Welcome to Class 1

Together, our light will shine.

At the heart of our family school is our belief that, "Together, our light will shine."

Our vision is to be a deeply caring, successful school that develops children into confident, thoughtful and responsible citizens today and into the future.  Through our embedded Christian values, we strive for all to flourish and shine their light, recognising that together our good works can make a real difference.

‘Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works.”

Matthew 5:16

Underpinning everything that we do are our school values - HOPE, RESPECT,AMBITION, FORGIVENESS, TRUTH and GENEROSITY.

We are a happy and lively class, where fun goes hand in hand with our learning. Our class is made up of  reception year, Early Years Foundation Stage children (known collectively as Rainbows) and the youngest year one children (known collectively as Superstars). We learn through multisensory experiences which are play-based and designed to match individual needs and curriculum objectives.  Lessons are planned to take account of both the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum and the National Curriculum. We have a classroom with free flow access to three exciting outdoor classroom areas. Willow Way is a  calm place for children to reflect, observe nature and to spend some quiet time, either alone or with their friends. Here we learn to respect our environment and the many plants and animals living there.

Our main outdoor classroom is a busy place for children to explore, take on challenges or extend their own ideas.  It is where we learn about ambition for ourselves and others, where we learn to take risks and push our boundaries.

Our "Under the Sails" space is home to our ride - ons, a traversing wall and space and equipment to help our physical development -  gross and fine motor skills. We have a busy body area where children set up there own challenges using balance beams and stepping stones, hoops and ropes, stilts and ramps. This is a space where we can enjoy playing larger scale games such as boules, bowling, giant connect 4, noughts and crosses and build large models using marble run, large construction kits and naturally occurring materials.

Structure of the Early Years Foundation Stage and Year One in Class 1.

Our Reception provision has the capacity to accommodate 16 children and within our class group we have 8 of the youngest year one children. The teaching and learning is interwoven for reception and year one where possible, and through exciting and creative topics that meet the requiremnts for the year ones following the National Curriculum and reception children following the Curriculum as outlined in the 2021 Statutory Framework of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) with close reference to Development Matters 2021.

Communication and language underpins all areas of learning within our early years curriculum and continues to be developed within our provision, teaching, learning and planning methods for reception and year one. 

We provide activities which enable children to link personal experiences with new learning, providing a wide range of contexts to revisit, practise, apply, and develop transferable skills and understanding. Staff take account of the individual needs, interests, and stages of development of each child and use this information to plan challenging and enjoyable experiences. Where a child may have a special educational need or disability, staff consider whether specialist support is required, meet and speak with the school SENDCo, who can provide links with relevant services from other agencies, where appropriate. Staff are reflective in their practice and observe and evaluate the effectiveness and value of planned provision within the inside and outside learning spaces. They respond to children’s levels of interest and engagement, ensuring accurate pitch and pace for developing cognition and learning. Planning and interactions are supported by appropriate and relevant questioning to develop thinking, understanding and language for reasoning.

In class one we strive to provide a balance between play and formal teaching,  interwoven with the year one curriculum to provide a broad and balanced curriculum for both reception and year one children.

Working with parents

We recognise that children learn and develop well when there is a strong partnership between home and school. We feel it is important to share moments of progress, snapshots of even the tiniest ‘ magic ’ moments! We do this in a number of ways and regularly. We use our class page to provide weekly and termly updates. We send home and upload our Rainbow Round Up - a snapshot of the week, outlining what we have been up to, what we are learning and how we are learning. We put together a  learning journey book each term, that documents each child's learning, and demonstrating how each child learns, recording those ' Magic Moments' in a photo, or on a page, through samples of children's work and creations, as well as sending home certificates, celebratory pieces of work, and face to face meetings.

Staff are available every morning and afternoon at the school gate, operating an ‘open door’ policy.

We invite parents into school to be part of our team and to be fully involved with teaching and learning, events and social occasions. We feel we really are a welcoming and warm school family.

Safeguarding and welfare procedures

Our safeguarding and welfare procedures are outlined in our safeguarding policy

We love our beautiful world

Class One always love being out and about and we enjoy lots of walks around our beautiful village.

We enjoy looking for the first signs of each changing season and checking up on the crocus  bulbs we planted following our charity work with The Rotary Club.

We love gardening and growing our own fruits, vegetables and herbs. We use lots of our home - grown veggies in our mud kitchen and homely house. There is always a mint tea being brewed and an apple smoosh on offer!

We encourage a deep care for our world and people from all cultures and faiths. We look to help and reach out to those who need us from a very early age. We love to meet people in our local community and enjoy spending time with residents who can tell a story or two about Allington now and then.

All through the Year in Class 1.

What do we get up to in spring?

We do lots of gardening and planting seeds and beans. We watch them germinate and grow into different flowering plants. We have great days out and plenty of outdoor learning and walks around the locality, where we look for signs of spring and do some bulb planting or litter picking to help people in our community. We work very closely with our friends in the Church Council, and we often visit the church to see the Council members, do some gardening or simply enjoy a drink and a biscuit in the beautiful church. Take a look at some of our photographs to see what we get up to.

What do we get up to during the summer?

Hooray for summer - summer brings the chance for plenty of sport and sporting events. We learn how to work at sports on our own, in small groups and as part of a whole class or school. We develop ambition alongside respect and enjoyment.

What do we get up to in autumn?

Autumn is a very special time at school. For some of us it is the beginning of our school journey and there is so much to learn! As well as autumn walks and investigations of the environment and our locality, we are learning about respect for each other and the wider world, respect for diversity as we meet children and families from all faiths and cultures and we are developing our ideas about hopefulness for ourselves and others.

Much of our learning during this first term happens through structured and unstructured play. 

What do we get up to in winter?

We still continue to be out and about in winter, observing the changes in our local environment and hoping for snowy days!

We enjoy finding out about lots of winter festivals and celebrations, and enjoy the period of Advent. Christmas is a very special time for us and we enjoy cooking, crafting and lots of singing and dancing as part of the celebrations.