Welcome to Lower School
On behalf of all of the Lower School Team, welcome to The Lower School at King’s Oak Academy!
In the Lower School, we create a happy and inclusive learning environment where we nurture pupils so that they can grow as learners and flourish as individuals; they are given an exceptional opportunity for personal growth in preparation for the next stage of their education and future lives.
We pride ourselves on putting the well-being and education of our pupils first and foremost. We firmly believe that education is a partnership between home and school and regard you as an active partner in your child’s education and value your interest and support.
In the Lower School, we believe that children should be curious about their learning. They learn the importance of positive learning dispositions such as resilience, kindness, independence, collaboration, responsibility and citizenship. Through our engaging, carefully sequenced and joy-filled curriculum, we ensure that children can foster a passion for learning that will help to develop high aspirations, seek connections and build meaning.
The Lower School curriculum is designed to allow children to build a strong foundation of knowledge and expertise. They will develop a strong sense of self and place in the world so that they have self-agency now and in the future. The curriculum promotes a pleasure of learning, inspiring children to develop substantive and disciplinary knowledge that supports them to begin their academy journey as successful learners and individuals.
Our Spaces
You can usually find us on the Lower School site of KOA: we are based here for most of our lessons, with our class teachers. We also spend our playtimes and lunchtimes here.
The Lower School is an open plan setting. Our Reception and Year 1 classrooms are fully open plan, offering pupils in this phase increased levels of flexibility, sharing of resources and cross-learning between teachers and between pupils. As our pupils grow, they continue to collaborate very closely with their year group peers however begin learning in more individualised spaces and classrooms allowing them to achieve higher levels of independence, focussed practice and preparing our pupils for their transition to the Middle School. All of our pupils however have an opportunity to use our open spaces for collaborative group work.
Forest School
We are lucky to have a Forest School area available to us on the Lower School site; it is an exciting enrichment opportunity that is integral to the curriculum we offer. Each class is able to access our Forest School provision for at least one term a year to develop their independence, imagination, gross motor skills, oracy skills and specific Forest School skills, such as using hand tools, tying knots, making shelters and woodland craft! These skills have to be taught with a specific focus on safety to ensure that children develop safe independent practice and all sessions are led by our Forest School provider and our teaching team. The opportunities are linked to the themed enquiries within their year group and personalised to meet the interests and development of the cohorts.
