Squirrels Class - Nursery and Reception

Curriculum Newsletters

Your child’s learning journey in Brailes Nursery and Reception

How do we observe children and monitor progress?

We have developed a model of effective, meaningful, and principled assessment of young children’s learning.

By effective, we mean a method of assessment that ensures that all children are supported in reaching significant milestones.

By meaningful, we mean that the observations made inform our everyday practice and curriculum. By gaining an insight into children’s thinking, feelings and needs we can plan our environment and actions to provide future possibilities for learning.

By principled, we mean that our focus is on observing to understand children. We will not test children or seek unnecessary knowledge. Children are recognised as individuals, not as a percentage in a pie chart.

We will not spend unnecessary amounts of time writing observations or gathering evidence of children’s learning. We believe that if we are capturing the moment, we cannot be part of the moment. Instead, we have structures in place that enable us to regularly discuss each child as a team and with their family.

Observation of Play and Learning (OP&L)

Your child’s learning will be closely monitored in collaboration with you to ensure they are supported to reach significant milestones for their age.

OP&L works on the basis of having very simple, six-monthly child developmental milestones, which we use to monitor children’s development. These milestones reflect what we believe a ‘typical’ child, should be able to achieve. We know that not all children will have ‘typical’ development. OP&L allows us to tell and celebrate each child’s story and focus on the support they need from us.

The observations and assessments that we make are called ‘spotlights’. We observe children’s innovation, their creativity, their ideas, their intentions and feelings. The insight that we gain enables us to discuss, reflect and plan our environment to support and shape future learning.

What to expect? 

There will be many opportunities throughout the year for us to come together to talk about your child and their learning. 

Settling in: At our November Parents Evening, we will meet with you to talk about how your child has settled in. We will look at the child development milestones together for the 6 monthly milestones that your child has most recently passed and share with you their Starting Points observation. 

Parent Drop In: You are invited to our half termly Parent Sharing events to look at your child’s work in paper journals, class floor books and on display.  

Seesaw: We will post regular whole class updates and photographs, sharing recent highlights. 

Curriculum Newsletter: Shared via PING and available on our school website, you will be able to access a half termly Curriculum Newsletter that lets you know all about our topic for the half term and key dates for your diary. 

Newsletter: Shared via PING and available on our school website each month, our Newsletter is a celebration of everything we have been doing across the school and a reminder about upcoming events and important dates. 

Spotlight: Each child will have two ‘spotlight’ points in the year. These will be our November Parents Evening and one other time at their birthday or half birthday in line with our 6 monthly milestones check, providing your second Parents Evening of the year. Please be aware that the date of this second ‘spotlight’ meeting will be different for each child depending on when their birthday falls. We will invite you in to share the spotlight and talk about your child’s learning and development.