Primary (Year 1 - 6) 

Primary aged children require a happy and nurturing environment, where they feel emotionally and physically safe within predictable routines and firm boundaries. The structure surrounding our younger learners, combined with small class sizes and excellent teaching, enables them to relax and achieve in their learning, often for the first time in their school lives.

In primary the school mainly uses a thematic approach based on learners’ interests, and the requirements of the national curriculum. Themes rotate in a three-year cycle. Science and maths are taught as discrete subjects. For maths, teachers use the White Rose scheme making suitable adaptations based on learners’ starting points. Phonics is taught daily using Read, Write Inc. 

The curriculum for our primary learners is broad and exciting. The high staff ratios allow for specific interventions to be carried out on a regular basis in order to further support early literacy (phonics), spelling and numeracy.

Nurture Group

Our purpose built Nurture building provides our learners with a safe, contained space in which to focus on developing relationships with peers and familiar staff in order to feel ready to engage with learning again. Some of our learners have been successful in returning to mainstream provision after attending our Nurture provision.

Wilds Lodge Nurture Group aims to support our younger learners with their social and emotional development. Evidence suggests that in order for children to access formal education they need to have good self-esteem, self-confidence and a sense of belonging and self­-worth. Missed opportunities to nurture children in their early years can sometimes mean that children build up barriers to learning and can find it difficult to access formal education. Our Nurture Group supports the children’s individual needs, understands the importance of attachment, and offers the children a safe base in order for them to progress socially and emotionally.

The Nurture building offers a fun, positive, child­-friendly environment that enables children to learn through play, and revisit earlier stages of development and learning, in order to prepare them for a more formal education in the future. The Nurture building is situated at our main Wilds site, but is separate to the rest of the school. There is a dedicated space for sensory circuits and there is a dedicated play area in the enclosed field nearby.  

Key Stage 2

We continue our Nurture Principles throughout our primary provision and the KS2 building allows for more integration with the wider school community. Learners in our KS2 building are supported to build relationships with a wider range of staff which can aid their transition into KS3. 

Learning continues to be in themes and allows for collaborative learning opportunities. Learners are also supported to initiate their own learning opportunities through their own interests by highly skilled staff. Lots of learning opportunities take place outside the classroom and in the community in the form of Forest Schools, swimming lessons offsite and many enrichment based activities offsite. Learners are encouraged to challenge themselves with new opportunities and build on prior successes supported by our nurturing staff. This helps to prepare them for the next stage of their education by aiming to build their confidence and resilience.

The Key Stage 2 building has 3 classrooms and a separate intervention classroom. The learners benefit from a separate play space and also have access to the playing field which is a shared space with the older learners. 

What do parents and carers think of our Nurture Group and Key Stage 2?