In EYFS, our aim is to enable our youngest children to become ready, willing and capable learners. Through high quality teaching and learning experiences, engaging environments and strong, emotional connections we create a warm, secure place to grow and learn together. We want each child and each parent to know that each day we are on a learning adventure together and that each of them is a valued part of this.
Tracking Progress
Within the EYFS curriculum, there are three prime and four specific areas of learning, that planning and assessment is based upon. These areas are: Personal, Social and Emotional Development, Communication and Language, Literacy, Mathematics, Understanding the World and Expressive Arts and Design.
We use Target Tracker to record the progress of each child. Teachers use a range of ongoing teacher assessments through observation to gather evidence. Please see the document used to support this process.
How we learn in EYFS
The EYFS curriculum and our weekly timetable provide a balance of continuous provision, adult initiated and adult directed learning. The emphasis is always on enabling children to explore, make connections, use their imaginations and ideas to take their learning forwards. We want children to flourish as we play and learn together. At times, they will take the lead with their interests and through our responsive planning and interaction we take them further along their learning journey.
The continuous provision is at the heart of our Foundation Stage learning areas. Our intention is to provide effective continuous provision which is open-ended, accessible, flexible, small and large scale and skills-driven. Provision Areas are used to enable children to bring their magic, motivation and interests with them to shape their learning. We aim to create a myriad of opportunities for purposeful self-chosen play, collaboration and imaginative play.
Our adult directed teaching includes planned time for R.E teaching, observation and assessment, guided reading, phonics, literacy and mathematics. Please see our class pages for more information about our teaching and learning for all of these curriculum areas.
The Four Key Themes
In our Early Years classrooms, we follow the EYFS curriculum that is underpinned by four key themes.
Every Child is Unique. We cater for every child’s individual needs, teaching them at their level. By doing this, we enable all children to be challenged and make good progress in their learning and development. In turn this creates resilient, confident and capable learners.
Positive Relationships. We focus on children developing positive relationships with their peers and adults in school in order for children to learn to be strong and independent.
Enabling Environments. We believe that children learn and develop best when the environment reflects them and responds appropriately to their needs. We do this by putting the children at the centre of teaching and learning through them choosing the topic for each half term based upon their interests. We also change and adapt the setting and planning daily based upon children’s responses to teaching and learning. To do this effectively we also develop strong partnerships with Parents/ Carers.
Learning and Development. We ensure that we adopt the key characteristics of effective learning to ensure children’s success. These are: • Playing and exploring • Active learning • Creating and thinking critically
To do this effectively across the year we continuously:
Observe- Looking, listening and making notes
Assess– Analysing observations and deciding on the next steps.
Plan– New experiences and opportunities, setting up learning environments and selecting appropriate resources.
What does the Early Years Foundation Stage look like in our school?
