EYFS

“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 in the Early Years, July 2021

Intent

We believe that building positive, trusting relationships with families and children is key to their emotional, physical and cognitive development. Our Reception class provides a safe and stimulating environment for children to thrive. At Luckwell Primary School, we want our children to be excited, engaged and confident in their learning. We enable our children to set their own challenges, take risks, review their own approach to learning and make links to previous experiences. 

In Reception at Luckwell we want to ensure: 

• That children learn to love their learning and develop the skills to love each other. Every child is included and supported through equality of opportunity and anti-discriminatory practice. 
• That children access a broad and balanced curriculum that gives them the broad range of knowledge, skills and learning behaviours needed for good progress through school and life. 
• Quality and consistency in teaching and learning so that every child makes good progress and no child gets left behind. 
• Close partnership working between the school team and with parents and/or carers. 
• We provide enhancement opportunities to engage learning and believe that the first experiences of school should be happy and positive, enabling children to develop a lifelong love of learning.  
• Community involvement as an essential part of our curriculum as we celebrate traditions, learning new skills to enable the children to take an active role in events throughout the year.  
• Throughout their time in Reception, our children develop a sense of belonging to our school community, ready to transition to Year 1 the following academic year.  
• They have the confidence and skills to make decisions and self-evaluate, make connections and become lifelong learners.  
• To understand and follow children’s interests and provide opportunities throughout our curriculum to support learning, consolidate and deepen knowledge and ensure children meet their next steps.  
• To create an indoor and outdoor environment which supports learning. To prepare children to reach the Early Learning Goals at the end of the Reception and ensure children make good progress from their starting points.  

Implementation

Our Reception class follows the curriculum as outlined in the 2021 Statutory Framework For The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS).

The EYFS Framework includes 7 areas of learning and development that are equally important and inter-connected. However, 3 areas, known as the Prime Areas, are seen as particularly important for igniting curiosity and enthusiasm for learning and for building children’s capacity to learn, form relationships and thrive. Each of the 7 areas are broken up into strands. 

The Prime Areas are: 

Underpinning all learning and development is how a child engages with other people and their environment. These behaviours are known as the Characteristics of Effective Teaching and Learning:

• 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

We focus on developing these characteristics in children, to ensure they remain effective and motivated in their learning. We achieve this by taking into account the interests and the needs of the children, offering them a balance of child-initiated and adult-led learning opportunities.

Learning through child-initiated play is an important part of our Early Years provision. Every day, children have extended periods of time where they can follow their own interests at their own pace. We believe children learn best from activities and experiences which interest and inspire them. Using children’s interests as a starting point, we provide children with stimulating, active play experiences in which they can explore and develop their learning to help them make sense of the world. They have opportunities through their play to think creatively and critically alongside other children as well as on their own.

Adult-led learning can take the form of carpet times led by the class teacher. There are 4 sessions a day that are focused on discrete teaching of specific knowledge and skills linked to the curriculum, e.g. Phonics and Maths. These sessions are designed to be active to ensure children also develop their understanding of behaviours that are helpful for learning (e.g. resilience, collaboration, creativity, reflection and communication). Adult led learning can also take the form of focus tasks, which take place in small groups led by the class teacher. These tasks are designed to develop children’s Literacy and Maths skills based on assessment and an analysis of children’s gaps to enable children to meet their next steps. 

The environment is carefully resourced and planned to allow children to access a wide range of experiences independently. This is known as Continuous Provision, and it enables children to continue their learning journey when working without an adult. Through continuous formative assessment (in the form of interactions and observations) staff are able to monitor children’s progress, needs, and interests. Staff can then add enhancements and provocations to the provision - deepening the children’s learning, engagement and motivation. 

Our areas of continuous provision include: water, sand, role play, reading, writing, maths, small world, small and large construction, creative and malleable areas. These areas of continuous provision are reflected in the well-resourced outdoor environment, which is used at all times - whatever the weather!

Impact

The impact of our curriculum is measured by assessment procedures which allow us to measure outcomes against all schools nationally. We measure the percentage of pupils achieving a Good Level of Development (GLD) by the end of the Reception year. The impact of our curriculum will also be measured by how effectively it helps our pupils develop into well rounded individuals who embody our values and carry with them the knowledge, skills and attitudes which will make them lifelong learners and valuable future citizens. We endeavor for pupils to have all six of our schools core values embedded by the time they leave Reception. These are: Empathy, Challenge, Trust, Respect, Safety, and Curiosity. When children leave Reception, not only are they Year One ready, but well-rounded individuals with positive attitudes towards learning