At Hylton Castle we treat every child as a unique individual.  Above all, we want our children to feel happy, secure and safe. It is our mission to provide our children with an enabling environment which promotes the learning and development of every child. We believe that play underpins the delivery of the EYFS and that children learn best through practical, hands-on experiences and interactions with their environment. Play allows children to thrive by experiencing an enriched learning environment which provides children with opportunities to consolidate and extend skills and concepts learnt. We do this by placing a strong emphasis on the Prime Areas of learning which include, Personal, Social and Emotional Development, Communication and Language and Physical Development. These are all fundamental areas which allow children to start their learning journey.

Through building positive relationships, we aim to develop and foster the characteristics of effective learning in every child. Children are encouraged to always be well-regulated and sociable through the modelling of positive interactions and language. Our learning environments, alongside interactions with our skilled practitioners, are carefully planned and resourced to allow children the opportunities to: -

• Develop their communication and language skills
• Expand their confidence, independence and resilience
• Learn through active play and exploration
• Extend the skills/abilities by testing them out in a range of situations
• Explore, develop and represent learning experiences that help them make sense of the world
• To take turns and share
• Enjoy learning and have fun
• Build positive relationships with adults and peers
• Seek challenge and learn from mistakes
• Investigate and solve problems
• Develop their gross and fine motor skills
• Gain the basic skills, knowledge and understanding required to become confident school ready learners

Our practitioners are a valuable resource in the environment, they are highly skilled, flexible, adaptable and spontaneous. They listen to children’s ideas and interests and are able to join and build on children’s play, which will extend their learning further. They support and encourage children to take risks and explore, helping them to make sense of the world around them. They provide meaningful conversations between adults and peers, extending children's understanding and use of new vocabulary. They observe and reflect on children’s play/learning and monitor their development in all areas of the curriculum to inform future planning.

Staff work tirelessly to create enabling environments that foster personal, social and emotional development whilst also promoting a love of learning through our engaging topic-based curriculum. Our strong focus on communication and language development allows children to access the EYFS curriculum and in turn make excellent progress towards reaching a good level of development at the end of reception.

We believe that all children are capable of achieving amazing things and we develop this through having high expectations of all the children in our setting. We also believe in working closely with parents to ensure that we can enable the best outcomes for our children. Parental engagement is very important at Hylton Castle and communication with parents is facilitated through; home visits, parent open-sessions, one-to-one conversation, online learning journals and regular communication about children’s development and progress. We aim to run sessions throughout the year to help parents and carers with supporting children at home. Having a strong relationship with parents and other agencies supports us in ensuring each individual reaches their full potential from their various starting points.

It is our aim that children will leave EYFS as confident, independent and reflective learners.