Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)

'Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.'

Proverbs 22:6

Our EYFS Vision

To create a happy, inclusive, aspiring EYFS where strong, nurturing relationships
are at its heart, ensuring that each and every child is able to flourish and reach
their full potential.

Early Years at Our Lady of Walsingham is the provision of education and care for children from birth to five years old, which includes Nursery and Reception. Our focus is to support children's learning and development through play-based activities and provide a safe and nurturing environment.

Our curriculum is designed to meet the needs of all our children, through developing their communication and language, physical development, personal, social and emotional development, literacy and numeracy skills, and their understanding of the world around them. This will be achieved through a range of play-based activities, such as messy play, storytelling, singing, outdoor play, and creative arts and crafts.

Our Early Years Team work closely with our parents and carers to support our children's learning and development, and to ensure that they are making progress towards their learning goals. They will also monitor and assess children's progress, and provide feedback to parents and carers on their child's achievements and areas for development.

Overall, Early Years at Our Lady of Walsingham plays an important role in providing a strong foundation to your child’s future learning and development, and is the first step on their school journey.

If you would like to know more about EYFS, please speak to our Early Years Lead,

Mrs Mitchell.

Intent

At Our Lady of Walsingham Catholic Primary School we promote life-long learning, which begins when a child enters our early years provision. 

It is our intent that children who join early years make outstanding progress in learning. We achieve this through an ambitious, balanced curriculum, with the right mix of adult-directed learning and uninterrupted play and exploration. This sequential curriculum ensures children are able to learn and remember more in order to do more.  

The early years curriculum develops happy, curious learners with a thirst for knowledge and a positive attitude to school.

Implementation

We follow the Early Years framework with the four overarching principles and the characteristics of effective learning guiding our curriculum. 

A unique child: Within our school, we recognise every child is a competent learner who is resilient, capable, confident and self-assured. We recognise children develop in individual ways and at varying rates. Children’s attitudes to learning are influenced by feedback from others; we use praise and encouragement,  to encourage children to develop a positive attitude to lifelong learning. We understand that all children develop at different rates and that sometimes children may need support with additional needs. We ensure that we are equipped with the skills to support early identification and work in partnerships with parents and other professionals to support all children to achieve their full potential. 

Positive relationships: Within our school, we recognise that children learn to be strong and independent from secure relationships. We aim to develop caring, respectful, professional relationships with the children and their families. Our key person system ensures that children settle quickly within our settings and assures families that staff have the best interests of their child at heart.  We work in partnership with our local children’s centre to further develop and enhance our parental support.

Enabling environments:  Within our school, we recognise that the environment plays a key role in supporting and extending the children’s learning and development.  Our rich learning environments offer stimulating resources relevant to children’s development. Through observation and interaction, we continuously assess the children’s interests, stages of development and learning needs. We plan challenging, achievable activities and experiences to extend children’s learning. 

Learning and development:  We recognise that children learn and develop in different ways and at different rates. We view all seven areas of learning as important and interconnected. 

Educational Programmes 

Communication and Language- Development involves giving children opportunities to experience a rich language environment; to develop and grow their vocabulary;  to develop their confidence and skills in expressing themselves, and to speak and listen in a range of situations. This is achieved through daily story and song times, interactions with children pitched at the right level, speaking and listening time and an oracy based approach to the literacy curriculum.
 

Physical development- Development involves providing opportunities for children to be active and interactive, and to develop their coordination, control, and movement. In addition to becoming knowledgeable about the attributes that contribute to healthy living. This is achieved through daily access to our outdoor environments; termly early years wellbeing week; and fine motor enhancements.
 

Personal, social & emotional development- Development involves helping children to develop a positive sense of themselves and others; form positive relationships, develop respect for others; develop social skills and learn how to manage their feelings, understand appropriate behaviour in groups, and have confidence in their own abilities. This is achieved by sharing expectations with children; allowing time for children to explore and play within our environments; implementing the Zones of Regulation, and weekly celebration assemblies.  In addition to this we also follow ‘My Life’ PSHCE Curriculum within Nursery and Reception.
 

Literacy- We use The Read Write Inc. programme for the teaching of early reading. We begin this programme with our Nursery children in the summer term, this ensures that children are reading to begin the more formal aspect of phonics teaching at the beginning of the Reception year. It is our aim that by the end of the Reception year children are able to read and write short sentences and books using the sounds their taught sounds. We also ensure that children are exposed to high-quality literature through the use of our daily talk through stories sessions and favourite five. This allows children to develop a love of reading and supports vocabulary development.

Mathematics- Within our school, we follow ‘Master the Curriculum’ for Number in Nursery which directly supports the teaching in Reception. In Reception children follow the White Rose Maths scheme. This allows children to develop a deeper understanding of numbers and allows them to make clear connections throughout the different strands of mathematics.  We deliver daily mathematical sessions to the children and this is followed up with focused link provision activities and enhancements within the environment.  Children in Reception also engage in a 5-10 minute daily ‘Maths Meeting.’  This ensures that gaps within the fundamentals of mathematics are addressed.

Understanding the world- Our topic approach allows children to make sense of their physical world and community.  By giving children opportunities to explore, observe, and find out about people, places, and the environment. Within our topic road maps, we plan opportunities for children to develop their cultural capital through local visits to local museums and art galleries.

Expressive arts and design- we enable children to explore and play with a wide range of media and material, as well as providing encouragement to share their thoughts, ideas and feelings through a variety of activities in art, music, movement, dance, role-play, and design and technology. 

Impact 

Our curriculum meets the needs of all children and supports them to make good progress from their individual starting points. 

We regularly evaluate how children are learning and progressing using ongoing observational assessments. We supplement this by also measuring impact through learning walks, coaching trackers, analysis of formative and summative data, in addition to staff, pupil and parent voice.

Our VOCUS documents detail our curriculum for the seven areas of learning for each term.

Prime Areas of Learning.

Specific Areas of Learning

Literacy

Through our Literacy Curriculum, we aim to:

-provide a rich language environment

-grow the bank of vocabulary heard and used by children

-expose children to high quality literature

-develop a love of reading

-help children build a repertoire of familiar stories, rhymes and poems 

-increase the amount of tier two vocabulary children are exposed to 

-give children a wider range of experiences through stories

-promote diversity and exposure to the wider community

Topic Approach

In EYFS the following topics are taught to deliver the curriculum: