EYFS
Intent
Our Foundation unit is led by our team of experienced practitioners who deliver ambitious learning opportunities, nurture enquiring minds and encourage a lifelong love of learning through a mixture of pupil initiated and adult led learning activities. We follow the interests of our children, responding to the changing needs of individuals and providing meaningful learning experiences. We guide your child’s development, so they make the most of their childhood at Roade and are ready to benefit from the opportunities ahead of them. We believe that all children are intrinsically capable of amazing things, and we develop this through having high expectations of all children. We pose challenges, build confidence and self-esteem, promote diversity, show children how capable they are and support them to reach their potential. We want our children to be happy, confident and to feel safe. We want to support them to develop their creativity and drive their ambition. Through our curriculum, we foster a love of learning where children are excited and motivated to learn.
Our staff care deeply about the diversity of the children within our school and beyond. We treat all children as individuals and promote positive relationships with our families and the wider community to promote the best outcomes for all children.
Our ambitious curriculum covers the 7 areas of learning, is well sequenced and progressive to ensure that learning builds over time and is informed by, Development Matters, Read, Write, Inc., White Rose Maths, the work of Early Excellence and our continuous provision planning. Our curriculum is further supported by well researched, expertly written curriculum resources such as Cornerstones, SCARF PSHE, the PE Hub and Kapow music that link to the lessons children go on to experience in KS1 and beyond. This ensures that learning is explicit, clearly defined and motivates all children to find success and creatively achieve the Early Learning Goals.
Our Foundation stage provision is enhanced by our outside learning environment which enables children to explore outside and compliments the high quality, engaging inside environment providing alternative learning experiences and placing children at the centre of the provision being made. The area is filled with resources and play materials that can be adapted and used in different ways. Children have access to a mud kitchen, stage performance area, pebble construction zone, role play houses and a nature area. This raises children’s self-esteem, confidence, helps to develop harmonious relationships with others through turn taking and cooperation and improves their health, development and wellbeing. The outside area provides opportunities for physical activity, managed risk taking, imaginative play, freedom and movement. Literacy and language is the core of learning in our EYFS provision and so, as an English Hub, the learning in the unit is based around key texts and reading is prioritised throughout. Every term, the learning is driven by high quality, rich texts.
Implementation
Our high-quality plans, pathways and resources empower teachers with the subject knowledge they need to feel confident teaching new learning and support teachers’ workload and wellbeing, allowing them to focus more time on their personal pedagogy. Learning in our foundation stage also follows children’s interests and is flexible and responsive to our children’s needs and intrinsic motivations.
Weekly enhancements in each area capitalise on these interests and enable children to follow their interests in greater depth, moving their learning forwards. Teachers explicitly teach metacognitive strategies throughout the day, prompting children to think about what they already know and how they can use this knowledge. Children in foundation are autonomous learners and take part in daily ‘plan, do, review’ sessions where they pursue their own interests, follow their motivations and reflect on their success.
During independent learning, teachers:
- encourage children to think about how they can use and apply their existing knowledge and skills to help them be successful.
- check for children’s prerequisite knowledge and challenge misconceptions
- model expert practice
- model and develop rich vocabulary
- challenge children
Individual teachers benefit from coaching, mentoring, networking and CPD to further develop their expertise and support their teaching.
Teachers' observations identify where children are achieving well and how children are progressing through the curriculum from their starting points. Learning is celebrated in displays, communication with parents and from having the parents and carers in for stay and play visits each half term.
Floor books capture children’s personal class learning journeys, their interests, their learning from awareness weeks, their questions, their learning in PSHE, their shared experiences, their work surrounding values, celebrations of trips, visits, visitors and experiences, their personal successes, their voices and their shared identity as a class.
Phonics is taught daily using Read Write Inc. through differentiated phonic groups, led by our highly trained staff. Phonic sounds are introduced in a systematic manner and progress is monitored with children moving on to read books from the scheme. The sessions are delivered in an engaging way and activities are revisited to embed over the year and supported in a range of ways including Hold a Sentence, Fred Talk and rhymes and phrases associated with each sound.
The English curriculum is taught using rich and engaging, high quality texts that run alongside our projects in EYFS. Literacy and Phonics opportunities are also promoted in many of the continuous provision activities available to children during the week.
The Maths curriculum is taught through daily dedicated sessions and follows our comprehensive maths pathway. These sessions are carefully planned using concrete resources and pictorial representations building on prior learning and real-life experiences.
You may wish to download our EYFS year overview for further information here.
Impact
Senior leaders work alongside the EYFS team and subject leaders to measure the impact of our curriculum through a continuous cycle of monitoring. Children in Foundation, make memories and foster a life-long love of learning that equips them with the skills and attributes which will allow them to flourish both in school and beyond. Children leave Foundation having met their potential, gained new knowledge, learnt new skills, have confidence in their own abilities and are curious to learn more. Children have an enriched vocabulary, an emerging bank of traditional stories, rhymes and songs and have begun to foster a lifelong love of reading. Children are kind to others, have positive attitudes to learning and are proud of who they are and what they have achieved. From their own starting points, children will make excellent progress academically and socially, developing a sense of themselves so that they are well prepared for the transition into Key Stage 1
