EYFS Lead:  Mrs. Becky Lewis

The Early Years Foundation Stage has a specific curriculum designed to help children develop key skills and understanding.  We work hard to ensure that children develop a firm foundation for further work and study as they progress through school.   

Areas of Learning
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Within the Early Years Foundation Stage there are 3 Prime Areas of Learning: 

•           Personal, social and emotional development
•           Communication and language
•           Physical development

 These 3 Prime Areas of Learning underpin all other learning and feed into 4 Specific Areas of Learning:

•           Literacy
•           Mathematics
•           Understanding the world
•           Expressive arts and design

Each of the 7 areas detailed above are further sub-divided to form 17 individual aspects.  Your child will be working on these aspects at their own appropriate level throughout the year, working towards achieving the Early Learning Goal for each aspect. An Early Learning Goal is the culmination of learning and progression for each of these 17 aspects.  It details what it is hoped children will achieve and it is against the Early Learning Goal that an assessment for your child is made at the end of the year, which is a statutory requirement.    

Characteristics of Effective Learning

Considering how individual children learn and ensuring that we are planning and providing opportunities for them to support and develop their preferred learning style is of great importance.  We consider the approach of children and how they learn in 3 areas:

• Playing and exploring - learning through first-hand experiences, discovering, trying new things, creating...
• Active learning - being outside and inside, being engaged, joining in...
• Creating and thinking critically - considering, observing, sharing, talking, expressing...

Each child's approach to learning will be different and we will ensure that we support them all.

Planning and Assessment

The Class Teacher and Learning Support Assistants plan carefully, taking into account children's needs and interests to make the curriculum relevant.  The children are involved in the planning and development of learning activities and they suggest ideas and shape what happens within the classroom as we respond to and work with them.  Assessments are made regularly and often take the form of observations.  These may be specifically focussed or more general and this helps us to build a picture of your child.  We share children's learning via SeeSaw, a secure on-line system for sharing our school experiences and communicating with parents.  Parents have on-line access to this throughout the year which enables them to see their child's development in 'real time'.  We welcome and encourage parents to share home-learning and experience via the message option. We are able to share the videos and photos sent via the message option with the children in class and can use this to support 'Show and Tell' type activities.

We hope that this information is useful but please do not hesitate to contact the school office if you have any questions or queries - we are always happy to help.