Early Years Foundation Stage: Curriculum Intent / Implementation / Impact Statement
At New York Primary School we understand the importance that the Early Years Foundation Stage plays in building vital foundations for long term well-being and life-long learning.
We have high aspirations for all our children, we want them to do their best at all times and we support them in achieving this.
We believe that childhood is precious and as such encourage our children to enjoy learning through play, to be curious and enthusiastic, happy, confident and safe, by encouraging them to be independent, resilient, capable and self assured in their learning and by challenging their thinking.
We offer a curriculum that is rich in language with reading and core texts at the heart of it, that support children’s vocabulary development. We recognise that all children are unique and come to us with a wide variety of life experiences and opportunities and believe that every child deserves the best starting points in their education. We celebrate and welcome differences.
Our EYFS offers places to children to enter in our Two Year Old provision, Nursery provision and through to the end of the Reception Year.
We are always striving to support families in our school community by building strong partnerships with parents and carers. Community involvement is an integral part of our curriculum as we celebrate local traditions, learning new skills to enable our children to play an active role in their community.
Throughout their time in EYFS, the children develop a sense of belonging to our school community, ready to transition into Year 1 and beyond.
A significant proportion of our children start in the EYFS with skills and knowledge which are below those typical for their age. By identifying speech, language and communication and other developmental needs as soon as possible, we aim to improve these outcomes in the EY by closing specific gaps with individuals and vulnerable children. We prioritise Communication and Language, Personal, Social & Emotional Development, Self Regulation and Physical Development in our 2YO and Nursery Provision, as we recognise their importance to all other areas of learning and well-being.
The Early years are a crucial time for developing children’s enjoyment of learning, their engagement and motivation. The needs of this age group are met through a well planned play based approach to learning and development. Staff create a sense of friendly co-operation, setting clear rules and limits and helping children to live and learn alongside others.
The School’s core values and ethos are embedded in our EYFS Aims
We aim to
- provide children with a curriculum that offers children a wide range of opportunities and experiences. We work on broadening their experiences and providing opportunities to try new things and anchoring them to relish a new challenge.
- provide high expectations encouraging children to develop a ‘can do’ attitude. Developing resilience, perseverance and to be proud of their own achievements. We encourage children to explore, have a go, solve problems and achieve more than they thought they could.
- provide a learning environment - both inside and outside - that helps and motivates children to achieve their potential and follow their interests and fascinations.
- provide children with the opportunity to develop their sense of well being and ability to self regulate so that they feel confident in our school community and are equipped with the skills they need to be lifelong learners.
Implementation
We offer a high quality broad and balanced curriculum that follows the statutory framework for the EYFS. The Prime Areas of
- Communication and Language
- Personal, Social & Emotional Development and
- Physical Development are prioritised in our 2YO and
- Nursery provision.
The Specific Areas of
- Literacy
- Maths
- Understanding the World and
- Expressive Arts & Design
are taught through a well planned adult led programme of teaching and rich learning and relevant progressive opportunities for independent exploration and learning. The Characteristics of Effective Teaching and Learning are central to our ethos, pedagogy and practice.
Nursery and Reception follow our curriculum map overview of half termly themes based on core books and experiences. These overviews include suggested key vocabulary, skills, knowledge and concepts to ensure progression and challenge. Themes have been chosen appropriate to our context and known interests of our children, ensuring that we provide opportunities to broaden their interests and understanding of the world around them. This is flexible and will take account of children’s development, interests and contexts of each cohort.
We look forward to the start of each year, when we start to see where the children will take us on their learning journey.
Recurring themes of ‘The Seasons’, ‘Terrific Tales & Nursery Rhymes’ feed into our KS1 & KS2 Curriculum. Children will learn new concepts and build on the foundations of earlier concepts so that they retrieve, repeat, remember and revisit past learning - moving it from short term to long term memory.
Children in EYFS learn by playing and exploring, being active and thinking critically and creatively and our environment allows them to do this both indoors and outdoors. We have planned, purposeful provisions and support this through high quality adult interactions.
Our outdoor areas are open all year round and in all but the most challenging of weather conditions.
Our areas of provision are clearly organised and labelled to allow children to be independent and respect the resources, make choices and to think of their own ideas in their learning.
Phonics, Reading and Writing
The school follows the Read Write Inc phonics programme to teach reading across the school. This starts in the Summer Term in Nursery with lots of oral blending through ‘Fred Talk’ alongside this children in Nursery follow the Phase One Letters and Sounds to start them on their journey of becoming lifelong lovers of reading.
Children in Reception continue to learn to read using RWI and this is delivered daily from the start of the Reception year. Handwriting and spelling is also taught through the RWI scheme. Children in reception who are working below expectations receive regular RWI 1:1 fast track tutoring to learn the sounds and develop skills in blending sounds into words.
We encourage all children and families to develop a love of reading through nursery rhymes, core texts, Talk 4 Reading library sessions and we hold regular sessions with parents throughout the year.
Maths
Children will develop positive attitudes and interests in maths, looking for patterns and relationships, spotting connections and having a go. We aim to develop a strong grounding in numbers to excel mathematically. Overtime they will develop a deep understanding of numbers to 10 and the patterns and relationships between them. Children will have rich opportunities to develop their spatial reasoning skills across all areas of maths including Shape, Space & Measures. In Reception children take part in the a daily Mastering Number session.
This year we are also taking part in an EEF Trial - Counting Collections. For further information please look here https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/projects-and-evaluation/projects/counting-collections-2022-23-efficacy-trial
Woodland Wednesdays
Regular visits to the woodlands take place every 2 weeks throughout the year. Alternating am / pm nursery with each reception class. This gives children an opportunity to observe and talk about the changes throughout the course of the year. Each group adopts a tree in the school grounds and watches how it changes throughout the season. These sessions use picture books as a main focus with additional opportunities for children to develop their own interests and fascinations. The woodlands also provide children with a chance to develop their gross motor skills and coordination and control of their bodies.
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
Children’s personal, social and emotional development is crucial for children to lead happy and healthy lives. Children will be supported to manage emotions, develop a positive sense of self, set simple goals and have confidence in themselves. Children will learn how to make good relationships, co-operate and resolve conflicts peacefully. Through adult modelling and guidance, they will learn how to look after their bodies, including healthy eating, and manage personal needs independently. Through supported interaction with other children, they learn how to make good friendships, co-operate and resolve conflicts peaceably. These attributes will provide a secure platform from which children can achieve at school and in later life.
Assessment
Assessment of what children ‘can do’ supports our curriculum starting with EY staff meeting children’s parents & carers in transition and settling in sessions. Parent’s knowledge of their child is vital and we encourage their input, engagement and regular updates. Parents and carers, are given the opportunity for Home Visits prior to their child starting in 2YO and/or Nursery and complete a VIP booklet with staff. Children who are new to Reception are given the opportunity to visit the setting and EY staff meet with parents and previous key workers to support the transition from one setting to ours.
The staff in the EY team collect evidence of children’s learning through photos, videos, dialogue and work completed and create learning journeys and class floor books and these are shared with parents via SeeSaw and Twitter. We aim to encourage parents and carers to talk to their children about the learning in school.
Baseline observations of children as the children settle into school give the EY Team an opportunity to ensure that our curriculum matches the needs of the current cohort. Regular assessment against our curriculum identifies children who are on track and not on track and interventions are put in place to allow those children to keep up with their peers.
Impact
Our curriculum and its delivery ensures that children make good progress from their starting points.
The impact of our curriculum is reflected in the happy and confident and resilient children that transition into Year 1 at the end of their time in the EYFS.
We measure learning and progress across the year through formative and summative assessments which are based on practitioner knowledge of the child and their individual learning journey. We strive to maintain and improve our percentage of children achieving a good level of development at the end of Reception, regardless of a child’s starting point and are broadly in line with the national expectations.
