Family is important to us. The school family is one part of that but, we believe, partnering with parents to educate their children is the key to success.
Our Early Years Environment
Our nurturing Early Years environment enables our children to develop to be confident, thriving and autonomous learners; the first step of their Sion journey.
Early Years consists of Nursery (3-4 year olds) and Reception (4-5 year olds), each with their own room, yet benefiting from shared areas and access to whole school facilities.
The all-weather outdoor classroom offers fantastic opportunities for children to work as a team – manage risks, develop social and communication skills, problem solving and independence – all vital life skills.
Our Early Years environment extends beyond the school gate, making the most of our town centre location and our Wild Curriculum.
Our School Day
The day begins at 8.30am and ends at 3.30pm. Before the school day, children may arrive at 8am for Morning Club and at the end of the day, there is a range of after school clubs or children can remain in our Afternoon Club until 5pm (for a small extra charge).
Our Curriculum Approach
Whilst our curriculum is based upon the Early Years Framework, as an independent school we seek every opportunity to add value and enrich the children’s learning with exciting opportunities.
The Early Years Framework focuses on seven areas of learning.
- Communication and Language
- Personal, Social and Emotional Development
- Physical Development
- Expressive Arts and Design
- Understanding of the World
- Mathematical Development
- Literacy
We relish the opportunity for the children to be immersed in the local environment. Enrichment opportunities include:
- Wild Curriculum: weekly trips including Highdown Towers, Woods Mill ,Roundstone Farm and Beach School
- Regular Wild Curriculum trips
- Worthing Library
- Worthing Market
- Inter-generational Project with St Mary’s Care Home
- Worthing Museum
- Local parks and shops
- Chichester Planetarium
- Drusillas
We also like to invite visitors to make their learning more relevant to everyday life.
- Sussex Police
- West Sussex Fire and Rescue
- Vets
- Dentists
- Doctors and nurses
- Pilots
- Animal Handlers
How children Learn
We know our children as the individuals they are and, perhaps more importantly, they know that they are known. As professionals, this helps the Early Years teaching team understand how they learn and how to create an environment with learning opportunities to ensure that children reach their individual potential.
Our environment enables children to initiate their own learning in partnership with our Early Years teaching team. Our aim is to give every child individual support and the space needed to be active learners, who can create, think critically, play and explore.
Our detailed observations of the children enable us to reflect on how we can expand their learning and this is demonstrated in the bespoke learning journals which are live and developed in partnership with parents (Tapestry).
