Teaching and Learning 2026

AKS Nursery and Preparatory School Teaching and Learning

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Contents Page

Page

AKS Headlines

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Internet Safety

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Teaching and Learning

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Kagan Method

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Marking

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Nursery and Early Years Curiosity Approach

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Prep Rules

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Hanen- Teacher Talk

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Rosenshine Principles

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ShREC Approach

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Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction

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Round Square Ideals and Discoveries

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Prep School AKS Learner Profile

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Safeguarding

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Appreciation of Diversity

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Support

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Blooms Taxonomy - Higher Order Thinking Skills

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Support

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Fundamental British Values

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The Beehive

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GL Assessments

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Transferable Skills

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Growth Mindset

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Wheel of Wellbeing

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Introduction The headlines of AKS are Achieve your Ambition, Pursue Your Passion and Change Your World. These are referenced in all we do; from school policies, teaching and learning in the classroom to assemblies, Open Day speeches and parental tours.

The intention of the school is incorporated into the AKS Learner Profile. Our goal is for the children to be knowledgeable problem solvers who are tenacious, courageous and compassionate individuals, who also work well in a team. The Student Council, Round Square Committees and Year 6 Ambassadors initiate projects throughout the year to ensure that the Student Voice for all children is always strong.

Teaching and Learning The EYFS department follows the EYFS curriculum, incorporating Specific and Prime areas. The Curiosity Approach allows young children to extend their learning in their own way, increasing a child’s confidence, critical thinking and problem-solving skills. There is a balance of indoor and outdoor, adult led, and child led activities arranged over the week. Curriculum checkpoints are used to track the children’s progress on the iConnect online system.

In Prep, the National Curriculum is followed, extended by the United Learning subject curriculum. As the children get older, Computing, Art, Design Technology, Drama, Music, Spanish, German, French and Sport are taught by specialist teachers. Reading books, spellings and phonics work are sent home daily, extending to a weekly Homework Sheet from Year 2 upwards.

In the Autumn and Summer Terms, GL Assessment tests are used from Years 1 to 6 to track progress in English and Maths, and Science is assessed from Years 4 to 6. In the Spring Term, in-house assessments are used to track progress. The online Insight programme is used for teacher assessment.

Under the guidance of the SENDCos and Assistant Head for Assessment, any child who needs additional support, whether that be a child who needs help in their academic subjects or a child who is exceeding the expectations of their year group, has access to support in the classroom or in small groups in the Beehive classrooms (intervention rooms). Children of all ability levels are tracked.

Reports are issued twice a year in the Nursery at the end of the Autumn Term and Summer Term, and Prep issues reports at the end of each term.

Yearly, medium, and weekly planning is constructed after analysing pupil data. Yearly and medium- term planning is sent to Nursery parents; and yearly, medium, and weekly planning is sent to Reception and Prep parents.

To quality assure teaching and learning practices, the Head of Nursery and Prep carries out daily learning walks.

The EYFS Co-ordinator carries out observations in the Nursery and Reception classes. In Prep, observations are carried out by the Assistant Heads focusing on methodology such as Rosenshine Principles, Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) based on Bloom’s Taxonomy, Growth Mindset attitudes and consistent marking. Please see details of our methodology here.

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Nursery and the Early Years

Curiosity Approach Our play-based learning is built on 'The Curiosity Approach'. This enables the chidlren's imagination to flourish and their engagement in activities to bloom. We will be developing the children's learning on the EYFS framework which builds on their interests, creating fascinating activities and talking points for the children throughout the day. Our learning environment has been developed with natural materials and neutral surroundings adding to the calm and welcoming learning areas inside the classroom, and exciting natural areas outside for the children to explore in our extensive outdoor playground.

The Curiosity Approach uses open ended resources for the children's development and allows them to explore the world at their own pace rather than setting out toys and activities that only have one function or outcome.​ The Curiosity Approach develops:​ •Independent thinking​ •Stronger non-verbal communication​ •Language and verbal communication​ •Problem-solving​ •Lifelong learners​ “Research suggests that curiosity can be linked to a wide range of important adaptive behaviours, including tolerance of anxiety and uncertainty, positive emotions, humour, playfulness, out-of-the-box thinking, and a noncritical attitude -- all attributes associated with healthy social outcomes”.

Hanen – Teacher Talk The Hanen Approach promotes excellence in Communication and Language Development with young children. The Approach ensures that staff model clear speech by getting down on a child’s level to encourage them to repeat the words back to them and start to form a sentence.

This creates the building blocks of a conversation and teaches a child to listen carefully.

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ShREC Approach On a similar trajectory, the SHREC Approach encourages staff and the child to respond to each other in order to create a dialogue and model extended vocabulary.

Young children’s Communication and Language skills are practised by listening to sounds in the environment inside the classroom and outside. These enhanced listening skills form the basis of phonics development and subsequently reading development.

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Prep School AKS Learner Profile Using the Round Square Development Framework and the International Baccalaureate curriculum as starting points, AKS’ Learner Profile was developed. We encourage children to be critical thinkers, to be knowledgeable, able to listen to others and put across their viewpoint with clarity, creativity and confidence. We believe they can be resilient, tenacious learners; character traits which prepare them to become global citizens.

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Appreciation of Diversity William’s poster succinctly links the AKS Learner Profile, the Round Square Discoveries and the Fundamental British Values (FBVs) to the Prep Rules.

Opportunities to promote an appreciation of diversity, equity, a sense of belonging and inclusion (DEBI) are promoted through subjects such as English, Art, Humanities, RE and PSHE, and the Round Square Discovery Framework.

The Beehive Under the guidance of the SENDCos and Assistant Head for Assessment, any child who needs additional support, whether that be a child who needs help in their academic subjects or a child who is exceeding the expectations of their year group, has access to support in the classroom or in small groups in the Beehive classrooms (intervention rooms). Children of all ability levels are tracked.

Bloom's TaxonomyHigher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) based Bloom’s Taxonomy are promoted in each classroom to engage the children to think more deeply. Reminders can be seen as speech bubbles in the classrooms.

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GL Assessments In the Autumn and Summer Terms, GL Assessment tests are used from Years 1 to 6 to track progress in English and Maths, and Science is assessed from Years 4 to 6. In the Spring Term, in-house assessments are used to track progress. The online Insight programme is used for teacher assessment.

Under the guidance of the SENDCos and Assistant Head for Assessment, any child who needs additional support, whether that be a child who needs help in their academic subjects or a child who is exceeding the expectations of their year group, has access to support in the classroom or in small groups in the Beehive classrooms (intervention rooms). Children of all ability levels are tracked.

Reports are issued twice a year in the Nursery at the end of the Autumn Term and Summer Term, and Prep issues reports at the end of each term.

Yearly, medium, and weekly planning is constructed after analysing pupil data. Yearly and medium-term planning is sent to Nursery parents; and yearly, medium, and weekly planning is sent to Reception and Prep parents.

To quality assure teaching and learning practices, the Head of Nursery and Prep carries out daily learning walks. The EYFS Co-ordinator carries out observations in the Nursery and Reception classes. In Prep, observations are carried out by the Assistant Heads focusing on methodology such as Rosenshine Principles, Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) based on Bloom’s Taxonomy, Growth Mindset attitudes and consistent marking. Please see details of our methodology here.

Growth Mindset Staff encourage children to have an open, positive mindset and understand that mistakes are an important part of learning. This takes practice, for example learning sometimes how to lose on the Sports fields. When a growth mindset stance is encouraged, children can support each other in their learning, challenge themselves and develop resilience and tenacity.

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Internet Safety

Kagan Method

The Computing and PSHE curriculum teach the children to be safe online, how to keep their passwords to themselves, and what to do if someone is hurtful to them online/ they see something that is not appropriate for their age group.

The Kagan method encourages co-operative learning using shoulder and face-to-face partners. ‘Mix-pair-share,’ ‘timed pairshare’ and many other strategies are used to promote collaborative learning,

Marking Linked to our Growth Mindset strategies, marking is used to encourage a child to improve their work. Colour codes are used so that marking is consistent throughout the Prep School. It is completed whenever possible within the lesson time.

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Prep Rules The AKS Rules were set up by the PSHE and Wellbeing Co-ordinator in collaboration with the staff and children. Children are reminded of the Rules in Monday assemblies. House points are awarded for good behaviour, good work, kindness and helping others.

The ‘Good to be Green’ system is used daily; all the children start on green; an amber warning can be given (miss part of a playtime or lunchtime), and then a red warning can be given where parents are alerted, and the Head of Nursery and Prep School becomes involved. Behaviour incidences are noted on the CPOMS system, and the appropriate sanction due to a misdemeanour is imposed as per the Behaviour Policy.

Rosenshine Principles The Rosenshine Principles are a step-by-step guide through the teaching and learning practices we use. They are used in all United Learning Schools.

We explore new learning in manageable chunks. We model strategies and approaches for the children and scaffold difficult tasks for them at the beginning stages of new challenges. We check for understanding regularly before moving the learning on. These small but important steps provide firm foundations for the children to build upon.

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Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction Daily Review

Daily review is an important component of instruction. It helps strengthen the connections of the material learned. Automatic recall frees working memory for problem solving and creativity.

Ask Questions

New Material in Small Steps

Our working memory is small, only handling a few bits of information at once. Avoid its overload— present new material in small steps and proceed only when first steps are mastered.

Provide Models

+ The most successful teachers spend more than half the class time lecturing, demonstrating and asking questions. Questions allow the teacher to determine how well the material is learned.

Guide Student Practice

Students need additional time to rephrase, elaborate and summarise new material in order to store it in their long-term memory. More successful teachers build in more time for this.

Obtain High Success Rate

A success rate of around 80% has been found to be optimal, showing students are learning and also being challenged. Better teachers taught in small steps followed by practice.

Independent Practice

Independent practice produces ‘overlearning’ - a necessary process for new material to be recalled automatically. This ensures no overloading of students’ working memory.

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Students need cognitive support to help them learn how to solve problems. Modelling, worked examples and teacher thinking out loud, help to clarify the specific steps involved.

Check Student Understanding

Less successful teachers merely ask “Are there any questions?” no questions are taken to mean no problems. False. By contrast, more successful teachers check on all students.

Scaffolds for Difficult Tasks

Scaffolds are temporary supports to assist learning. They can include modelling, teacher thinking aloud, cue cards and checklists.

Scaffolds are part of cognitive apprenticeship.

Weekly and Monthly Review

The effort involved in recalling recently –learned material embeds it in long-term memory. And the more this happens, the easier it is to connect new material to such prior knowledge.

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Round Square IDEALS and Discoveries Round Square is an international organisation of around 280 schools worldwide.

The group is based on Kurt Hahn’s philosophy of character education; we belong to the group as we believe in character education and wish for each child to be a model global citizen.

The Round Square Development Framework (or RSDF) philosophy is based on six IDEALS namely, Internationalism, Democracy, Environmentalism, Adventure, Leadership and Service. The Year 6 pupils head up the IDEALS committees, each are assisted by a Support Teacher.

There are 12 Discoveries which underpin the IDEALS namely, courage, an appreciation of diversity, a sense of responsibility, an ability to solve problems, communication and teamwork skills, inquisitiveness, self-awareness, tenacity, inventiveness, compassion and a commitment to sustainability.

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Safeguarding From the Early Years and into the Prep and Senior School, a child needs to feel happy and safe at home and school. If this optimal goal is achieved, any barriers from learning are removed and their development can flourish.

CPOMS is used to record concerns regarding a child’s wellbeing, particularly regarding safeguarding and behaviour. Phil Hayden, Senior School Deputy Head Pastoral, is the Lead DSL for the whole school.

Prep School

Deputy DSL - Matron

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Support The PSHE and Wellbeing Co-ordinator liaised with staff, children and parents regarding our Relationship Education curriculum. We then published the PSHE Ground Rules, a poster appropriate for the younger children, and a poster for older children referencing the telephone number for Childline.

PSHE ground rules to create a safe teaching and learning environment at AKS Ground rules We use a set of ground rules written by our pupils and guided by staff which are displayed in classrooms. Our lessons reinforce these sensitively taught rules. We are aware that sharing some issues can affect children in different ways. When working on emotive issues, we use facts rather than emotive language and use different names to the names of the children. We deal with any disclosures after the lesson and sensitively.

Openness We will be open and honest but will not discuss directly our own or others’ personal lives. Instead, we will discuss general situations as examples but will not use names or other identifying factors.

Keep the conversation in the room We will keep the conversation in the room so that information cannot be passed around unless our teacher needs to tell another teacher for safeguarding reasons (to keep us safe).

Non-judgemental It is okay for us to disagree with another person’s point of view, but we will not judge anyone, make fun of anyone else, or put anyone down. ‘Challenge the opinion not the person’. We will not make assumptions about people’s values, attitudes, behaviours, life experiences or feelings.

Right to pass Taking part is important but we have the right to say ‘pass’.

Listen to others and ask questions We will listen to the other person’s point of view and expect to be listened to. We know it is important to ask questions.

Use of language We will use the correct terms, be polite, and think before we speak.

Seeking help and advice We will use our signpost poster to remind us of how, who and where to go for help and advice. Our teacher will support this by reminding us during the lesson.

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Support

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Transferable Skills Linked to the AKS Learner Profile, Round Square Discoveries and the Kagan method, the Assistant Head for Teaching and Learning constructed a tracking system for the transferable skills that we promote in school. These skills, attitudes and traits include being open-minded, articulating their ideas and showing initiative, so the children become successful learners in a global society.

Wheel of Wellbeing The PSHE and Wellbeing Co-ordinator organises the PSHE curriculum and holds drop-in sessions for the children who need it. The Wellbeing Ambassadors deliver a message of wellbeing at Monday’s assembly.

Pastoral care is a whole school focus, supported by the Nursery Manager, PSHE Co-ordinators, the Senior School Deputy Head Pastoral and a visiting psychotherapist.

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Please refer to Nursery, Prep and Whole School Policies in the Staffroom/ on the website.

If you would like to discuss any points in this Handbook, please speak to one of the members of the Nursery and Prep Leadership Team (NPLT).

Amanda Ilhan, Head of Nursery and Prep School and Debbie Smith, Teaching and Learning Assistant Head, March 2026.

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