Hello and welcome to Oak Class

Our Teachers are Miss Harrison and Mrs Merry.

Our Learning Support Assistants are Miss Evans and Miss Archibald.

In Oak Class, we build upon the wonderful work of families and preschools to promote a love of learning and a strong foundation for future development. Children are born with a natural desire to explore and learn and as practitioners we support and inspire them in this. We do this by creating an enabling environment (both physical and emotional) and through the relationships and interactions that the children experience. We love learning, we love coming to school and we love to challenge ourselves!

Our Day

Things that help us learn

Teaching strategies

We ensure there is a balance of adult led and child initiated activities across the day, both in the classroom and in the outdoor environment. Although much of the time is spent with children self-selecting tasks, the interaction between the adult and child is essential as the adult’s response to children builds understanding and therefore guides new learning. 

The adult’s role is to continually model, demonstrate and question what the child is doing. In some cases the adult will ask a child to come and complete a task or game with them; at other times they will participate in a child’s game, extending it where possible.

We include direct, carefully planned, adult led experiences for children in the form of structured adult led teaching and adult led group activities. These are particularly important in helping children to learn specific skills and knowledge and it is often through children’s play that we see how much of this learning children have understood.

Each day we follow a timetable with set routines in place. We set aside times each day when the children come together to be taught in the more traditional sense, gathered together on the carpet as a class. These sessions help to develop vital habits of learning: learning as a group, listening to the teacher, taking turns to answer, sitting still etc.

Play

Learning Through Play (LTP) is an important part of our Early Years practice. We believe children learn best from activities and experiences that interest and inspire them. Using children’s interests as a starting point, we promote and inspire active play experiences in which they can explore and develop their learning to help them make sense of the world. 

Children have opportunities through their play to think creatively and critically alongside other children as well as on their own. They are able to practise skills, build upon and revisit prior learning and experiences at their own level and pace. 

Play gives our children the opportunity to pursue their own interests and inspire those around them. The children learn to adapt, negotiate, communicate, discuss, investigate and ask questions. We believe it is important that adults take an active role in child initiated play through observing, modelling, facilitating and extending their play.

Characteristics of Effective Learning  (CoEL)

CoEL highlight the importance of a child’s attitude to learning and their ability to play, explore and think critically about the world around them.  In Oak class, we focus carefully on honing these vital characteristics. We celebrate and promote awareness of these characteristics using our CBeebies characters.

The three characteristics are:

· 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 

· Creating and Thinking Critically – children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things.

Partnership with parents and carers

We believe that parents and carers are a child’s first educator and therefore work very closely to ensure they are involved in what we do with their child at school. 

We want parents to feel they can speak to us about their child at any time and feel comfortable in our setting. As part of our transition programme, we offer Reception visit days, stay and play sessions, home and preschool visits.  

The Tapestry online learning journey promotes home learning techniques and shares next steps for learning. This tool has proved to be a great asset in building relationships and promoting learning. Our parent workshops help support parents in their role as educators. Our “open door” policy promotes positive parental relationships. We encourage parents to become active members of the school community.

Our Busy Bags are a great way of supporting families, they provide simple, fun activities that support learning. We share lots of ideas on Tapestry, linking to online storytelling, number activities, handwriting support and early development. We work alongside parents to celebrate, inspire and facilitate an “intrinsic” motivation towards learning and goal setting.

RE

Our learning in RE follows the God Matter's programme provided by the Diocese of Portsmouth.  Together, we learn about the Catholic faith and other world faiths through topics such as Prayers, Saints and Feasts, Advent, Lent and Revelation.

If you have any questions or there is anything urgent that you think I need to know, please contact the School Office either by phone at 01252 542511 or by email at enquiries@st-patricks.hants.sch.uk.

For further details, please see our bespoke Phonics page