Physical Development

Physical activity is vital in pupils’ all-round development, enabling them to pursue happy, healthy, and active lives. Gross and fine motor experiences develop incrementally throughout early childhood, starting with sensory explorations and the development of a child’s strength, co-ordination, and positional awareness through tummy time, crawling and play movement with both objects and adults. By creating games and providing opportunities for play both indoors and outdoors, adults can support pupils to develop their core strength, stability, balance, spatial awareness, co-ordination, and agility.

 

Gross motor skills provide the foundation for developing healthy bodies and social and emotional well-being. Fine motor control and precision helps with hand-eye co-ordination, which is later linked to early literacy. Repeated and varied opportunities to explore and play with small world activities, puzzles, arts and crafts and the practice of using small tools, with feedback and support from adults, allow pupils to develop proficiency, control, and confidence.

 

The skills that are developed are:

 

Gross Motor Skills: Pupils show good control and co-ordination in large and small movements. They move confidently in a range of ways, safely negotiating space. Demonstrate strength, balance and coordination when playing; - Move energetically, such as running, jumping, dancing, hopping, skipping, and climbing.

 

​​​​​​​​Fine Motor Skills: Pupils will use a range of small tools, including scissors, paint brushes and cutlery. They hold writing tools effectively in preparation for writing while using different grips including a palmer and later pincer. Develop a preferred hand for writing and begin to show accuracy and care when drawing and writing.

 

Rebound At Woodlawn: We have a range of facilities that support the physical development of each individual these include weekly rebound sessions where we incorporate communication and language skills through symbol support along with developing core strength and stability delivered by the rebound trained specialists.

 

Music and Movement: We have weekly sessions of music and movement delivered by occupational therapists where pupils follow a structured session of familiar songs and symbol support to focus on flexibility, balance and mobility.

 

Swimming: Each week the pupils have the opportunity to use our onsite swimming pool and develop their skills and water confidence. As Swimming is a fantastic way for children to stay active, while having fun! It engages the whole body, helping children develop strength, endurance, and flexibility. The swimming pool is also use to support communication and numeracy skills through the use of symbols and numicon.

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Little Movers: The pupils have weekly session with Little Movers where they enjoy themed lessons that have a focus on the development of gross and fine motor skills, fundamental movement skills, balance and strength.

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​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Football: Football sessions with skilled football coaching staff, ACFC offers a unique coaching opportunity in the North East of England, delivering engaging and enjoyable coaching to children of all ages. ACFC works with a philosophy that focuses on developing players and people. We do this by helping players with the technical and tactical side of the game, whilst also developing confident and respectful young people who seek to challenge themselves on, and off the pitch. S

 

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Personal, Social and Emotional Development

Pupil’s personal, social, and emotional development (PSED) is crucial for pupils to lead healthy and happy lives and is fundamental to their cognitive development. Underpinning their personal development are the important attachments that shape their social world. Strong, warm, and supportive relationships with adults enable pupils to learn how to understand their own feelings and those of others. Pupils should be supported to manage emotions, develop a positive sense of self, set themselves simple goals, have confidence in their own abilities, to persist and wait for what they want and direct attention as necessary. Through adult modelling and guidance, they will learn how to look after their bodies, including healthy eating, and manage personal needs independently. Through supported interaction with other pupils, they learn how to make good friendships, co-operate, and resolve conflicts peaceably. These attributes will provide a secure platform from which pupils can achieve at school and in later life.

 

The skills that are developed are:

 

Managing Self: Pupils are confident to try new activities and indicate or say why they like some activities more than others. They are confident to speak in a familiar group, will share about their ideas, and will choose the resources they need for their chosen activities. They indicate or say when they do or don’t need help.

 

Self-Regulation: Pupils communicate about how they and others show feelings, talk about their own and others’ behaviour, and its consequences, and know that some behaviour is unacceptable. They work as part of a group or class and understand and follow the rules. They adjust their behaviour to different situations and take changes of routine in their stride. Building relationships: pupils play co-operatively and take turns with others. They take account of one another’s ideas about how to organise their activity. They show sensitivity to others’ needs and feelings and form positive relationships with adults and other pupils.

 

Sensory Room

 

Literacy

It is crucial for pupils to develop a life-long love of reading. Reading consists of two dimensions: language comprehension and word reading. Language comprehension (necessary for both reading and writing) starts from birth. It only develops when adults talk with pupils about the world around them and the books (stories and non-fiction) they read with them, and the rhymes, poems and songs that are shared. Skilled word reading, taught later, involves both the speedy working out of the pronunciation of unfamiliar printed words (decoding) and the speedy recognition of familiar printed words. Writing involves transcription (spelling and handwriting) and composition (articulating ideas and structuring them in speech, before writing).

 

The skills that are developed are:

 

Word Reading: Pupils read and understand simple sentences. They use phonic knowledge to decode regular words and read them aloud accurately. They also read some common irregular words. They demonstrate understanding when talking with others about what they have read. Writing: pupils use their phonic knowledge to write words in ways which match their spoken sounds. They also write some irregular common words. They write simple words/sentences which can be read by themselves and others. Some words are spelt correctly, and others are phonetically plausible.

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Comprehension: Pupils will understand what has been read to them by retelling stories and narratives using their own words and recently introduced vocabulary. They may anticipate, where appropriate, key events in stories. Pupils are supported to use recently introduced vocabulary during discussions about stories, non-fiction, rhymes, and poems and during role-play. ​

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Reading for pleasure: Each week pupils will take home a reading for pleasure book from the school library to be shared with an adult. The focus will be on looking at the pictures and listening to an adult read the chosen book. The book is recorded using the boom reader programme which creates a digital reading record that can be viewed and commented on by both parents and teachers.

 

Writing: At Woodlawn pupils have daily sessions of dough disco and squiggle sessions where they develop their fine motor skills and the development of pre writing shapes. Pupils follow the Read Write Inc phonics programme that supports the formation of letters with memorable rhymes.

 

Story-telling: Timba Dash Theatre is a multi-sensory theatre company producing immersive story-telling experiences for young people. Pupils have the opportunity to engage in the performances that are carried out on the trampolines and swimming pool area.

 

Mathematics

Developing a strong grounding in number is essential so that all pupils develop the necessary building blocks to excel mathematically. Pupils should be able to count confidently, develop a deep understanding of the numbers to 10, the relationships between them and the patterns within those numbers. By providing frequent and varied opportunities to build and apply this understanding, such as using manipulatives, including counters and tens frames for organising counting, pupils will develop a secure base of knowledge and vocabulary from which mastery of mathematics is built. In addition, it is important that the curriculum includes rich opportunities for pupils to develop their spatial reasoning skills across all areas of mathematics including shape, space, and measures. It is important that pupils develop positive attitudes and interests in mathematics, look for patterns and relationships, spot connections, ‘have a go’, talk to adults and peers about what they notice and that they are not be afraid to make mistakes.

 

The skills that are developed are:

 

Numbers: Pupils gain a deep understanding of number to 10, including the composition of each number; Subitise (recognise quantities without counting) up to 5. They will automatically recall (without reference to rhymes, counting or other aids) number bonds up to 5 (including subtraction facts) and some number bonds to 10, including doubling facts.

 

Numerical Patterns: Pupils can verbally count beyond 20, recognising the pattern of the counting system. They will compare quantities up to 10 in different contexts, recognising when one quantity is greater than, less than or the same as the other quantity. They will explore and represent patterns within numbers up to 10, including evens and odds, doubles facts and how quantities can be distributed equally.

 

Understanding of the World

Understanding the world involves guiding pupils to make sense of their physical world and their community. The frequency and range of pupils’ personal experiences increases their knowledge and sense of the world around them by visiting parks, libraries, and museums to meeting important members of society such as police officers, nurses, and firefighters. In addition, listening to a broad selection of stories, non-fiction, rhymes, and poems will foster their understanding of our culturally, socially, technologically, and ecologically diverse world. As well as building important knowledge, this extends their familiarity with words that support understanding across domains. Enriching and widening pupil’s vocabulary will support later reading comprehension.

 

The skills that are developed are:

 

People, Culture, and Communities: Pupils describe their immediate environment using knowledge from observation, discussion, stories, non-fiction texts and maps. They know some similarities and differences between different religious and cultural communities in this country, drawing on their experiences and what has been read in class. They may explain some similarities and differences between life in this country and life in other countries, drawing on knowledge from stories, non-fiction texts and, when appropriate, maps.

 

The Natural world: Pupils know about similarities and differences in relation to places, objects, materials and living things. They talk about the features of their own immediate environment and how environments might vary from one another. They make observations of animals and plants and explain why some things occur and they may talk about changes.

 

Past and Present: Pupils talk about the lives of the people around them and their roles in society. They know some similarities and differences between things in the past and now, drawing on their experiences and what has been read in class. They understand the past through settings, characters and events encountered in books read in class and storytelling.

 

Expressive arts and Design

The development of pupils’ artistic and cultural awareness supports their imagination and creativity. It is important that pupils have regular opportunities to engage with the arts, enabling them to explore and play with a wide range of media and materials. The quality and variety of what pupils see, hear, and participate in is crucial for developing their understanding, self-expression, vocabulary, and ability to communicate through the arts. The frequency, repetition, breadth, and depth of their experiences is fundamental to their progress in interpreting and appreciating what they hear, respond to and observe.

 

The skills developed are:

 

Creating with Materials: Pupils will safely use and explore a variety of materials, tools and techniques, experiment with colour, design, texture, form, and function. They will share their creations, explaining the process they have used and make use of props and materials when role playing characters in narratives and stories.

 

Being Imaginative and Expressive: pupils may invent, adapt, and recount narratives and stories with peers and their teacher. They will sing a range of well-known nursery rhymes and songs, perform songs, rhymes, poems, and stories with others, and, when appropriate, try to move in time with music.