Our Subjects

Intent

In Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), our curriculum is designed to build upon our children’s culture capital and prior learning at every stage.  We provide our children with a safe, rich and stimulating environment both within and outside the classroom. Every child’s very first experience of school life should be happy, positive and ignite a love of learning for both children and their parents. Developing relationships with parents is focused upon at every opportunity to develop the value of education within the home. Every child is a valuable individual and regardless of ability will make a year or more worth of progress in a year. Teaching and learning in EYFS is carefully planned to develop children’s communication and language skills at every opportunity to ensure they are able to succeed in every area of the curriculum.

Implementation

Throughout EYFS we follow the Statutory Framework for Early Years, DfE, updated March 2021. This framework specifies the requirement for the seven areas of learning and development which shape our educational programmes. We have from this developed a curriculum for Nursery and Reception, building in depth and progression across key areas of learning within EYFS and ready for KS1. Our thematic curriculum has experiences and ‘hooks’ embedded within to provide our children with real life experiences to talk about and spark learning conversations.  Within teaching and learning we follow our school approach of teaching through carefully using the following teaching approaches:-

• direct instruction
• guided practise
• partner teaching
• independent learning

Our continuous provision both indoors and outdoors is available daily to provide the children opportunities to learn through play or embed skills independently. Teachers use the characteristics of effective learning and the needs of the cohort to design an engaging, accessible, yet challenging provision. As children access our continuous provision adults roles are identified to deliver adult focused activities, support and develop play or observe.  Observations are collected in our paper learning journeys to create a picture of each child. These observations and teachers professional knowledge are used to complete summative assessments termly using Development Matters, DfE, 2021. Moderation within each school and across the MAT takes place half termly. Teachers use their daily formative assessments to continuously reflect on children’s learning and needs to inform their short term planning. We regularly share these assessments with parents. Nursery and Reception teachers have worked together to develop a set of learning goals for Nursery. The Early Learning Goals for EYFS and our own Nursery Learning Goals are not the curriculum for EYFS but an assessment process to support children in transitioning to the next stage. At the end of the Summer term both Nursery and Reception will report on whether the child has achieved the learning goals for their year group.

Nursery

Reception

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