Pixies - Nursery

Our Unique Curriculum

Children can join us in Genie Class at East Whitby from the age of 2. Our curriculum has been developed to extend children's interests and curiosities, our starting point being ‘What do they know already?’ We build on the knowledge they have already, with the aim that by the end of Reception, they will be ready to access the Year 1 curriculum. We have made sure that our curriculum enables children to transition well into Year 1.

Our school prides itself on the strong relationships we build with our families, a lot of whom have gone through the school themselves. Traditions, such as the Carol Service in St Mary’s, are important to parents and wider family members. We have regular ‘Stay and play' sessions with a different focus each time. Parent’s evening appointments give a formal opportunity to let parents know how children are progressing, more regular, informal opportunities are taken through messaging or posting on Class Story on Class Dojo. We also use this to help parents support their children’s learning at home with videos, links or advice. In Nursery and Reception, parents are invited to meetings to pass on information about Phonics and Reading. Regular, whole staff ‘60 second monitoring’ helps us to know which families need our support. Throughout school, reading is given the highest priority, and this begins in Early Years. Our Bedtime libraries encourage an early love of reading together and for pleasure. Power of Reading strategies are used to really dig into high quality texts. All the books in our classrooms are there for a reason.

We value the unique opportunities that living in a coastal community provides; we want children to be proud of where they come from and develop the sense of identity they have coming from Whitby. Celebrating the rich culture of swimming, dancing, rowing and historical gems we have in the town is important to us. Our trips have included being tourists for the day, where we’ve gone on the Tour Bus and visited the beach so that the children can experience what others travel to our town for. ‘The seaside’ is covered in both our Year A and B planning cycles and each academic year begins with ‘Super me’ where we look at where we live and how that fits into the wider world. We acknowledge that we are geographically isolated, so we try hard to extend cultural, religious and environmental knowledge of the world outside Whitby.

Each year, developing and improving speech and language is one of our priorities and our curriculum is underpinned by language support; ‘Launchpad for Literacy ‘, Wellcomm assessments for 2 yr old/Nursery children (and any Reception children who are not at ARE), explicit teaching of new vocabulary, speaking and listening home based tasks, Poetry Basket and Story Basket, Drawing Club and the Power of Reading all help us develop skills. Regularly, we will draw on the expertise provided by our Specialist Communication and Interaction Hub. Our stage, complete with closing curtains, lighting and a backdrop provide the perfect setting for children to perform and our Nativity always has a real sense of occasion and helps to develop confidence.

The Curriculum we have developed provides rich and varied experiences for our children. We are lucky to have a wide range of staff expertise, including a specialist music teacher (we perform for the rest of school each half term) and a Forest School Leader based in our EY (all children spend at least half a day a week learning in our woods). Our children like to learn outdoors so we have developed a garden area so that children can grow, tend and harvest their own fruit, vegetables and flowers. We also value our own CPD and constantly update our knowledge with current training. Our children start working on their ‘Pride of East Whitby Awards log’, as soon as they join us, as we want to encourage children to develop their character and to contribute to the school and wider community.

Nursery