EYFS

Curriculum Statement: Early Years

 ‘Excellence, Truth and Grace’

 

Intent

At Middleton Parish Church School, our EYFS curriculum is designed to recognise the unique child. The children’s prior knowledge and ongoing interests, both from previous settings and their experiences at home, are drawn upon to ensure that we capture their engagement and provide a smooth transition into school life. We work in partnership with parents, carers and other settings to provide the best possible start at Parish, ensuring each individual reaches their full potential from their various starting points.

Our curriculum recognises the central role of the Prime Areas of learning; Personal, Social and Emotional Development, Physical Development and Communication and Language, in ensuring that children have the necessary skills to access the wider curriculum and develop into confident, independent and resilient learners. At Parish we recognise that oracy not only improves academic outcomes, but is a life skill to ensure success beyond school, in life and future employment. Our enabling environments and warm, skilful adult interactions, combined with our strong focus on early identification of need, support the children as they begin to link learning to their play and exploration right from the start.

We believe that high level engagement maximises the opportunity for high level attainment. Therefore, we provide an engaging curriculum through an ‘in the moment teaching’ pedagogy that allows meaningful cross-curricular links and learning experiences by following the children’s interests. We aim to foster a lifelong love of learning by providing opportunities for open ended discovery and problem solving, real world experiences and purposeful play.

By the end of the Reception year, our intent is to ensure that all children make at least good progress from their starting points and are equipped with the skills and knowledge to have a smooth transition into Year 1.

 

Implementation

At Parish, we follow an ‘In the moment teaching’ pedagogy, allowing practitioners the flexibility to respond to children’s ongoing and developing interests. Our ‘themes’ are mostly generated from the children and their interests, however, we are aware of the need to expose children to a range of concepts and widen their interests. Therefore, the practitioners will ensure that relevant links are made to additional concepts which children may not naturally show an interest in, but through being shown by a trusted adult, children develop their curiosity and widen their experiences and learning opportunities. For example, most children will naturally show an interest in Christmas during the second half term of autumn. Practitioners expand on this interest by exposing children to a range of additional celebrations and festivals from other cultures and religions.

The timetable is carefully structured so that children have directed teaching during the day. The timetable changes throughout the year to take into consideration the changing needs of the children. Children are provided with plenty of time to engage in ‘learning through play’ throughout the variety of experiences carefully planned to engage and challenge them in the provision. The curriculum is planned for the inside and outside classrooms and equal importance is given to learning in both areas. Forest School is also an important aspect of our provision at Parish and we plan weekly Forest School sessions for all children.

For the implementation of specific areas of learning, please also refer to the individual subject statements.

Phonics

In Nursery, children focus on Phase 1 which concentrates on developing children's speaking and listening skills and lays the foundations for the phonic work which starts in Reception. The emphasis during Phase 1 is to get children attuned to the sounds around them and ready to begin developing oral blending and segmenting skills, prior to learning GPCs.

In Reception, Phase 1 continues and children are introduced to Set 1 and 2 sounds where they will develop GPC knowledge and segmenting and blending skills to decode words.

From Reception, we follow ‘Read Write Inc,’ a systematic synthetic phonics programme. Rigorous, structured daily phonics teaching allows children to build up their phonic knowledge in small steps which is revisited and rehearsed frequently. The children are assessed every 6 weeks to ensure they are progressing as expected, with a ‘keep up, not catch up’ aspiration in mind. Children who require additional support will receive appropriate intervention.

Children are encouraged to read at home and are listened to regularly in school. They are given books that match their phonic knowledge in order for them to apply their learning with the aim of becoming successful, confident and fluent readers.

Literacy

Reading is at the heart of our curriculum and our aim is to encourage a love of reading from the very start. In EYFS, we focus on a different text each week/fortnight which will often be inspired by the children’s interests. These texts will be used for adult led teaching, with a focus on vocabulary, and embedded in our provision through activities, story sessions and on display for children to access independently. Through this, children begin to internalise new vocabulary, language patterns and begin to retell stories.

Books are high profile within the EYFS environment and related texts will be found in the different areas of learning to engage children with a range of fiction, non-fiction and poetry books.

Oracy is a key focus at Parish and we ensure that this is our priority when working alongside our children. We use Blank’s level questioning as part of our universal provision for all children, as well as the Wellcomm language interventions where appropriate.

Maths

We implement the Mastering Number scheme in Reception with the aim of developing fluency and confidence with number. We also follow the White Rose Maths scheme of work which is divided into 3 weekly units. This allows for consistency of approach through school. High quality learning environments, open-ended resources and meaningful interactions with adults, support children in developing mathematical thinking and discussion. Pupils learn through games and tasks using concrete manipulatives and pictorial structures and representations which are then rehearsed and applied within their own child-led exploration.

In Nursery, children develop a love of maths through games, songs, rhymes, and play using concrete manipulatives, also following the White Rose Maths guidance for Nursery.

Wider Curriculum

Our wider curriculum is taught through the areas of learning ‘Understanding the World’ and ‘Expressive Arts and Design.’

We plan a range of key experiences each half term, linked to real world experiences such as trips and visitors where possible, to engage our children and exploit their natural curiosity.  We aim to showcase a range of occupations and endeavour to provide children with at least one occupational visitor per half term, such as the emergency services, mechanics, vets, and other tradespeople, etc.

We focus on different artists and musicians across the year to expose the children to range of genre and encourage them to respond to these stimuli in a variety of ways.

Building further on our oracy focus, children will be encouraged to employ subject specific language and terminology in foundation subjects, and such vocabulary will be modelled by supporting practitioners.

 

Impact

From their own starting points, children will make excellent progress academically and socially, developing a sense of identity so that they are well prepared for the transition into Key Stage 1. Children will demonstrate high levels of engagement in activities, developing their speaking and listening skills, enabling them to access the learning opportunities available and communicate effectively with both adults and children. Children will have developed their Characteristics of Effective Learning and be able to apply their knowledge to a range of situations, making links and explaining their ideas and understanding. Children will be confident to take risks and discuss their successes and failures with adults, drawing on their experiences to improve or adjust what they are doing. Children at the end of Foundation stage will have developed essential knowledge and skills required for everyday life and the next stage of their education as they transition from EYFS to Year One. Children at Middleton Parish Church School will be ready to learn, respectful, reflective and aspirational.