Early Years Foundation Stage

Intent

At St. Margaret’s Anfield Primary School we offer a curriculum which is designed for depth in learning and for each child to have an equal chance of success. Play is at the heart of our Early Years Curriculum as it gives children the chance to practise what they are learning, it is the ‘highest form of research for young children’ (Albert Einstein).

It is our intent that all children are supported to develop holistically through a high-quality, stimulating, appropriately challenging, play- promoting environment in which we endeavour to ensure that all cultures and beliefs are valued. We aim to ensure that our children are emotionally resilient and ready for the next stage of their learning experiences.

We work hard to ensure that the children’s experiences are central to our thinking, planning and resourcing. We aim to promote a real love of learning and create flexible planning which meets the children’s needs and interests.

We strive to provide real life experiences so that the children learn life skills, knowledge and memories on which to build their future learning. We have high expectations of our children and aim for them to become ambitious and independent learners.

Implementation

At St Margaret’s Anfield Primary School we meet the requirements stated in the Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage.

We understand the importance of parental engagement and believe that our parents have a crucial role to play in their children’s education. We ensure that transition to our Early Years setting is smooth and supportive for both the children and parents/carers. Parents are encouraged to engage with their children’s learning through Seesaw. We ensure that parents are aware of what is being taught in school through ‘Home School Link’ documents which are sent home weekly. We also provide information sessions and stay and play workshops to promote the home and school links.

We ensure that we promote warm and caring relationships. In this way we can discover children’s individual skills, interests and capabilities and use these as a way to identify and plan for rich experiences for all children to progress well.

We carefully plan and organise our environment to promote communication and interaction between peers and with adults. Staff ensure that the children become confident communicators, modelling and supporting high-quality interactions. Our environment is language rich environment- vocabulary is promoted through high quality interactions, songs, nursery rhymes and the use of quality texts.

Quality texts are used to develop in depth knowledge of topics and interests. These are planned flexibly around the children’s needs and all planning is responsive to the next steps we observe that need to be addressed.

We help the children to develop through play based exploratory and sensory experiences. Play is an essential part of the EY Curriculum at St, Margaret’s. This play is child-led, freely engaged in and enjoyed by the children. We ensure that the play is sensitively supported, extended by adults and well organised. We also provide the opportunity for adult led/adult initiated activities in order to scaffold areas for development and prepare the children for Year One and future learning.

We work hard to ensure that children become confident early readers through reading for pleasure and the teaching of Phonics through Read Write Inc. to support their reading skills and fast progression. Daily story time supports comprehension development. We use key worker ‘speaking and listening groups’ to model and develop social skills, extend vocabulary and address any misconceptions.

Our environment is designed to promote each of the areas of learning. Both the indoor and outdoor environments are planned for purposeful experiences and with key skills in mind. The resources provided outdoors promote exploration, inquisitiveness, risk taking and an appropriate level of challenge for the children.

We promote the children’s understanding of their role in their community and wider. In Reception we will access ‘Picture News’ sessions which explore key questions about current world wide issues and discover their own beliefs and opinions. We provide children with opportunities to access diverse texts and celebrate festivals and events important to themselves and their families. We invite visitors into school to promote an awareness of roles within society and the children’s social, moral, spiritual and cultural identity. We encourage the children to share stories of their home that reflect the values and diversities of their experiences.

We encourage the children to understand and regulate emotions using a variety of self-regulating strategies which they become more confident using as the year progresses. We use ROAR strategies and JIGSAW as ways in which to support children’s emotional and social development and their skills of positive resilience.

Impact

Our curriculum needs to meet the needs of all of our children. Through the delivery of a well-planned, child-led and challenging curriculum our children leave the Early Years Foundation Stage as independent learners, with transferrable skills needed to start Key Stage One.

We spend time as a team observing how the children are learning, noting whether the resources provided meet their learning needs and identifying experiences that will ensure progress. We discuss this information through high quality staff conversations and plan to ensure that knowledge and skills are built cumulatively. This ensures that our children make progress and develop into happy, curious young people.

Children in our setting develop positive attitudes to learning through high levels of curiosity and problem solving. They become resilient learners who are keen to learn and are proud of their achievements.