Positive relationships are vital to support young learners.  To support each child to develop positive relationships they are assigned to a key worker. The Key person approach is aimed at enabling and supporting close attachments between each child and their practitioner. Attachment provides a sense of security so that children can flourish.

In Nursery, we offer a morning or afternoon session and for pupils entitled to 30 hours provision, a morning and afternoon session. Key Worker ratios are a maximum of 1:13 (adult to child) for our Senior Teaching Assistants and 1:8 for Teaching Assistants. Teaching and learning is overseen by the Nursery Manager working alongside the EYFS Lead.

In Reception, Key Worker ratios are 1:15 (adult to child). There are 30 children in each class. Teaching and learning is overseen by each Class Teacher and the EYFS Lead. Senior Teaching Assistants are employed in the EYFS with appropriate higher-level qualifications to deliver the EYFS framework effectively alongside the class teacher.

The day to day practice for EYFS at Barrow Hedges is carefully monitored and evaluated on a daily basis by the EYFS Lead and our Senior Leadership Team. The EYFS Lead reports on standards to governors at local committee meetings.

Parent Partnerships

Parents helping on our seaside trip.

We work effectively with parents to support each child’s learning and development. We recognise that parents are experts on their own child; practitioners are experts on children’s learning and development. Therefore, it is paramount that parents and practitioners work together.

Parents are very much involved in supporting their child to happily settle into school. They attend a 'Parents Welcome Evening' and a ‘Stay and Play’ session.  In addition, by completing an ‘All About Me’ sheet, this supports practitioners to plan for each child using their interests to help them to be happy to come to school. Home visits also support settling in. The children get to meet their new teachers in their own safe and secure environment. The children often take pride in showing their favourite books, toys or pets. It is a memorable experience for the child and is often referred to throughout the year.

We hold a meeting in September for Reception parents and one in October for Nursery parents to share further information on school expectations, routines and procedures. Parents are able to contribute to their child’s learning journey folder. For example, they can bring in treasured work from home, they can complete ‘I Can Stars’ to celebrate their child’s recent achievements, and/or they can complete a ‘Magic Moments’ form to share family events or magic moments in their child’s learning.

All parents have access to their child’s Tapestry account; an online learning journey where they can read observations of their child’s learning. They can give their child’s learning a ‘thumbs up’, leave a comment which the teacher will always reply to or even write their own observations, sharing home learning or events. Parent contributions are logged by the teacher and contribute to each child’s assessment profile.

We watched the videos asked, N read the 3 sentences, wrote 3 “ng” words and wrote a simple sentence using the success criteria 🙌🏼 excellent job N! 🌈
Words were
“Bing, sing and bong”
The sentence was:
“I sing wiv misis ckoveey”
Also got N to spell “they, are,my and all”

Example of a parent contribution to assessment after completing homework on Tapestry.

Parents are welcome to look at their child’s learning journey folder at the end of the school day for Reception or at the end of the Nursery Session. They can read teacher annotations and marking to find out what their child can do now and what they need to do next. They can use this information as they continue to support their child’s education at home.

Homework

Parents support their child’s reading at home through a structured reading programme. Each child receives a reading record book and a reading book. Phonics homework is shared through Tapestry. Parents and children can access teaching videos to support learning at home. ‘Super Challenges’ are available for the parents to borrow and a lending library for books and games is available through the EYFS Family Support Worker.

Parents can read about their child’s learning, not only on Tapestry but also on the school website where parents can read about the adult led themes.

Parents attend a parent/teacher consultation in October and in February; in addition to this parent workshops are held throughout the year. Titles include for example, ‘How to Help your Child to Read at Home’ and ‘Supporting your Child with Phonics’. Feedback is always positive; for example, “Everything was good, thank you very much for holding such a useful and informative workshop” and “I particularly liked learning how to make learning fun and games to do at home; some useful tops for resources and guidance.”

At these workshops not only do practitioners share their own expertise, parents have the opportunity to look at each child’s learning journey, to visit their child’s classroom and to look at displays which show the learning process for each adult led theme. We ensure that all displays reflect and celebrate the diverse family backgrounds and cultures of all our children.

Parents are also invited to an Exhibition Evening in the Summer Term. Teachers meet parents throughout the year to discuss pupil progress. 

Click here to view our Reading Evening Workshop Presentation

Click here to view our Writing Evening Workshop Presentation

Maths Evening Workshop: