After a period of extensive research and planning, we can now annnounce that we intend to significantly change the way we deliver teaching and learning in Year One from September onwards. The first cohort to experience this change will be the current Reception children and there will be more detailed information about this heading the way of their parents and carers in due course.
For a while now, our Early Years and Key Stage One teams have proposed that it would benefit children to adopt a style that felt more like Reception, with time spent in continuous provision, learning through play and exploration, as well as the expected more formal teaching. The impact of the years ‘lost’ to Covid have strengthened this feeling as we see more and more children admitted to school with developmental delays.
This isn’t an approach that has always been viewed favourably by OfSTED, but having had our inspection we now feel that there are no barriers to us doing what we think is absolutely the right thing developmentally for the children. Our philosophy goes somewhat against the direction of travel in some schools/trusts, which is to bring in ever more formal learning, even in Nursery and Reception. We have the full backing and support of Transform Trust to do this and it chimes nicely with the Trust values.
Our research shows us that we can do this and expect to fully maintain academic progress and outcomes.
You can read an interesting report from the highly respected Early Excellence organisation on this here: https://earlyexcellence.com/latest-news/press-articles/maximising-learning-in-key-stage-one/