Early Years Foundation Stage

Intent

Our early years provision delivers the highest quality education whilst providing a firm foundation on which to build future academic, enterprise, social and emotional success. 
We recognise that every child is unique, and will join the school with differing levels of prior learning and social skills. We aim to create a purposeful and meaningful curriculum that maximises cross-curricular links and builds strong foundations for their future. We strive to promote a love for learning by following the children’s interests and engaging their inquisitive minds.

Implementation 

Our ambitious Early Year Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum aims to teach all children the skills and knowledge in order to reach the 17 Early Learning Goals described by the Early Years Foundation Stage 2021.

This framework specifies the requirement for learning and development in the early years and provides specific areas we must cover in our curriculum:

• Personal, Social and Emotional Development 
• Physical Development
• Communication and Language development
• Literacy
• Mathematics 
• Understanding the World
• Expressive Arts and Design.

Our EYFS curriculum has been designed to celebrate the diversity of our children, the natural environment around our school and the beautiful seasonal changes the children can observe first hand.

Our STEM curriculum is another essential part of the EYFS provision, and provides children a wide range of experiential learning opportunities that promote the development of skills and knowledge in science, maths, technology and engineering. We aim to capture children’s interests and desire to explore the world around them by encouraging them to problem solve, work collaboratively and develop general life skills. We take pupils on a range of educational visits, including in our local community, to build upon these experiential learning opportunities and to bring learning to life.

We endeavour to offer each child the following key experiences in Reception: 

• A visit to Wellington Country Park
• A cooking experience at our fire pit
• A trip to the pantomime
• To participate in a Christmas performance
• An opportunity to look under a car bonnet
• The opportunity to bake in our STEM room
• A trip to the local town library and to take out a book from the library
• Observe a caterpillar turning into a butterfly
• Observe an egg turning into a duckling
• A visit to a farm
• A camping experience
• A trip to the beach.

We recognise the importance of play to children’s development, building their confidence as they learn to explore. Children learn by leading their own play and by taking part in play which is guided by adults. Therefore, the school ensures there is an appropriate balance in the day of activities led by children and activities led or guided by adults, responding to each child’s emerging needs and interests.

The weekly timetable is carefully planned so that children have directed teaching in Literacy, Mathematics and Phonics. Some of these sessions are followed by group work where children work with a member of staff who can quickly respond to misconceptions and provide real-time verbal feedback which results in a strong impact on the acquisition of new learning. It is expected that over the year, the balance will gradually shift towards more adult-led activities to help children prepare for their transition into Year 1.

We recognise that children have a thirst for new experiences and knowledge, and should be provided with plenty of time to engage and explore in independent learning time. Therefore, we have implemented ‘in the moment planning’ that follows the children’s interests and provides them with meaningful continuous indoor and outdoor provision. The learning environment is set up to support the Characteristics of Effective Learning, ensuring that in-depth learning is taking place. These are: 

• Playing and Exploring: children investigate and experience things, and have a go. 
• Active Learning: children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties, and enjoy achievements.
• Creating and Thinking Critically: children develop their own ideas, make links between ideas and develop strategies for doing things. 

Phonics & Reading

We promote reading for pleasure right from Reception, with children following the Little Wandles Revised Letters and Sounds program, providing them a strong foundation of phonics skills that are required for early reading. The programme is continued throughout the school to ensure consistency and steady skill progression throughout key stage 1 (Year 1 and 2). Children also enjoy reading a variety of books through quality key texts for each topic, grouped reading sessions, independent reading with adults, and regular access to a book corner in each classroom. The children visit our school library weekly and visit the local library during Book Week.

We are an inclusive school and all children in Reception learn together; however, we have a range of additional interventions to scaffold or enhance children who may not yet be reaching their potential, or are exceeding expectations. This includes 1-1 and group interventions in Maths, Phonics, Speech & Language, and Physical Development to promote fine motor skills.

Evaluation

Teaching and learning is monitored continuously with teachers receiving coaching and feedback from our phase leaders and subject specialists within our multi-academy trust. Teachers and support staff receive current, relevant training so that they develop a good subject knowledge and are able to support pupils effectively.

We are also highly focused on frequently comparing ('moderating') outcomes across each year group(s), so that every member of staff feels confident in making accurate judgements about where individual pupils are, and their next steps for learning. In addition to this, our staff have regular contact and support from our SENCo, speech & language therapists and occupational therapists who help to build subject knowledge of working with children who may need any extra support.

We work hard to ensure that all our children make good progress in their Reception year. Key achievements are recorded on Tapestry, our online recording platform. Our dedicated staff take time to get to know each child as an individual by spending time with them and delivering and prompting quality learning throughout the day.

EYFS Curriculum and Topic Overview 2022-2023

Impact

We aim for all children to leave our Reception class:

• Happy, resilient, capable, confident and self-assured individuals;
• Strong, inquisitive and independent learners who thrive in all areas of learning and development;
• Capable of developing and sustaining positive relationships within their school community and beyond.

We also measure the impact of our curriculum by assessment procedures which allow us to measure outcomes against all schools nationally. We measure the percentage of pupils achieving a "Good level of development" by the end of the Reception year.

We endeavour for pupils to have a good understanding of our school motto, Kindness Matters, and all six of our school’s values: Respect, Resilience, Trust, Love, Forgiveness, Courage.

We’ve been learning about sounds and trigraphs and digraphs. We only learn them in Phonics and we also learn tricky words in Phonics.

Isabelle, aged 5