Early Years at Our Lady Star of the Sea

Intent

In EYFS our curriculum is designed for high level of engagement, ensuring children’s interests and high quality texts are at the heart of our curriculum.   We maximise every opportunity to make cross curricular links and provide real life learning opportunities to create high interest and attainment.  We encourage each child to be a unique child, who is resilient, capable, confident and self-assured.  We build strong links with parents, ensuring positive and strong relationships are established early on.  We create a warm, exciting, stimulating and child-led environment which encourages children to be independent learners.  Communication and language is at the heart of everything we do, always listening to the child, parent and each other.  We create strong links with nurseries and Year 1 to prepare every child at each stage of their transitions.

By the end of Reception year, our intent is to ensure that all children make at least good progress from their starting points and are equipped with the skills and knowledge to start Year 1 ready.

The EYFS in our school includes Nursery and Reception.  We follow the Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage, Development Matters and Birth to 5 Matters.  We have used all of these documents to create our own personalised curriculum, which uses high quality texts and high quality learning. High quality early learning, together with making good connections between home and school, provides the foundation children need to make the most of their abilities and talents as they grow up and become ready for Year 1. 

EYFS promotes teaching and learning to ensure children’s ‘school readiness’ and gives children the broad range of knowledge and skills that provide the right foundation for good future progress through school and life.

The EYFS seeks to provide:

• quality and consistency in all early years settings, so that every child makes good progress and no child gets left behind.
• a secure foundation through planning for the learning and development of each individual child, and assessing and reviewing what they have learned regularly.
• partnership working between practitioners and with parents and/or carers.
• equality of opportunity and anti-discriminatory practice, ensuring that every
  child is included and supported.

The EYFS is based on four guiding principles that should shape practice in the early years settings.  These are:

1. A unique child
2. Positive relationships
3. Enabling Environments with teaching and support from adults
4. Learning and Development

In planning and guiding what children learn, these characteristics of effective teaching and learning must be considered:

Playing and exploring – children investigate and experience things, and ‘have a go’

Active learning – children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties, and enjoy achievements.

Creating and thinking critically – children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things.

The seven areas of learning are:

Prime Areas

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

• Self-Regulation
• Managing Self
• Building Relationships

Physical Development

• Gross Motor Skills
• Fine Motor Skills

Communication and Language

• Listening, Attention and Understanding
• Speaking

Specific Areas

Literacy

• Comprehension
• Word Reading
• Writing

Mathematics

• Number
• Numerical patterns

Understanding of the world

• Past and Present
• People, Culture and Communities
• The Natural World

Expressive Arts and Design

• Creating with Materials
• Being imaginative and Expressive

Assessment:

Each child will complete a baseline assessment at the beginning of the year.  It is a short assessment, taken in the first 6 weeks of a child starting in Reception.

In the final term of the year in which the child reaches age five, the EYFS profile will be completed  for each child.  Each child’s level of development must be assessed against the early learning goals, indicating if they have met the emerging or expected level.  This will then be shared with parents and Year 1 staff.

Assessments will be collected and monitored throughout the year by all EYFS staff.