the EYFS at Curridge Primary School
“When we give every child the best start in their early years, we give them what they need today.
We also set them up with every chance of success tomorrow.” Development Matters, 2021
At Curridge Primary School, we believe every child has the right to engage in a broad, balanced and relevant education. Our curriculum has been carefully designed to engage children and enable them to maximise their learning potential. It is a rich and varied curriculum full of opportunities to explore and acquire key knowledge and develop understanding and skills, which are transferable across all areas of learning.
In the Early Years, four guiding principles shape our practice:
- A Unique child. Every child is a unique individual and begins in our school with different life experiences. We support every child to learn, develop resilience and self-confidence.
- Positive relationships. Children learn best when they are happy and enjoy coming to school. Our school is rooted in its community and we take care to develop positive relationships with every child, parent and carer.
- Enabling environments. The environment in our early years plays a central role in children’s learning and development. Our timetable enables children to have a balance of adult-led and child-initiated learning, which we call Learning Through Play. During Learning Through Play, children have continuous access to our indoor and outdoor environments. Children are able to develop independence by self-selecting activities according to their own interests, and activities are carefully planned to build learning over time.
- Learning and development. Children learn and develop at different rates. In the early years, there are 7 areas of learning: 3 prime areas and 4 specific areas. All areas are important and inter-connected. Together, they create a broad curriculum.
Communication, Language and Literacy
A language-rich environment is crucial to every child’s progress. Through conversation, story-telling and role play, children’s spoken language develops into a rich range of vocabulary and language structures.
personal, Social and Emotional Development
In the early years, children develop life-long skills. Strong, warm and supportive relationships enable children to develop their understanding of emotions, have high self-esteem, persevere and take-turns. Children learn how to develop friendships, cooperate with others, and develop the foundations they need to live happy, healthy lives in the future.
Physical Development
Children thrive when they are physically active. Gross and fine motor skills develop incrementally over time. Gross motor skills provide the foundation for developing healthy bodies and well-being. Fine motor control and precision helps with hand-eye co-ordination, which develops into early writing skills.
Literacy
A life-long love of reading is critical to children’s literacy development. High-quality conversations about books, and the enjoyment of rhymes and poems, support children to develop the comprehension skills they need for reading and writing. Word reading is taught through phonics. A successful writer has many skills: composition, spelling and handwriting.
Mathematics
Developing a strong grounding in number is essential for children to excel mathematically. Children need rich opportunities to develop spatial reasoning skills across all areas of mathematics, including shape, space and measures. Children develop mathematical confidence through positive attitudes, noticing patterns and relationships, ‘having a go’, developing their maths talk and having the confidence to make mistakes.
Understanding of the World
Children need to make sense of their physical world and their community. Experiences, stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems develop children’s language and their understanding of our culturally, socially, technologically and ecologically diverse world.
Expressive Arts and Design
The development of children’s artistic and cultural awareness supports their imagination and creativity. Regular, high-quality, varied opportunities to engage with the arts, explore and play with a wide range of media and materials develop children’s understanding, self-expression, vocabulary and ability to communicate through the arts.
Our children should be able to play and explore, experience things, and be willing to ‘have a go’. They should keep on trying if they encounter difficulties, and enjoy achieving. Children should be creative and be able to think critically; have their own ideas and choose ways of doing things.
Assessment
“Assessment is about noticing what children can do and what they know. It is not about lots of data and evidence.” Development Matters, 2021
Assessment helps us to recognise a child’s progress, understand their needs, and to plan the activities and support each child needs to learn and develop. Accurate assessment helps us to identify and support children who may not be making expected progress or may have a special educational need.
There are 2 statutory assessments that take place in the Reception year. At the beginning of the year, children take part in the Reception Baseline Assessment (RBA). At the end of the year, the EYFS profile is completed for every child. This profile provides a picture of a child’s knowledge, understanding and abilities, their attainment against expected levels, and their readiness for year 1. Each child’s level of development is assessed against the Early Learning Goals (ELGs). Our progression map identifies how our children progress towards the ELGs throughout the year. We offer early intervention promptly so that children get the support they need.