The Early Years at Salterlee Primary School provides all children with a safe, supporting and challenging environment. We offer all children rich learning experiences inside and outside the classroom every day. We often use the natural environment around us as a starting point for many real-life experiences.

We support and nurture the children to use their imagination freely, to develop social, emotional and communication skills that give them the confidence and aspiration to reach and go beyond their potential.

Learning is through a mixture of hands-on experiences, play-based, child-led and adult-led input. We work in a close partnership with parents, sharing their knowledge and experiences to build on and extend children’s learning in the classroom.

Our curriculum has been carefully designed to provide all children, no matter their starting point, with the knowledge and skills needed to succeed as they move through school and beyond. It ensures that the seven areas of learning are taught through play and enquiry-based learning, whilst taking the different developmental levels and learning styles of all our children into account.

Our curriculum takes all children on a journey from looking inwards (all about me) to, by the end of the Reception, having an outward-facing view of the wider world. Continuous provision, alongside adult-led and child-initiated activities, are the main tools we use to deliver our curriculum. Challenge for all is built into our curriculum and daily practise, using open-ended resources and provocations to facilitate learning.

We recognise learning is very individual and our Early Years team use accurate and proportionate assessment to make informed decisions about what a child needs to learn and be able to do next to achieve and go beyond their own personal goals.

At Salterlee Primary School, we believe whole heartedly in supporting the development of the whole child, placing emphasis not only on academic success but also on each pupil’s personal development. Keeping our pupils safe and supporting their mental health and wellbeing is at the heart of everything we do.

Our whole school values of MIRROR are embedded within the Early Years setting. We model these values daily in our interactions with children, staff and families.

We work in partnership with parents, sharing their knowledge and experiences to build on and extend children’s learning in the classroom. Our class dojo platform enables learning at home and school to be integrated.

We have also developed a programme to actively involve Parents and Carers of children in Reception in school life and learning through a range of activities and experiences.

The children at Salterlee Primary School learn and play in an engaging, well-designed, purposeful classroom whilst also having free-flow access to the outdoors. Children enjoy a calming, enabling environment with carefully chosen resources to engage and support them in their learning.

Our extended outdoor area also includes a giant sand pit, climbing frames and tunnels, reading areas, water and sand play, vegetable patch, and much more. Our school is surrounded by beautiful nature, and we often explore the beautiful surroundings of our local environment.

In Early Years we value the importance of play and students are able to inquire, explore and discover within different areas both indoors and outdoors by doing free flow, student led and adult facilitated experiences.