Broughton Primary School: Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum

Our curriculum and practice is led by the Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage. We learn through seven key areas of learning which include:

Three prime areas of learning:

• Personal, Social and Emotional Development: Self-Regulation, Managing Self and Building Relationships.
• Communication and Language: Listening, Attention and Understanding and Speaking.
• Physical Development: Gross Motor Skills and Fine Motor Skills.

Four specific areas of learning:

• Literacy: Comprehension, Word Reading and Writing.
• Mathematics: Number and Numerical Patterns.
• Understanding the World: Past and Present, People, Culture and Communities and the Natural World.
• Expressive Arts and Design: Creating with Materials and Being Imaginative and Expressive.

This does not, however, mean that your child’s learning will be divided up into areas. One experience may provide a child with opportunities to develop a number of competencies, skills and concepts across several areas of learning.

We aim to make the children’s opportunities as interesting and stimulating as we possibly can. Children learn best when they don’t even think they are learning. We will provide your child with a wide range of engaging experiences and will encourage them to continue their own growth through play-based activities. The EYFS curriculum emphasises the need for a balance between teacher led activities and child initiated activities.

We aim to create a safe, interesting and welcoming environment, where your child can enjoy their education and have fun.

EYFS Curriculum Intent - Our curriculum at Broughton Primary School encompasses the following aims to meet the needs of our children. The EYFS curriculum is the vehicle to bring these aims to life.

The aims of our curriculum

ENGAGE: Actively engage children in their education and help them to be responsible for their successes and achievements, both academically and socially.

We encourage children to develop strategies and behaviours that will continue to support them to discover, think, create, solve problems and self-regulate their learning. Play, time, space and freedom to follow their intentions, sustained shared thinking, and experiencing the satisfaction of meeting their own challenges and goals all contribute to development as curious, creative, resourceful and resilient learners.

EVALUATE: They will have the ability to evaluate the choices they can make and make conscious decisions based on these evaluations. This is encouraged by children having opportunities to:

• Think of ideas.
• Find ways to solve problems.
• Find new ways to do things.
• Make links and notice patterns in their experience.
• Make predictions.
• Test their ideas.
• Develop ideas of grouping, sequences, cause and effect.
• Plan and make decisions about how to approach a task, solve a problem and reach a goal.
• Check how well their activities are going.
• Change strategy as needed.
• Review how well the approach worked.

EMPOWER: The children will feel empowered and unafraid of challenge or initial failure.

At Broughton, our learning values encourage children to take ownership in order to empower their learning. These values, which are supported by staff around the school, recognise individuals showing resilience by being a ‘have a go hero’, having control by being ‘in the driving seat’, being kind to others and ‘spreading sunshine’ and showing innovation by ‘thinking outside the box’. The values are introduce to the Year R cohort gradually to ensure they are embedded into their character throughout their first year of school life.  These encouraged values are not only celebrated by adults but promote independence for the children. Children feel most empowered when they access learning that is pitched appropriately so it is important that children are provided with the adequate level of support and challenge.

REPONSIBLE: The children will have a developed sense of shared responsibility for things outside their immediate person.

The EYFS environment is designed to encourage independence and a responsibility for their own learning by the provision of resources, knowledge of their environment and space that enables them to have a voice.

ENJOYMENT: The children will love / look forward to coming to school (the majority of the time!)

At Broughton Primary School, we aim to foster children who have an enjoyment for school life by ensuring diverse and exciting learning opportunities.

Implementation

PROVISION AND ROUTINES

The children are offered a range of activities through continuous and enhanced provision. These activities support various areas of the curriculum and are changed regularly. Outdoor provision is an important part of our curriculum and children can access outdoors all day.

In Reception, there is a balance between adult-led and child-led activities. There is whole class teaching for discrete subjects such as phonics and story time. 

PHONICS

Synthetic phonics is taught in an interactive and engaging way that is fun and stimulating. We predominately follow the ‘Little Wandle’ programme although the daily phonics delivered is complemented with teacher-made resources that support and extend learning. Phonics teaching is matched to the children’s gross and fine motor skills assessments. The teachers maintain accurate assessments of children’s attainment of phonic sounds. All children are read with individually on at least a weekly basis and key children, identified through early assessments, are read with daily. Parents are invited in for a phonic workshop within the first month of their children starting school and all children are encouraged to take reading books home which are matched to the phonic sounds they have learnt. Phonic sounds and words are made available throughout the classroom as a part of the continuous provision. Children can access words and sounds to support their phonic development in their learning.

In EYFS, during the autumn term, children who are not keeping up with the pace of phonics learning are identified for extra interventions (precision teaching/ booster groups). The class teacher communicates with parents the phonic sounds learnt on a weekly basis, with suggested consolidation activities. Additional reading opportunities for key children are planned with adults in school and also in the weekly reading breakfast. Peer reading and the numerous books clubs are on offer to support.

READING PRINCIPLES

At Broughton, we believe that reading is a passport to the world and the benefits of reading open children up to ideas, experiences, places and times they might never otherwise experience in real life.  Our reading aim in EYFS is to develop fluent readers who are able to decode texts and develop a passion for reading. In our provision, we have an outside book nook, a CD player to listen to stories, a permanent phonics board where resources can be accessed and our “I can read” box, where children can read phonic-based books independently. Story time is a crucial part of our day and drives our topic and enhancements in the learning environment. We have plenty of time to read stories in small groups and make sure every child gets a supported 1:1 adult read. As well as ensuring children can decode/read text, it is just as important for the children to fully comprehend what they are reading and this is where true joy of reading starts.

OUTSIDE PROVISION

We provide a free-flow provision between the outside and inside environment for the children. All areas of learning are reflected in the outside provision and enhanced to meet learners’ needs. There is permanent provision for reading and writing outside and enhancements that change on a weekly basis to stimulate the children and to move them on in particular next steps. There will always be a role play area outside to maintain the focus on speaking and listening development. Another particular focus for outside is the development of gross motor skills so there will be coordination, balance or strengthening activity, such as our scooters and bike track. There will also be an adult outside with the children either leading an activity, facilitating or observing. When working with children, the adult will use open questions stems such as ‘I wonder…’ to promote discussions.

ENGAGING WITH PARENTS

At Broughton, we value the partnership between home and school. We provide lots of opportunities for parents to be involved in their child’s education. Every Wednesday we have 'Welcome in Wednesday' where parents are invited to take part in their child’s learning and celebrate their work. In this time, parents can talk to staff about their child’s learning and how they can help at home. Parents are encouraged to speak to staff daily, communicate via tapestry, emails and their reading diary. We also hold workshops for parents each term to develop their confidence in supporting their child at home. In the Autumn term, we hold a workshop on phonics and in the Spring term an emergent writing workshop. Parents are also encouraged to share learning ‘wow’ moment on paper.

ASSESSMENT

Observing children in the early years is of central importance in ensuring good, high-quality provision.

Observation, Assessment and Planning Cycle

Day-to-day assessment plays an important part in helping parents, carers and practitioners to recognise children’s progress, understand their needs, and to plan activities and support. The observation of children is of central importance in ensuring good high quality provision in our Early Years setting. This gives us key insight into what interests the children, where their current learning is and how best to move them on. Our 'In the moment' planning is all about capturing the children's current interests at that particular time and moving their learning on there and then.

Assessments are made by the teachers continuously and used to plan next step activities. Children are directed to activities during the week depending on the assessments made by the teachers. There will be photos of children at activities to indicate where they need to be. Teachers track individual progress on assessment sheets. These help the identification of gaps in learning and potential pre-teach groups when the learning is revisited in the next phase. Tapestry is used within EYFS to record observations and assessments. This shares learning and next steps with parents and we encourage parents to share learning from home through this platform. Teachers will use Tapestry to invite parents to share learning at home. For example, we have prompted parents to show their child meeting milestones and developing at home and then post it on Tapestry. We use an assessment document of where a child starts their learning journey, progress made and whether they meet the Early Learning Goals in the Summer Term.

PRIME AREAS

Communication and language 

At Broughton, we believe reading frequently to children, and engaging them actively in stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems, and then providing them with extensive opportunities to use and embed new words in a range of contexts, will give children the opportunity to thrive. Through conversation, storytelling and role play, where children share their ideas with support and modelling from their teachers, and sensitive questioning that invites them to elaborate, children become comfortable using a rich range of vocabulary and language structures. We have a stage for performance outside and an indoor role play area for using narrative language.

Personal, Social and Emotional Development 

The children at Broughton will be supported to manage their emotions, develop a positive sense of self, set themselves simple goals, have confidence in their own abilities, to persist and wait for what they want. Through adult modelling and guidance, they will learn how to look after their bodies, including healthy eating, and manage personal needs independently. Through supported interaction with other children they learn how to make good friendships, co-operate and resolve most conflicts independently. These attributes will provide a secure platform from which children can achieve in their life at Broughton and beyond.

Physical development 

In our Early Years provision, we support children by creating games and providing opportunities for play both indoors and outdoors. Adults will support children to develop their core strength, stability, balance, spatial awareness, co-ordination and agility. Gross motor skills provide the foundation for developing healthy bodies and social and emotional well‑being. Fine motor control and precision helps with hand-eye co-ordination. Repeated and varied opportunities to explore and play with small world activities, puzzles, arts and crafts and the practice of using small tools, with feedback and support, allows children to develop proficiency, control and confidence.