Reception Curriculum

The curriculum that we offer our children is diverse and supports children with all of their passions within learning. We want to offer as many opportunities and experiences to our learners so have a inquiry based approach to learning. This approach has been designed to support the Early Years framework as it provides opportunities to develop all 7 areas of learning. 

To build on the children inquiry learning, they will have inquiry time which is child initiated time throughout the day. We want the children to take ownership over their learning so they will be able to choose their learning with their peers and access activities that extends their understanding from the carpet sessions.  

The Academy has adopted the Read Write Inc. (RWI) phonics programme of study to teach our children the fundamental skills in learning to read and maths mastery programme of study to teach our children fundamental maths skills. 

At Napier we really want children to become life long readers and to enjoy the magic of stories. We explore a variety of different stories through our 'talk through stories' and 'drawing club' sessions. We focus on building children's vocabulary through the joy of stories and improving their understanding and comprehension skills.

Inquiry learning 

Over the year we will be exploring a variety of big ideas and will do this through explicit lessons and throughout our continuous provision while children are learning through play. We are choosing to explore big ideas as we want to keep it open ended so children can take agency over their learning and follow their own interests. Throughout each big idea we will explore a range of different core texts to build on our knowledge and to challenge our thinking. These texts a variety of fiction and non-fiction books, diverse and offer culture capital. We will be exploring 5 different big ideas throughout the year; 

• Term 1- Being a part of a family, friendships and a school community gives us a sense of belonging.
• Term 2- Families and communities coming together to celebrate at different times of the year. 
• Term 3 and Term 4- Homes reflect the people who live in them and the places they are located. 
• Term 5- All living things go through a process of change.
• Term 6- Improving our communication skills helps us to better express ourselves and understand others.

Rhythm of the day for Reception

• 8:30am-8:40am- children come in through the main gate and access early morning work to develop their fine motor skills. 
• 8:40am-8:50am- register 
• 8:50am-9:40am- phonics (this time is built up throughout the year and in term 1 starts off as 15 minutes)
• 9:40am-10:20am- child initiated inquiry time
• 10:20am-10:35am- maths
• 10:35am-11:25am- child initiated inquiry time
• 11:25am-11:45- getting ready for lunch and story
• 11:45am-12:45am-Lunch
• 12:45am-1:10pm- afternoon register and Drawing club
• 1:10pm-1:50pm- child initiated inquiry time 
• 1:50pm-2:05pm- inquiry learning on the carpet
• 2:05-2:45pm- child initiated inquiry time
• 2:45pm-3:00pm- talk through stories
• 3:10pm- Home time!