At Ankermoor Primary Academy pupils begin their life-long learning journey in a happy, safe and secure learning environment where they can flourish and achieve their true potential.  Learning in Early Years, adopts a highly successful play-based approach within the classroom and in our outdoor learning spaces. Through play, children are encouraged to explore, negotiate, take risks and develop their language skills and relationships with others- skills which are essential to their development.

The core curriculum is coherently planned and sequenced through topics. We use Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised for phonics and WhiteRose for maths, therefore children build on what they know and what they can do. The school’s approach to teaching early reading and synthetic phonics is systematic and ensures that all children learn to read words and simple sentences by the end of Reception. By following Little Wandle, we will ensure that our children secure a knowledge of phonics which gives them the foundations for future learning, especially in preparation for them to become confident and fluent readers. Reading practice sessions take place 3x a week and focus on decoding, prosody and comprehension in order to crack the code. 

Our focus is to ensure children acquire a wide and rich vocabulary, therefore we follow Drawing Club for Literacy. This encompasses the three 'M's': Mark Making, Imagination and Number. This is a really enjoyable part of the day, where the children and adults come together to share thinking, ideas and new language. 

We have a lovely big outdoor space, where we have a trim-trail for developing gross-motor skills, a water area for exploring and enquiry and a construction area where children can build and create.