Spring term, we study a range of non-fiction texts. We use a combination of Guided Reading and Novel Study to help improve our reading comprehension. In Novel Study some of the books we study include ‘My Friend the Enemy’ by Dan Smith and ‘Holes’ by Louis Sachar.