Educational Programme

Understanding the world involves guiding children to make sense of their physical world and their community. The frequency and range of children’s personal experiences increases their knowledge and sense of the world around them – from visiting parks, libraries and museums to meeting important members of society such as police officers, nurses and firefighters. In addition, listening to a broad selection of stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems will foster their understanding of our culturally, socially, technologically and ecologically diverse world.

As well as building important knowledge, this extends their familiarity with words that support understanding across domains. Enriching and widening children’s vocabulary will support later reading comprehension.

Developmental Milestones

Children in reception will be learning to:

• Talk about members of their immediate family and community.
• Name and describe people who are familiar to them.
• Comment on images of familiar situations in the past.
• Compare and contrast characters from stories, including figures from the past.
• Draw information from a simple map.
• Understand that some places are special to members of their community.
• Recognise that people have different beliefs and celebrate special times in different ways.
• Recognise some similarities and differences between life in this country and life in other countries.
• Explore the natural world around them.
• Describe what they see, hear and feel whilst outside.
• Recognise some environments that are different from the one in which they live.
• Understand the effect of changing seasons on the natural world around them.