Early Years Foundation Stage

Here at Longshaw, we provide our youngest children with a welcoming and stimulating environment, where they feel safe, secure and have a sense of belonging. We enable children to feel confident about themselves, build positive relationships with peers and staff within an inclusive setting.

Our curriculum provides first hand experiences and promotes learning through purposeful play, allowing children to become independent, resilient, and curious learners. The teaching of key basic skills alongside a rich diet of quality continuous and enhanced provision prepares children for the next stage of their learning.

Children in the Early Years follow the EYFS curriculum which gives children a broad range of knowledge and skills that provide the right foundations for good future progress through school and life. Our curriculum is language rich and each of our topics uses inspiring stories as starting points. 

The EYFS curriculum is a programme of learning opportunities towards a set of Early Learning Goals. These goals outline the skills, understanding, knowledge and attitudes that are expected at the end of the EYFS. 

Children learn and hone new skills and knowledge and demonstrate their understanding through seven areas of learning and development. The EYFS is organised into 7 areas of learning: 

Prime Areas:

• Communication and Language
• Physical Development
• Personal, Social and Emotional Development

Specific Areas:

• Literacy
• Mathematics
• Understanding the World
• Expressive Arts and Creative Designs

Through the EYFS curriculum we also embed the characteristics of effective learning: playing and exploring, active learning, and creativity and critical thinking. 

Playing and exploring 

We provide daily opportunities for children to learn through play and adults support children by holding high quality discussions around children’s thinking. When learning through play children are given opportunities to explore and develop learning experiences, which help them make sense of the world. They learn how to control themselves and understand the need for rules. They can think creatively alongside other children as well as on their own, communicate with others as they investigate, solve problems and learn. 

Active Learning 

We have a balance of adult-initiated and child-initiated activities. Phonics, maths, reading and literacy lessons are adult-led, and opportunities are followed up with a rich provision of activities and resources for children to consolidate and extend their learning through play. This encourages independence, control over their learning and, most importantly, enjoyment: developing a love of learning. We provide children with challenges to advance their learning and encourage them to use the new skills and knowledge they have been taught. 

Creativity and Critical Thinking 

When children have opportunities to explore their ideas in different situations, using a variety of resources, they discover connections and come to a better understanding, adapting and developing new ways of doing things. Adults support this process and enhance their ability to think critically and ask questions. Children are given time to test out their ideas and discuss their discoveries with others, sharing their understanding and knowledge. 

Children are observed carefully by adults: learning and progress is tracked and next steps are identified for all children. 

At Longshaw, children in the EYFS are provided with the foundations of knowledge needed to thrive and succeed in their future. Our enriching and diverse learning environments both indoors and outside, allow all our children to explore and experiment through play whilst being scaffolded and supported by the adults to push their thinking further.

Reading

Reading is a big part of the Early years. We read to the children regularly throughout the day, and we place high value on the sharing of stories. We have a large reading area full of books that is replenished regularly. Our books include a selection of traditional tales, story books and non-fiction books for the children to choose and enjoy when they wish.

We have a focus story that we use with the children to support our literacy sessions. These help children to understand how stories are structured, and the main elements that writers use to create and develop adventures using written language. Our focus story changes every week, enabling us to expose the children to as many stories as possible.

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 uphold strong positive values and carry the knowledge, skills and attitudes which will make them lifelong learners and valuable future citizens.

When children leave Reception, not only are they ready for Year One, but they are well-rounded individuals with positive attitudes towards learning and future life.