The Leaf

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Welcome everybody to The Leaf section of the website!

Class Teacher: Mrs Ottiwell

LSAs: Miss Vick, Mrs Pasco and Miss Monaghan.

If you have any questions, then please don’t hesitate to ask one of The Leaf team.

The Curriculum

At The Leaf, we recognise that every child is unique. All children have an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP), and our curriculum is based on the National Curriculum but carefully adapted to meet each child’s individual needs, abilities, interests and stage of development.
When children join The Leaf, they receive a full assessment. This helps us to understand their strengths, areas for development and individual learning needs. We use this information to plan a personalised programme of learning, with clear targets that are shared, supported and reinforced throughout the school day.
We closely monitor each child’s progress through observations, assessment and everyday learning. We celebrate achievements and recognise every step of progress, helping children to develop confidence, independence and a positive attitude towards learning.

What are we learning?

Our curriculum provides opportunities for children to develop their academic, social and emotional skills through a mixture of structured teaching, practical activities and learning through play.

English – Familiar Stories
Children develop their communication, listening, reading and writing skills through familiar and much-loved stories. They have opportunities to retell stories, sequence events, develop vocabulary, act out characters and create their own responses to stories.

Maths – Number
Children develop their understanding of number through practical and engaging activities. Our current learning includes place value, addition and subtraction and number bonds, with activities differentiated to meet each child’s individual stage of learning.

Science – Seasons
Children explore the four seasons and develop their understanding of seasonal changes. They observe changes in the weather, plants, animals and the world around them through practical activities and outdoor learning.

Cooking – Healthy Breakfasts
Through our cooking sessions, children are learning about the importance of eating a healthy breakfast, linked to Jamie Oliver’s Schools Programme. Cooking provides valuable opportunities to develop independence, communication, turn-taking and practical life skills, as well as encouraging children to try new foods.

PSHE – Zones of Regulation & Friendship
PSHE is an important part of life in The Leaf. Children are developing their understanding of emotions through the Zones of Regulation, learning to recognise how they feel and identify strategies that can help them to regulate. We also explore friendship, including sharing, turn-taking, kindness, communication and solving problems together.

Supporting Emotional Wellbeing
There is a strong focus on emotional regulation, positive relationships, communication and independence throughout everything we do. We provide children with a safe, nurturing environment where they can develop their confidence and feel successful.
Children also have opportunities to take part in a range of nurture activities, including:
- Cooking
- Outdoor learning
- Messy play
- Social and emotional learning
- Regulation activities
These experiences help children to develop important life skills, build confidence and learn how to manage their emotions in a supportive environment.

Preparing for Mainstream
For children who access The Leaf full time, transition to mainstream is carefully planned and individual to each child.
Children may initially join their mainstream peers for lunchtimes, playtimes and enrichment activities. As their confidence and skills develop, opportunities to access mainstream lessons and activities will gradually increase.
We build transitions around each child’s strengths, interests and readiness, ensuring that they experience success at every stage. Progress is carefully monitored and transitions take place at the child’s own pace, with the aim of helping every child become as independent and confident as possible.
At The Leaf, our aim is for every child to feel safe, valued and successful, while developing the skills they need to thrive both in school and beyond.

Reading at Home

Reading is brilliant and we want to encourage children to do it as much as possible. We are going to be reading books together as a class but we would also like the children to read regularly at home. They will have a reading folder to take home and a reading log to record any reading they do. The reading logs will be checked regularly. Prizes will be given out for those children that read the most.

Water bottles, snacks

Don’t forget to bring water bottles in each day - it is important for the children to stay hydrated throughout the day. Please put a label on bottles and refill them every day.

Parent Connect and SeeSaw

Please download our parent app 'Parent Connect' to stay up to date with school letters. Children's schoolwork will be uploaded to SeeSaw weekly so please make sure you are checking this. We would also love to see pictures of exciting news from home and learning tasks, please use Seesaw for this.