At Cumberland, our curriculum aims to promote children’s natural curiosity and exploratory drive for learning. We do this in YR through a carefully planned integrated curriculum, which focuses on building on children’s previous experiences and offering them new and exciting opportunities for learning. We ‘hook’ the children in with an event to start each project and build the learning around knowledge that we identify as essential learning for the project and the children’s interests within the project, asking them “What do you want to know?” We seek opportunities for the children to show us where they would like to take their learning within in the project and plan this in, whilst ensuring that they have all the foundations to begin their next learning journey as they move into Year One. Each of our projects has an outcome which is closely linked to the ‘hook’ . The children’s learning is designed to work towards the final outcome which we often share with parents via video or by inviting them in to share and be active participants in some of the learning experiences the children have undertaken. For example, the children learn some well-known
animal rhymes to celebrate our project ‘All Creatures Great and Small,’ with a performance, e.g. Old MacDonald had a farm. The home learning for this project is to make a farm animal that can be shared and displayed during the performance.
For more information on each project, please visit our Reception year group page.

Click here for curriculum guidance - Development Matters

Click here for English (phonics, reading and writing) in the Early Years