Early Years

Our Mission Statement

We believe that Early Years education should be exciting, stimulating, well organised and fun. At Beacon we strive to ensure that every child receives the very best possible start to their education that they deserve as to us ‘Every child matters’.

Our ethos is centred around developing and nurturing the whole child-their emotional, social and personal development as well as academic success.

We have a vibrant setting where the classrooms are bright and engaging, enabling the children to become active and enthusiastic learners. We also have access to the Reading Forest, Trim Trail, Sensory room, PE hall and outdoor grounds surrounding school. The children are at the centre of everything we do here at Beacon.

Core Values in Early Years

Through our carefully planned curriculum we want our children to be able to:

Pre-school	Nursery	Reception
Use their manners and say please and thank you,	Be happy and confident	Be independent, resilient and reflective
Co-operate with others and understand yes and no	Be a good friend	Make decisions and be responsible for their choices and actions.
Try new activities and have a go	Share and take turns	Be inclusive and respectful to others
Feel safe and have secure attachments with their key person	Follow rules and routines	Compromise and negotiate with others
Be curious	Understand right from wrong	Work in a team
	Talk about their emotions	Be organised and take care of their belongings.
	Be proud of their achievements	Be resourceful and creative
	Be courageous and take risks	Feel empowered to meet their own needs and those of others
	Speak confidently with unfamiliar adults	Feel valued and know their voice is heard
	Support and help others	Be considerate to others ideas

We offer a 48 place Pre-School – 24 children in the morning session and 24 children in the afternoon session.

Many of our places are funded through ‘Two Year Old Funding’. However, we also offer places that parents/carers can pay for.

The morning session starts at 8.30 am until 11.30am.
The afternoon session starts from 12.30pm until 3.30pm.

In our Pre-School there are 6 full time adults -five teaching assistants and one Level 3 apprentice teaching assistant.

Please see attached links:

Please click on the following icons if you would like more information on:

2 Year Old Funded Early Learning - Are you eligible for free funding for 15 hours in pre-school?

Paying for day care- Would you like your child to be in a school setting ?

We have a 65 place Nursery at Beacon and children can start the term after their 3^rd birthday.

We offer our children 15 hours of provision which is broken down into 5x3hr sessions (morning or afternoon).

The morning session starts at 8.40am until 11.40am.
The afternoon session starts from 12.25pm until 3.25pm.

In our Nursery there are 4 full time adults – our Nursery teacher, two teaching assistants and a Level 3 apprentice teaching assistant.

Please see attached links:

Please click on the following icon if you would like more information about:

Wrap around

We have a 60 place Reception split initially into 2 classes of 30 children. However we then group our children into at least 3- 4 smaller classes in the morning. Each class has a full-time teaching assistant and additional adults who also support the children's learning.

The Reception day starts at 8.45am and finishes at 3.05pm.

Please see attached links:

Our Learning Environment

In Early Years, our children follow an active curriculum both indoors and outdoors. Our indoor classrooms are bright, stimulating and caring to meet the needs of our youngest children. We are developing our ‘outdoor classrooms’ to ensure the children have access throughout the day – no matter what the weather!

The Curriculum

Children in the Foundation Stage follow the ‘Early Years Foundation Stage’ curriculum which covers all 7 areas of a child’s development.

There are 3 Prime Areas of Learning:-

Personal, Social and Emotional development
Communication and Language
Physical development

There are 4 Specific Areas of Learning:-

Literacy
Mathematics
Expressive Arts and Design
Understanding of the World

We observe our children to understand and consider their interests, development and learning- planning for and facilitating the 3 ‘Characteristics of Effective Learning’.

Playing and exploring - children investigate and experience things, and ‘have a go’;
Active Learning - children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties, and enjoy achievements; and
Creating and thinking critically - children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things.

For more information on the curriculum and what we offer click on the links below:

Please see attached links: Policies

Please see attached links: Useful documents for Parents

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