At Grange Primary School, we offer a broad, balanced and high-quality early education for children in nursery and reception and are committed to meeting the needs of all children; giving them the best possible start to their education. We, at Grange Primary School are recognised for disseminating ‘good-practise’ to other schools in Southwark.
At Grange Primary School, we have a balanced approach to our curriculum by combining motivating adult lead activities and core life experiences (including cooking, gardening and sewing) with targeted teaching opportunities. We promote early years best practice: learning through play, enabling environments, open ended experiences and outdoor learning whilst following children’s interests and teaching through adult-child interactions.
The balance shifts as children progress through their learning journey and independence is developed. Our provision is developmentally appropriate and children are taught the skills they need to thrive throughout their day, with a safe, supportive and stimulating early introduction to education. Learning for all is scaffolded. Children are challenged and adults are present to support learning throughout these processes. At Grange Primary School, we fuel curiosity, spark creativity and inspire a lifelong love of learning.
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We recognise that children enter our setting with a vast range of life experiences from each other, as well as in their language, prior learning experiences and through their play. It is the role of our setting to help children experience the awe and wonder of the world in which we live. All staff work hard to ensure that the learning opportunities provided widen children’s knowledge and understanding of the world, setting ambitious expectations for all children. Staff at Grange Primary School build positive relationships with all children, parents and carers. With the support of parents, we provide a strong base for helping children develop in confidence and independence.
Running all the way through early years and into year one is the principle of learning through play; the best and most meaningful way for young children to learn and be authors and illustrators of their own learning journey. We offer lots of open-ended play and exploratory experiences, and the structure of our day includes periods of uninterrupted play so that children can get deeply involved in their learning. We provide rich, enabling learning environments, both indoors and outdoors, which promotes independence, exploration and discovery. The classrooms and outdoor areas are organised so that learning is constantly taking place and each of the prime areas of learning are offered. Children can access resources by themselves, make choices, follow their own interests and extend their own learning independently, however, adults are there to scaffold and support when and where necessary. This all leads to a greater involvement and deeper learning, no matter where children are in their personal learning journey.
We place a strong emphasis on the importance of outdoor learning throughout our provision. We understand the importance of gross motor skills and the impact these have on the development of the whole child, not only in the early years, but on their whole life ahead. We understand that this has many benefits contributing the health and well-being and in developing and influencing the child’s future. Children are often more confident outside, and outdoor play offers great opportunities for experiencing the natural world, active learning and exploration, as well as providing elements of risk and challenge. We have an exceptional outdoor learning environment where children have access to a mud kitchen, sand and water play, large construction activities, role-play, obstacle courses and many more fun and engaging activities set out on a daily basis. Children have the opportunity to ‘free-flow’ between the indoor and outdoor learning environments for a large part of their day.
Our curriculum is based on the Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework educational programme and ‘Birth to 5 Matters’ which provides comprehensive guidance to support the implementation of the statutory framework. Alongside this, we follow children’s interests and developmental needs within the context of our school. Our curriculum is designed to give children foundational knowledge and understanding needed to prepare them for year 1 and their future education at Grange Primary School. This is taught through focus texts, continuous provision and exploratory play. Our whole school curriculum is concept driven to ensure children, know, do and understand- providing cross-curricular links where possible. Our curriculum has been set out to ensure children have the knowledge to access it through prior learning and experiences. We have developed early years progression documents for key subject areas which clearly link our provision to the concepts and knowledge in the curriculum taught in key stage 1 and 2.
In early years, we provide stimulating and well-resourced learning spaces, where provision is carefully planned to challenge, motivate and develop children’s skills within the 7 areas of learning. Through these areas of learning, we provide topics that excite and engage children, building on their own interests and developing their experiences of the world around them. The Birth to 5 document is split into the Prime and Specific Areas, which helps us fine tune our planning and ensure all children have the best chance of success.
We provide children with opportunities to experience a rich language environment; develop their confidence and skills in expressing themselves and to speak and listen in a range of situations. A key feature throughout our provision is developing children’s literacy and vocabulary. We know and understand that having a large vocabulary helps children learn more; words allow children to ask questions and make sense of the world around them.
Communication and language is one of the most important building blocks for all other learning areas, and makes up a significant part of the early years curriculum. We promote language development through the stories we read (beginning with our core list of texts in nursery), our interactions with children and our language and communication rich environments (things to talk about and adults that are ready to talk).
We provide opportunities for children to develop their familiarity with stories, songs and rhymes throughout early years. Everything we do is designed to promote language development- our learning environments, the structure of our day, the way focus activities and interventions are organised and the training we provide our staff.
Children are given the opportunity to speak and be heard throughout their day in order to develop their confidence and skills in expressing themselves. They are provided with occasions within their timetable to listen in a range of situations and contribute to discussions through whole class, small group or in one-on-one situations.
Physical Development involves providing opportunities for young children to be active and interactive; and to develop their co-ordination, control, and movement. Children must also be helped to understand the importance of physical activity and to make healthy choices in relation to food.
At Grange Primary School, we provide opportunities for children to develop their co-ordination, manipulation and movement. They develop the knowledge of the importance of being physically active and eating healthily. To give children the best opportunities at forming positive relationships, children are supported in their understanding of exercise, sleep and eating a healthy, balanced diet to promote a healthy lifestyle. Our environment, both indoors and outdoors encourages physical and energetic play. We know that by children having regular access to basic cross lateral movement (creeping, crawling, clambering, running, walking, and pedalling) enhances children’s development, helping their hands, arms, legs, feet, and eyes all work together. The children at Grange Primary School have regular access to these basic movements, in order to develop stronger connections between the two sides of the brain. This promotes a stronger capacity for more complex sensory processing, enabling children to become more proficient at sequencing thoughts and words which in turn supports co-ordination and the sequencing of speech, communication and early writing. This then supports children’s ability to track and read print in books and within the environment.
Our snack table promotes the importance of making healthy food choices with the opportunity for children to try new foods and a range of textures. Children within our provision are given the skills to manage their own basic hygiene and personal needs including dressing and toileting. They also discuss and practise oral hygiene regularly.
Personal, Social and Emotional Development involves helping children to develop a positive sense of themselves and others; to form positive relationships and develop respect for their peers; to develop social skills and learn how to manage their feelings; to understand appropriate behaviour in groups; and to have confidence in their own abilities.
Children at Grange Primary School develop a positive sense of themselves. We work hard to encourage children to have respect for themselves and their classmates, developing social skills and encourage them to have a good attitude to their learning. They are given the skills to begin to regulate their behaviour and emotions according to the situations at hand.
We endeavour to provide the best learning opportunities for all children and promote positive relationships with familiar adults and their peers. By scaffolding play and learning (when and where necessary), the adults within our provision form caring connections with children and encourage cooperative play for all. Through these planned and unplanned positive interactions, children embrace the differences between themselves and others. They develop the confidence across their learning journey to try new activities
Literacy is made up of these aspects:
Reading is central to our curriculum. Understanding and enjoyment of books is supported through daily story time and sharing books in all year groups. We use ‘core books’ in nursery that are revisited a number of times each term.
In reception we teach writing through high quality texts that are linked to the topic of their study. This way of teaching and learning immerses the children in high quality books, involves lots of talk and roleplay and encourages cross curricular links where possible. We develop children’s writing through spoken language and comprehension of stories through sequencing, discussing characters and their favourite parts of the story. Children are encouraged to engage in various forms of ‘writing’ from nursery: from initial mark making, drawing, forming isolated letter shapes then writing strings of letters in order to begin to form words, captions and sentences in reception. Adults consider each child’s developmental level and individual needs in order to support their learning journey. We focus on creating a supportive environment that encourages children to experiment with language and express their ideas in their own unique ways. Our approach in the early years, emphasises the importance of play and exploration in the writing process and we strive to create and promote fun and engaging experiences that foster a lifelong love of writing. Children in reception are also provided formal writing lessons in small groups based on the topic they are learning about. They are then encouraged to access this throughout their play independently, making use of the explicitly taught skills.
At Grange Primary School, we begin Phase 1 phonics in nursery, teaching children to explore the sounds in the world around them. We have a strong push on oracy that supports early reading development from nursery through core books, songs and rhymes.
At this stage, children are developing their language skills, phonological awareness and their ability to recognise and manipulate sounds in words.
These sessions encourage children to develop strong language and phonics skills from an early age, providing them with a solid start for when they transition into our Systematic Synthetic Phonics program- Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised in Reception and into Key Stage One.
From reception, we teach Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised which is taught systematically with daily whole class sessions, with keep up and catch-up sessions running alongside.
Involves providing children with opportunities to develop and improve their skills in counting, understanding and using numbers, calculating simple addition and subtraction problems; and to describe shapes, spaces and measures.
At Grange Primary School, mathematics is taught through concrete, meaningful experiences aimed at developing children’s conceptual understanding. We use White Rose across the school, which is used to inform planning with lessons being supplemented by NCETM and the Maths Hub, along with activities and experiences to support the specific learning needs of our children. We have a strong push on mathematical language with stem sentences and generalisers being taught from reception, alongside explanations and lots of concrete/ real life experiences. Maths is everywhere in our early years provision, allowing children to develop a love of maths while incidentally providing them with the opportunities to develop and improve their skills in counting, understanding, using numbers, calculating simple addition and subtraction problems and also describing shapes, patterns, spaces and using different forms of measurement.
Mathematics is made up of these aspects:
Understanding the World involves guiding children to make sense of their physical world and their community through opportunities to explore, observe and find out about people, places, technology and the environment.
Children at Grange Primary School are offered opportunities to explore and observe the environment, living things and objects. They are given the best opportunities through positive relationships with peers and adults to hold conversations and extend their knowledge of the world around them. Through enabling environments and open-ended questions like, “How can we..?” and “What would happen if…?” children learn to think more critically about their everchanging world. Their learning and development is based on first-hand experiences as they learn to observe, predict, make decisions and discuss their findings.
UW is made up of these aspects:
Expressive Arts and Design involves enabling children to explore and play with a wide range of media and materials, as well as providing opportunities and encouragement for sharing their thoughts, ideas and feelings through a variety of activities in art, music, movement, dance, role-play, and design and technology.
This learning area supports children’s curiosity and play for children at Grange Primary School. They explore and share their thinking, ideas and feelings in music, art, movement and dance, role play and technology. To give children the best opportunities, through positive relationships children value their own unique ideas and those of others. Our environments are nurturing and stimulating, allowing children to represent and express themselves appropriately through a range of media and resources. All ideas are listened to and the way in which children express themselves in their own unique ways are highly valued.
EAD is made up of these aspects:
We aim to ensure that our planned provision around the 7 learning areas also supports the Characteristics of Effective Learning.
Much of the children’s day is made up of a combination of playing and exploring, active learning and creating and thinking critically. We encourage children to ask questions and find out about things and topics of interest to them and have a go at both familiar and unfamiliar activities. Children are encouraged to have their own ideas, make connections and explore new ways of doing things; showing perseverance and a ‘can-do’ attitude.
Adults will often observe children closely and join (sensitively) into their play, in order to extend their language and thinking and develop their knowledge and skills of specific areas. Through supporting children with the ‘characteristics of effective learning,’ we develop confident, resilient, independent learners.
We encourage good attitudes to learning including, curiosity, concentration and a willingness to ‘have a go,’ in everything the children do.
As a school we have an open-door policy where we welcome feedback, suggestions and ideas. We value the importance of having parents, carers and people from our local community involved in the children’s learning journey throughout our school. We believe that by welcoming people from our local community into school the children will have a wider range of experiences and opportunities. We strive to make sure the children in our school get the best learning experiences and so, put our school community at the heart of this.
In EYFS, we often invite parents and carers into our classrooms to join us for workshops and share in experiences such as school trips and celebration day where the children and parents learn together. We always have so much fun!
All of these aspects run through the early years at Grange Primary School, so that children become familiar and confident with this way of learning and move seamlessly from early years to key stage one. Children from Grange Primary School are ready to move from one year group to the next; are prepared for the next stage of their learning journey, settling quickly.
Our aim is for children to leave the EYFS as confident, happy, independent, resilient and respectful learners, emotionally and academically for year one.
Grange Primary School is very pleased to announce the release of its recent OFSTED Inspection Report, which took place on 4th and 5th February 2025.
Our five key inspection judgements were marked as follows:
To read the full report, CLICK HERE.