EYFS

Intent

At St Mary’s we aim to create an exciting and engaging environment for our Early Years children.

We follow the Early Years foundation stage framework and ensure that all of our children are given the opportunity to learn though a balance of both play and adult led activities. We have a robust transition process where we quickly learn about the children and their interests and needs before the children start at school through speaking to the parents & preschools/Nurseries, as well as visits for the children and information evening for parents.

This helps to ensure that the children’s journey at school starts smoothly and is a positive experience. We are proud that we know our children well and are able to ensure that the environment is welcoming, and activities encourage the children to share their knowledge and to learn more.

We are passionate about ensuring that all of our children are able to thrive, reach their full potential, whilst also having a love of learning and reading from a young age. We also encourage the children to be independent learners, whilst also teaching them about our growth mindset approach and to be resilient and willing to try a new task.

Our intent to help all of our children achieve outstanding progress we assess their starting points and quickly identify how we can support the children further with their next steps. Through our online observations, we create a positive home school link with parents and include them in their children’s learning and celebration of their achievements.

We intend to offer a broad, balanced, enriching Curriculum for the children in which we follow the children’s personal interests and individual needs. These plans allow us to adapt the children’s learning and offer them as many opportunities as possible to ensure coverage of the 7 areas of learning.

Our EYFS Curriculum enables our children to be:

• Creative learners
• Inquisitive about the world around them
• Secure, independent and confident
• Skilful communicators

It is our intent to ensure that all children have a love of reading and enjoy sharing books together and individually daily. Our Nursery & Reception children will receive the teaching of Early reading through systematic, synthetic phonics scheme (Little Wandle) to learn to read words, learn letter sounds and names. Our intent is that our Reception children will be able to read words and write simple sentences accurately by the end of the school year.

Implementation

At St Mary’s we follow the Early Years Foundation Stage framework. This is made up of four overriding principles which our Early Year’s education is based upon:

• Unique child – Every child is a unique gift from God who is constantly learning and can be resilient, capable, confident and self-assured
• Positive relationships – Children learn to be strong and independent through positive relationships (both with staff and their peers)
• Enabling environments – Children learn and develop well in enabling environments, in which their experiences respond to their individual needs and there is a strong partnership between practitioners and parents and carers
• Learning and development – Children develop and learn in different ways. The framework covers the education and care of all children in our Early Year’s, including those with special educational needs and disabilities.

The Curriculum provides a play based and experiment learning environments, which encourages the children to become independent, confident and inquisitive. We also teach the children lifelong skills, such as cutting and pencil control, and continue to develop these throughout the year.

The children learn through both child-initiated play and adult led activities. We are fortunate to have two large classrooms, both with engaging outdoor spaces so the children can access this throughout the day. The children are involved in our planning and are asked what resources and activities they would like to have available to play with. We teach the children about having a healthy lifestyle through whole class discussions.

The learning experiences in our Early Years are linked to the seven areas of learning with the EYFS. These areas are split into three prime areas and four specific areas.

• Communication & language
• Physical development
• Personal, social, and emotional development
• Literacy
• Mathematics
• Understanding of the world
• Expressive art and design

Children benefit from meaningful learning across the Curriculum and staff plan resourcefully for opportunities to communicate, try new activities and physical challenges and movement to build on existing skills and taking into account the Characteristics of effective learning. We offer high quality first-hand experiences (inside, outside, visitors and school trips) to widen experiences, opportunities to problem solve and ignite awe and wonder for our children. Staff model language and communication skills whilst also teaching the children new vocabulary through play and asking high quality questions. We have positive relationships with our children and teach them to be kind, caring, confident and willing to try new things and take risks safely. We support the children to develop as a whole child, both mentally and physically, by teaching them to be resilient and why it is important to share their feelings, eat, drink and exercise well.

Impact

The experiences, skills and opportunities taught are revisited and demonstrated through being deeply engaged in play and sharing their learning and skills with their peers.

The impact of the children’s learning is shown through observations and learning journeys. We use Tapestry online journals so that we can share these achievements with parents and carers.

As a team, we carry out regular internal moderation sessions and staff attend external meetings and training courses to ensure that we feel confident in our assessments and that they are consistent. Assessment starts with careful observations, which are then used to inform our plans and provision. By monitoring assessments, observations and next steps regularly, we can effectively demonstrate the learning taking place at St Mary’s and how each child is progressing across the seven areas of learning and towards to ELG goals.

The children experience a smooth transition between Nursery, Reception and beyond. Effective coloration, teamwork, assessments and moderation ensure that the children leave the EYFS with a solid foundation of learning of which to build upon. We received positive feedback on our recent Hertfordshire moderation and the percentage of our children achieving GLD (good level of development) at the end of Reception is above the national and local averages showing that our children receive an outstanding start to their school journey.

EYFS Curriculum Outcomes