On entry to Ashcroft, our children are generally achieving at the expected national standard. Our aim at Ashcroft is for all children to become happy, confident and enthusiastic about their learning and our school. Central to this is ensuring that children feel safe, valued and included. We want children, regardless of background or ability, to excel, whatever their learning style may be. We have expertise in knowing how young children learn and using a skill-based curriculum to develop knowledge. We aim to foster transferable skills, which, over time, are committed to long-term memory through intelligent repetition; embedding a deeper understanding of the process or concept.

Promoting a positive attitude to future challenges is pivotal. Fostering a child’s innate curiosity and encouraging them to explore and learn through their natural interests and desires is of central importance to ensure our children develop resilience and responsibility for their learning. This self-motivation encourages children to be ambitious and enables them to tackle challenges using their problem-solving skills creatively and progressively.

Physical development, promotion of high quality early language skills and positive mental health/ well-being are key elements we aim to foster to ensure that we develop the whole child.

Finishing their reception year at Ashcroft, we hope that children will be engaged and motivated, demonstrating high levels of enthusiasm and involvement; resulting in a fully embedded understanding of all aspects of the EYFS curriculum. We strongly believe that learning should be the connection of varied skills and components of understanding, which, when successfully combined, achieve a child’s intended objective. Given the time, space and opportunity, we hope these skills will become intuitive for our children, providing them with the abilities and motivations for life long learning.