Welcome to Happy Hollow at Green Lane Church of England Primary School
A Unique Early Years Foundation Stage Setting
Click on the link below to find out more about the Green Lane learning experience, with our ‘wondering wings’ which outline what we would like our children to learn, in our own unique Green Lane way:
Our Early Years Leader is the school’s Deputy Headteacher Mrs Nic Linsley
“Development can only take place when children are actively involved, when they are occupied with a high, non-stop degree of concentration, when they are interested, when they give themselves completely, when they use all their mental abilities to invent and make new things and when this gives them a high degree of satisfaction and pleasure.”
Ferre Laevers
Capturing the children’s interests…
Green Lane Church of England Primary School is a rural school in the heart of Teesdale and at the centre of our local community. We offer a fantastic education based around achievement and success in a nurturing, holistic environment. At Green Lane we see the ultimate purpose of education as the promotion of “life in all its fullness” (St John’s Gospel, chapter 10, verse 10).
Here education is about more than just academic achievement; it is about developing young people who can flourish in all areas of their lives developing the intellectual, spiritual, moral and physical attributes, becoming proud and respectful members of our community. Our deeply Christian ethos and values are central to the experiences our children have each day as part of ‘Team GL.’
Here at Green Lane we have created a wonderful learning environment for our youngest learners. Welcome to Happy Hollow. Happy Hollow is our early years setting. Our setting has been created with a Woodland theme in mind. The setting consists of its own entrance. You then enter our first learning space known as the Pine Room, this is a space where the children work on their phonics, Literacy and Mathematics skills. You then enter the Cherry Tree Room, this learning space is a large area set up for active learning where the children can experience the seven areas of learning. We also have a vast outdoor wooded area – The Garden.
The Pine Room
is the first room you enter on your arrival at the setting, here the children have the opportunity to work on their literacy, phonics and mathematical skills with no distraction from the active area. It also gives them the opportunity to bake, listen to music, and use the portable interactive white board.
The Cherry Tree Room
is a large room where the children can develop their own play with a range of interactive and engaging play experiences, such as a creative area, role play area, investigation area, construction area and small world area. The room has a woodland theme where natural resources and displays are used.
The Garden
is our outdoor area. It is a large, open space which includes a natural woodland area where the children can experience and explore Forests School activities. They also have the opportunity to explore all seven areas of learning.
A character education for our Early Years Foundation Stage
Our Early Years Curriculum supports all children to become happy, independent, resilient and emotionally intelligent learners. We provide a broad and balanced curriculum that enables children to develop personally, socially, emotionally, spiritually, physically, creatively and intellectually to help them reach their full potential. We strongly believe in enriching children’s lives by providing them with a Character Education.
Character Education equips young people to grow in wisdom, hope, community and dignity and is shaped by an understanding of God at work in the world. It is fundamental to the pursuit of academic excellence, and stands at the heart of our aspirational teaching, learning and pastoral care.
Our Core Christian Values help us to strengthen and shape the children’s Character Education. Our Core Christian Values are:
- Respectful
- Honest
- Forgiving
- Caring
- Inclusive
- Nurturing
- Inspiring
In early years we link each Core Christian Value to a Peter Rabbit character; this helps our young learners understand the values more readily.
Our Vision for Early Years Foundation Stage
At Green Lane Church of England Primary School, we:
- Develop excellent relationships with parents and carers to build strong partnerships which support their children to become independent, happy learners who thrive in school and reach their full potential from their various starting points.
- Understand and follow children’s interests and provide opportunities throughout our Early Years Curriculum to support learning consolidate and deepen knowledge and ensure children meet their next steps.
- Create an inspiring indoor and outdoor environment that supports and excites learning.
- Use and value what each child can do, assessing their individual needs and helping each child to progress, preparing children to reach the Early Learning Goals at the end of the Foundation Stage, ensuring they make rapid progress from their starting points.
- Provide an exciting, broad, balanced, relevant and creative curriculum that will set in place firm foundations for further learning and development in Key Stage 1 and to support their transition into Year 1.
- Provide a caring and inclusive learning environment which is sensitive to the requirements of the individual child including those who have additional needs.
The early years education we offer our children is based on the following principles:
- It builds on what our children already knew and can do
- It ensures that no child is excluded or disadvantaged
How we teach the Early Years Foundation Stage at Green Lane
Click on the links below to find out more about teaching in EYFS:
The three prime areas are:
- Communication and Language
- Physical Development
- Personal, Social and Emotional Development
Providers must also support children in four specific areas, through which the three prime areas are strengthened and applied.
The specific areas are:
- Literacy
- Mathematics
- Understanding the world
- Expressive arts and design
Further information about the EYFS can be found on the DFE website: www.foundationyears.org.uk.
Systematic, Synthetic Phonics
In September 2022 we introduced the Little Wandle programme which we feel will further enhance our teaching and hopefully lead to even greater success as the school moves forward following the pandemic.
Seeking for progress and measuring impact
Assessment Opportunities:
- Baseline Assessments
- Termly assessment heart grids (Happy Hollow Approach)
- Observations and interactions with children
- Learning Journey evidence
- Book evidence- Becoming a Mathematician, Becoming a Writer, Phonic Books
Early Years Foundation Stage Profile:
In order to establish the child’s stage of development, foundation stage profiling collects evidence of attainment across all Early Learning Goals throughout the year. At the end of Reception this is used to establish targets for future learning. The children are assessed to see if they have reached a Good Level of Development.
Pupil Voice is very important to us the following quotes describe how the children feel about being in the Early Years Foundation Stage at Green Lane
‘I love my school. I really like my classroom and the forest school its brilliant’.
Evie
‘I learn lots of cool stuff at school. I like to make my own craft things and I like phonics it’s fun’.
Logan
‘I like my school. I feel safe and we have a lot of fun’.
Mia
