The Early Years Foundation Stage at Carleton Endowed CE Primary School
EYFS Curriculum Intent
At Carleton Endowed CE Primary, we believe that the Early Years of school life underpin and set the standard for all other learning to follow. The Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum delivery is designed to work alongside children to develop language and vocabulary skills focusing on child-adult interactions. We strive to provide motivating, first-hand learning experiences and support children to build resilience and become independent, creative and critical thinkers. We want our children to be confident in expressing their ideas, happy to make independent choices, and keen to explore the world around them.
Our ethos is to support children’s personal, social and emotional development so that they feel healthy, safe and secure. We strive to meet the needs of every child, build positive relationships and provide high expectations for all. We aim to build on the knowledge and skills that the children come in with by the teaching of basic skills, knowledge, concepts and values.
Community involvement is an essential part of our curriculum as we celebrate local traditions and learn new skills to enable children to take an active role in events throughout the year. We work in close partnership with parents and aim for children to leave Reception with a sense of belonging to a tightly knit community where they have the confidence to thrive in school and reach their full potential.
Every child is recognised as a unique individual and valued. We celebrate and welcome differences within our school community and encourage all children to flourish.
EYFS Curriculum Implementation
The Early Learning Goals
We use our Reception practitioners’ skills and expertise to create routines, build relationships, develop activities and resources in a rich learning environment which provide pupils with the opportunities and conditions to flourish in all aspects of their development. We provide balance across the areas of learning and look to identify each child’s specific needs, strengths and next steps, so that they can make excellent progress.
The ‘Prime Areas’
Personal, Social and Emotional Development, Physical Development and Communication and Language are at the heart of the Reception provision and are what our staff concern themselves with every moment of each day to ensure the environment and the relationships are right for each child to flourish as a unique individual.
Recognising the importance of the Prime Areas, the Reception Team also offer a number of interventions to support the children with their listening, attention, speaking and social development. The EYFS team are trained in delivering support groups such as ‘EYBIC’ and ‘Time for Sounds.’
The key aspects of effective learning set down in the statutory framework are also at the heart of the vision and values at Carleton Endowed CE Primary:
• Our pupils show love for each other and the world around them.
• They show courage and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties when learning.
• Pupils have high expectations of themselves.
• They enjoy their achievements and progress.
• They investigate and explore.
• They have their own ideas and are able to make links between their ideas to develop their thinking.
• Pupils are happy to ‘have a go’ and seek out new challenges with enthusiasm.
• They develop a deep interest in the activities they do, through practice and teacher support.
Literacy
Our pupils experience every opportunity to develop excellent literacy and communication skills through access to a wide range of written, audio and visual material to stimulate their early reading and listening skills and encourage recognition of key sounds, letters and spellings, making an early start on learning new technical vocabulary essential later on in school.
By discretely using the Revised Little Wandle phonics and reading scheme materials (including online resources for parents to access), we teach the children the reading skills that will get them on the road to independent reading with lasting impact. Opportunities for reading and writing for different purposes will be given during adult-initiated sessions, as well as being rooted in all areas of our classroom provision, encouraging independent application of new knowledge and skills.
Mathematics
Maths is fun, ‘real’, engaging and accessible so as to build a lifelong love of the subject and make sustained and rapid progress.
The challenge of maths in Reception is that first grasp of number and patterns and we use Numicon, amongst a wide range of other teaching resources, such as resources from White Rose to support each child’s exploration in a fun, colourful and enquiry-based way. Numicon allows children to enjoy hands-on, practical mathematics, to ask and answer questions and to problem-solve.
Understanding the World & Expressive Art and Design
These two areas of learning are all about children making sense of the world and making connections, to solve problems, make choices and to communicate their ideas and feelings. To support children’s creative and scientific development, certain skills are taught and opportunities given to develop their ideas, explore and experiment.
The specific areas support the foundations for future work in science, design and technology, expressive arts, history, geography and computing. Practical activities are planned which enable children to learn new skills and to explore, observe and talk about their experiences.
Children are involved in exploring colour, texture and shape; experimenting with paint, drawing materials, collage and clay; exploring and creating the different sounds of musical instruments; using their senses to investigate objects and materials such as sand, water and fabrics; finding out about and identifying features of living things both indoors and out; talking about how things work, for example how and why programmable robots move, and basic keyboard, trackpad and mouse skills; developing understanding of their own cultures and those of other people; and using different construction kits to build objects they have designed themselves.
Through these areas of learning, we provide learning with no limits or barriers, that excite and engage children and develop their experiences of the world around them. All learning builds on the knowledge, understanding and skills of all children, whatever their starting points. Learning is enhanced with educational visits and visitors in order to provide children with first-hand experiences.
Our provision offers the necessary balance of ‘teacher-led’ input and ‘pupil-initiated’ learning and teach children individually, in small groups and as a whole class. We create a supportive, stimulating context in the school indoor and outdoor learning areas for children to play and engage in enquiry, discovery and reflection. These learning opportunities are planned to provide a broad and balanced curriculum that meets the needs of all children, and provides them with the knowledge and skills for their next stage of learning.
A vital aspect in the development of essential knowledge and skills is the use of continuous provision. Our learning environment, both indoors and out enriches and enhances the curriculum on offer. This means that children are using and developing skills throughout the year on a daily/weekly basis. These skills include independence, innovation, creativity, enquiry and problem solving. Children have opportunities to work independently, collaboratively with their friends and work with staff members.
We recognise the importance of high-quality interactions between adults and children in the classroom through quality conversation, language/vocabulary modelling, questioning and clarification. This impacts greatly on the progress of all children.
Careful assessment is undertaken through observations which some are recorded into an online Learning Journey via Tapestry. Children, parents/carers and staff input into these over the year and they are shared with parents/carers.
Parents and carers are valued as first educators and every effort is made to inform them of the EYFS curriculum whilst providing them with the tools to continue learning at home. Strategies to include and inform parents/carers include pre-school visits, induction meeting, phonics workshop, parent consultation sessions, reading record books, Curriculum Plans, Curriculum Bulletins, Celebration Worship, weekly Newsletter, and Tapestry.
EYFS Curriculum Impact
We endeavor to ensure that all children achieve their maximum potential regarding their attainment in the EYFS and make good progress from their starting points. The impact of our curriculum is measured by assessment against all seventeen ‘Early Learning Goals’ where children meet the ‘Emerging’ or ‘Expected’ level for each goal.
The impact of our curriculum will also be measured by how effectively it helps our children develop into well rounded individuals who have the knowledge, skills and attitudes which will make them lifelong learners and valuable future citizens. We endeavor for children to be Year One ready and begin to have our school’s core values of Love, Joy, Courage and Hope rooted by the time they leave Reception.