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The Foundation Stage begins when children reach the age of three and it continues into a child’s first year of school, also known as the Reception Year. Children learning in Nursery and Reception classes are known as Early Years children and follow the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Framework.
In Early Years, we foster the child’s own interests, needs and stages of development and offer activities which extend, enrich and develop potential both inside and outside the classroom. We believe EYFS is a very important stage in a child’s life as it helps prepare for school ‘readiness’ as well as preparing them for their future learning and successes. Children’s early years’ experience should be happy, active, exciting, fun and secure; and support their development, care and learning needs.
Early Years at Davyhulme Primary School provides a secure, happy and caring environment in which children learn through purposeful and carefully planned play. Every child deserves the best possible start in life and the support that that enables them to fulfil their potential. If you visited our Nursery or Reception class, you would see children working and playing independently, with an emphasis on making choices and sustaining concentration. There would be a range of activities taking place such as role-play, small world play, construction, painting, cutting and sticking and reading in the book corner, both indoors and out.
Children develop quickly in the early years and a child’s experiences before the age of five will have a major impact on their future life chances.
Play is at the forefront of our Early Years curriculum. Through play, children will be encouraged to learn new skills and practise skills they have already acquired.
Play is important for children's all-around physical, emotional, intellectual, and social development. Purposefully planned, playful activities and first-hand experiences are the keys to learning, laying the foundations for the Early Years Curriculum. There are a mixture and an appropriate balance of adult-led and child-initiated activities, depending on the children’s age and stage of development.
Each day, we provide opportunities for children to share their experiences and have lots of fun whilst learning. Our children are happy, ambitious, and excited to learn. Following our Growth Mindset pedagogy, children are secure, knowing that we celebrate their successes and value their achievements.
Our EYFS curriculum is centred on children’s interests. Our learning environment reflects the interests of the children and facilitates their play. Staff work hard to ensure the children are provided with carefully planned opportunities which allow children to explore, create and learn through exciting, stimulating, interactive and accessible resources.
Within our EYFS Curriculum, children are assessed continuously through observations. These provide us with information for future planning, not only for our individual classes but also for individual children’s next steps in their learning. They enable us, as EYFS practitioners, to ensure learning is embedded and consistent and that all children continue to make outstanding progress within our EYFS setting.
Davyhulme Primary School strongly believe that EYFS is the beginning of our children’s educational journey and igniting the flame for learning is imperative in “reaching for the stars”
We actively encourage partnership with parents, we want you to be involved in your children’s learning, during transition periods we work closely with Parents to ensure children and parents feel secure and happy. We invite parents to contribute in a variety of ways, ‘stay and play’ sessions, Learning Journeys, Star moments, parent workshops etc.
We recognise and value that Parents are the first educators in children’s lives. We aim to communicate and work cooperatively with parents and carers to support our children’s development.
If you would like to find out more about the Early Years curriculum, please click the link below. (Due to be updated in Sept 2021)
https://foundationyears.org.uk/files/2012/03/Development-Matters-FINAL-PRINT-AMENDED.pdf
At the end of Reception, children are assessed against the 17 aspects of learning. To find out more about the Early Learning Goals click the link below.
https://www.foundationyears.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Early_Years_Outcomes.pdf
Intent
At Davyhulme Primary School, we believe that the Early Years Foundation Stage is crucial in securing solid foundations that children are going to continue to build upon.
It is our intent that the children who enter our EYFS develop physically, verbally, cognitively and emotionally whilst embedding a positive attitude to school and learning. We believe that all children deserve to be valued as an individual and we are passionate in allowing all children to achieve their full, unique potential. With all of this in mind, we begin each year by assessing the children and looking at their individual needs - taking into account their different starting points- we then carefully develop our flexible EYFS Curriculum which enables them to follow the path of their learning journey, at a point, that is suitable for their unique needs and stage of development.
Children in both our Nursery and Reception classes follow the EYFS curriculum, which has seven main areas of learning.
The Prime Areas:-
- Personal, Social and Emotional Development
- Communication and Language
- Physical Development
The Specific Areas:-
- Literacy
- Mathematics
- Understanding the World
- Expressive Arts
The teaching of these areas of learning is practical and playful with support and challenge from adults in class sessions, small group sessions, keyworker group’s sessions and working with individuals. There is a combination of adult-led, teacher taught sessions as well as a wealth of stimulating continuous provision opportunities. Throughout all of these areas of learning and at the heart of the EYFS Curriculum are the “Characteristics of Effective Learning”.
At Davyhulme Primary School, we strive to develop these key characteristics of “Playing and Learning”, “Active Learning” and “Thinking Critically” in order to give the children the skills that they will continue to draw upon throughout their development. All of the crucial skills, knowledge and vocabulary that we teach are presented to the children throughout the year which following their lead, encompasses a range of topics. A vital part of the Curriculum is therefore the transition period when the children enter our classrooms and we get to know more about them and their interests.
Our learning environments, both inside and outside are also adapted regularly to meet the different and developing needs of the children in our care. We aim to ensure that these areas are always stimulating and exciting and that, importantly, they are accessible to all children, regardless of where they are on their learning journey. The environments are developed to promote independence within our children and allow them to access the curriculum independently and confidently with the necessary level of support and challenge.
Within our EYFS Curriculum, children are assessed continuously through observations. These provide us with information for future planning, not only for our individual classes but also for individual children’s next steps in their learning. They enable us, as EYFS practitioners, to ensure learning is embedded and consistent and that all children continue to make outstanding progress within our EYFS setting.
Davyhulme Primary School strongly believe that EYFS is the beginning of our children’s educational journey and igniting the flame for learning is imperative in “reaching for the stars”
Implementation
Our EYFS curriculum is broad and balanced. It builds on the knowledge, understanding and skills of all children, whatever their starting points. The aim of our curriculum is to develop a thirst and love for learning by:
- Providing meaningful learning experience, developing each child’s characteristics of learning.
- Providing high quality interactions with adults that demonstrate and impact on the progress of all children.
- Using high quality questioning and interactions to check understanding and address misconceptions.
- Staff acting as role models to the children they teach in order for children to develop their own speaking and listening skills.
- Carefully assessing, through observations, which are recorded and shared with parents. These are used to inform the next steps of learning and meet individual needs.
- Developing an effective and engaging environment that is set up so that children can access all areas of learning both inside and outside at any one time.
- Providing activity starting points for child initiated activities that enhance children’s learning and impact on progress.
- Allowing children to be successful in their attempts at an activity and using effective feedback to help facilitate next steps in learning.
- Suggesting home learning opportunities with information about what has been taught, allowing parents to build on their child’s school experiences, at home.
We recognise the changing needs and interests of our pupils and we are responsive to this.
The English curriculum is taught through a ‘Book of the Week’ in EYFS. Children develop their literacy skills by being ‘hooked’ into their learning. Through the text the children might imitate stories, create story maps, write sentences. They then move on to innovation of these well-known stories by including their own ideas. Children also have the opportunities to show independence in their writing by planning and writing their own stories. Literacy opportunities are also promoted in many of the continuous provision activities available to children during the week. We promote reading for pleasure.
Phonics is taught daily, following the letters and sounds scheme. Jolly phonics complements this and phonic sounds are introduced to children each day in an engaging way. The phonics activities are revisited to embed over the year and supported in a range of ways including associating actions with these. Activities are available in continuous provision for Children to access.
The maths curriculum is taught through daily dedicated sessions. These sessions are carefully planned using concrete resources and build on prior learning and real life experiences across the theme and year. This starts with mastering numbers 0-5 and then progresses through to 0-10 and 0-20. We want our children to become confident mathematicians who can apply what they have learnt to real life experiences.
Children have free-flow access to the outdoor space, where a range of provision supports skills and develops their social interactions. All seven areas of learning are encompassed within the space and allows all children to take risks in an unpredictable environment whilst developing leadership skills and promoting mental health and wellbeing.
Pupils have opportunities to share their learning with their parents and carers through Seesaw. Regular ‘Read and relax’ sessions for nursery and ‘Stay and play’ sessions in Reception, allow parents to join in learning activities alongside their children and share the experiences. We observe children though a VIP system, six children are observed each week, their Parents are asked to complete a short questionnaire about their child at home and then invited in to look at the children’s learning journeys. We have a school twitter and Facebook page where children’s learning and successes are celebrated.
Impact
Children demonstrate high levels of engagement in activities, developing their speaking and listening skills, enabling them to access more areas of the learning environment and communicate to both adults and children. Children develop skills across all areas of the curriculum including literacy, mathematics and physical development using these in different ways.
Children have developed a wider sense of the world around them and can draw on these experiences during interactions with others and link this to new learning.
Children develop their characteristics of learning and are able to apply their knowledge to a range of situations making links and explaining their ideas and understanding. Children are confident to take risks and discuss their successes and failures with adults drawing on their experiences to improve or adjust what they are doing.
From their own starting points, most children will make at least good, if not rapid progress, academically and socially. Children are well prepared for Key Stage 1.
