What is the EYFS?

EYFS stands for the Early Years Foundation Stage and its standards support your child from birth to the end of their Reception year at school. These standards must be followed by all Ofsted registered childcare providers including teachers, childminders and nurseries. From September 2021 as a school we follow the Statutory EYFS Framework. To support us there are two non-statutory document called Development Matters and Birth to 5 Matters which we use to support your child’s development. It enables us to see what they have achieved so far and what they need to learn next, so we can adapt our teaching accordingly and help your child reach their full potential.

Intent

The curriculum is designed to:

• Recognise and value children’s prior learning from previous settings and home experiences.
• Provide first hand engaging, stimulating and challenging, play-based learning experiences, allowing learners to build positive identities through managing and taking risks, having a go, developing resilience and promoting a ‘can do’ attitude.
• Provide high quality provision, along with high-quality interactions, so that we are laying the foundations for the children to become independent, active, successful and ambitious lifelong learners.
• Offer a balance of child-initiated and adult-led learning using a continuous provision based approach.
• Provide a rich outdoor learning experience using our wonderful surroundings
• Learners’ choices and interests are the driving force for building knowledge, skills and understanding – although as they are a part of a mixed age classroom, they have the opportunity to join in topics that the rest of their key stage are engaged in.
• Offer a balance of child-initiated and adult-led learning using a continuous provision-based approach.
• Every child is valued as an individual, safe and well cared for.

Implementation

• In our EYFS, we follow the Early Years Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage.
• The Framework specifies the requirement for learning and development in the Early Years and provides prime and specific areas of learning we must cover in our curriculum.
• Prime Areas covered - Personal, Social and Emotional Development, Physical Development , Communication and Language development.

• Specific Areas covered- Literacy, Mathematics, Understanding the World,  Expressive Arts and Design.
• The focus at first is on the prime areas of learning. These form the foundation of a child’s learning. Once the children are secure in these areas they will begin to work on the specific areas of learning.
• A vital aspect in the development of essential knowledge and skills is the use of continuous provision. This means that children are using and developing taught skills throughout the year on a daily/weekly basis.
• Continuous Provision practice and principles begin in the Early Years Foundation Stage and support children to develop key life skills such as independence; creativity, enquiry and problem solving.
• Continuous provision areas are set up to reflect children’s interests, as well as ensuring that reading, writing, and maths are high profile.
• Throughout a typical day, learners will have the opportunity to work independently, work collaboratively with their peers and work with practitioners.
• There are several direct teaching sessions taking place. These include phonics, maths, literacy, PE, science, music, story, etc 
• We communicate with parents and share achievements using ‘Wow Moments’ which feed into teacher assessment and inform the children’s next steps. 

 Impact

• The impact of our curriculum is measured by the observations and assessments that we carry out on a daily basis.  Above all, we pride ourselves on really knowing the children.
• The impact on our curriculum is measured by how well practitioners know each individual child.
• The impact of our curriculum is measured by internal termly data, as well as measuring outcomes against the LA and nationally at the end of the EYFS phase.
• The impact of our curriculum will also, in fact, be measured by how effectively it helps our learners to develop into well-rounded individuals who are independent, active, successful, and ambitious lifelong learners.

At Lowther, we are using the revised EYFS framework.

To enable children to develop the seven areas of learning are followed:

Prime areas of learning:

• Communication and Language (Listening, attention and understanding; and Speaking)
• Personal, Social and Emotional Development (Self-regulation, Managing Self and Building Relationships)
• Physical Development (Gross motor skills and fine motor skills)

Specific areas of learning:

• Literacy (Comprehension, Word reading and Writing)
• Maths (Number and Numerical patterns)
• Understanding of 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)

As well as monitoring what your child learns, it’s also important that we understand how your child learns so that we can teach and support your child in a way that suits them best. This is where the Characteristics of Effective Learning comes in. They are not split into age bands because they underpin all 7 areas of learning and development. Children who receive the right sort of support and encouragement during these early years, will be creative and adventurous learners.