Class 1

Intent

In our Early Years Foundation Stage our personalised curriculum provides all children with the knowledge, skills and understanding they need to be confident, inquisitive, independent learners and influence their wider thinking across all areas of the curriculum.

We believe that providing an education that does all of this fosters well rounded, happy child with the life skills they need to succeed.

We will make a positive difference to every child’s life. We recognise the importance of giving our children the best possible start to their education by planning and implementing teaching and learning opportunities that supports them in reaching their full potential.

Our intent is to give children time to develop their thinking and learning through their own interests in an enabling environment supported by skilled staff. This means that the children are highly motivated to learn. They are supported to develop key aspects such as reasoning, evaluation, creativity, enquiry, problem solving and information processing. This will help both now in their own explorations and application of knowledge but also throughout their education.  Our intent is that our teaching enables us to meet the children’s individual needs and interests at any point in time.

Implementation

We aim to provide motivating first-hand experiences whilst encouraging children to build resilience, ambition and a lifelong love of learning.

The curriculum for the EYFS is constructed around the needs of the children. It is ambitious and matches the statutory framework for the EYFS. This means children leave the EYFS with a solid foundation of learning of which to build upon in the later years at school.

We follow the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) guidance and support children’s development under the seven areas of learning. These are:

• Personal, Social and Emotional Development – fostering children’s confidence, independence and social skills with peers and adults.
• Communication and Language – developing children’s oral language skills, broadening their vocabulary and understanding of the English language.
• Physical Development – providing opportunities in physical education lessons as well as through daily provision for children to develop their gross and fine motor skills, in preparation for developing their reading, numeracy and writing skills.
• Literacy – using a variety of strategies including Bug Club Phonics, Drawing Club, story times, to support early reading and writing.
• Mathematics – we follow White Rose maths together with songs and games to develop early numeracy skills including counting, subitising, number bonds and facts, addition, subtraction, sharing, creating patterns, measuring and manipulating numbers and shapes.
• Expressive Arts and Design – giving children opportunities and encouragement to share their thoughts, ideas & feelings though art, music, dance and role-play.
• Understanding the World – exploring the natural world, science and our communities in age-appropriate ways such as visits to church, gardening, growing vegetables and caring for our class guinea pigs.

We have a workshop style environment indoors and outside. The children select what they want to do in each area. The principle is that resources are accessible to the children and they are varied, open-ended and high quality. This gives children the opportunity to select resources to support their chosen activity. The adults are there to facilitate learning. They do this through observations and interactions. We set high expectations for all children. Our adults know the children very well and have a sound understanding of child development. This ensures that the adults enhance and extend the learning at the appropriate level.

Building on what the children already know and understand enables them to develop and make progress. Play allows the children to explore, investigate and re-enact in an environment where they are free from fear and judgement. It’s through play children become socially adept while developing mastery in numeracy and literacy.  It helps fine and gross motor skills development and helps develop core stability which in turn helps children to learn how to write and supports creative growth.

The Enabling Environment allows children to learn successfully in the EYFS, the following are all important resources to support this learning:

• Warm friendly and caring environment
• Indoor and outdoor environments and opportunities
• Open-ended resources are utilised to help children to plan and build on their own learning
• Our countryside grounds allow children to experience real life natural experiences
• Quality resources which children can access independently
• Out of school visits and visitors to school to enhance learning experiences

• We recognise the importance of providing our children with a stimulating learning environment. This is enabled by good quality provision and clearly organised open-ended resources, both outside and in.  Whether they are using the large outdoor construction equipment to make a pirate ship or making potions in the mud kitchen your child will be developing problem solving skills, self-awareness and all the while becoming happy, confident individuals who will go on to make a positive and valuable contribution to society.
• In order to provide the best education for our youngest children the teaching staff use ‘In the Moment Planning’ - recognising the importance of teachable moments. Staff observe and wait for the teachable moment with responses positively enhancing the play and developing the learning. Next steps are identified and modelled in the moment, to keep learning real and relevant to the child at that moment in time. This enables the learning to be specifically tailored to the child’s needs then and there, thus challenging and/or supporting the child to take the next step, either learning a new skill or knowledge, applying this further or embedding it to enable this to become part of the children’s working memory for them to use independently at a later date. 
• Children in EYFS learn by playing and exploring, being active and thinking critically and creatively and this takes place both indoors and in our outdoor areas. Our outdoor area is open all year round and in all but the most challenging weather conditions. Children make their own decisions about where they learn best and teachers ensure that there are opportunities for all areas of learning both inside and outside. With good organisation and practitioners who really understand the way that young children learn, we have the capacity to provide the very best learning experience possible for our youngest children.
• We provide effective and focused interventions for those children who are finding learning challenging and are not on track to meet expectations at the end of the year. This will be provided in an inclusive way. Support from parents is enlisted at an early stage to ensure that the children have every chance to achieve the Early Learning Goals, providing them with the strong foundation they need for the rest of their school journey.
• The EYFS team collect evidence of children’s learning through observations which are shared with parents using the Famiy online system.
• We work tirelessly to ensure that children are in a kind, caring and happy environment which helps them develop the same skills in their journey through school. It is a positive place to be where resilience, perseverance and successes are celebrated and every child feels valued and respected.

Impact

We measure progress and children’s learning across the year through formative and summative assessments. Children achieve well in the Early Years and by the end of Reception are ready for their transition to Year 1. Children with lower starting points make good progress and begin to close the gaps. Most children achieve in the early learning goals effectively across all areas.

The impact of the EYFS curriculum is reflected in our children being well-rounded, happy and confident when transitioning into Year 1. Children in our EYFS have positive attitudes to learning and are willing to try and learn new knowledge. Their skills of curiosity, concentration and enjoyment of learning develop well over the time they are within the early years.