Our Curriculum
At East Ruston Infant School & Nursery we have strong values that both staff and pupils demonstrate. Our rich curriculum engages and enthuses children, not only providing pupils with a sound grounding in academic subjects but also supporting them to develop resilience, consideration and become responsible global citizens.
We aim not only to provide pupils with an excellent start on their learning journey whilst fostering a love of learning, but also to develop the qualities of kindness and inclusivity and understanding; of both self and others. We want our children to be curious, ambitious and resilient as they develop into lifelong learners.
We want our children to love learning from the moment they arrive at East Ruston so that by the time they leave us, they have the knowledge, skills and confidence to take their next steps at the end of Year Two.
In recognition that all our young learners are unique individuals who are special with different strengths and abilities, we carefully plan engaging learning experiences to ensure they become literate, numerate and have technological capacity in preparation for their future. We help our young learners to develop early life skills, to become mentally and emotionally literate, to develop a curiosity about the world in which they live, to take risks and help them to persevere even when things are challenging. At East Ruston we celebrate success and embrace our mistakes as we grow into resilient learners.
Our wonderful outside forest and meadow provides a rich stimulus for much of the learning that the children do. We firmly believe in the power of self exploration and adventure to ignite the children's natural curiosity in their environment and subsequent learning. As a very small rural school, the opportunities for experiencing a wide range of cultural, artistic and educational experiences can be limited so we provide a high quality, knowledge rich curriculum with immersive experiences to fill cultural gaps. Children have access to a wide range of creative, cultural, scientific and educational experiences, such as workshops from around the world; we have been to South America, Africa and Australia. We also have regular visitors from the Norfolk Wildlife Trust and visits to Norwich Cathedral and Cley Marshes.
Our expectations are that all children will be successful given the correct support and challenge.
We understand the importance of the core skills of communication, reading, writing and mathematics.
Communication and language is a key priority that is used in all areas of the curriculum. We enable the children to become effective communicators, able to express themselves clearly so that they can share how they are feeling, share their opinions and can explain the reasoning behind their decisions.
Reading is the key to unlocking all areas of the curriculum and is prioritised in the school by the sharing of high quality texts to introduce ambitious vocabulary, developing a love of reading and hearing stories and to apply what they have heard or read in a range of learning experiences. Children begin their reading journey as soon as they step foot in our nursery and by the time they move to Reception they are ready to learn to read through high quality Phonics teaching.
In the Early Years, staff establish positive relationships with children and parents so that they know each child as individuals, what their interests are and what they need to learn. We focus on the prime areas of the Early Years Framework, physical development, communication and language, personal, social and emotional development and the specific areas of learning; mathematics, understanding the world, literacy and expressive art and design. In Reception we teach some subject areas discretely.
When children reach Key Stage 1, they are ready to embrace the challenges of the National Curriculum. Our small school environment means that this transition from more play based learning is seamless. Children still have access to learning through play whilst also having more discrete subject teaching.
We continue to build on prior learning experiences with subjects carefully planned to incorporate the key knowledge, skills and understanding set out in the National Curriculum whilst also reflecting the needs of our children as part of the local and wider community. Our curriculum is broad, balanced and immersive and provides the framework for children to learn increasingly challenging concepts throughout their time at East Ruston in preparation for the challenges of Junior School and beyond.
