St. Joseph’s Catholic Primary School Early Years Foundation Stage

Intent, Implementation and Impact

The Early years Foundation Stage, EYFS, is the period of education from birth to 5 years. In our Foundation Stage we have a nursery class where we can accommodate 24 children in each session, including up to 7 30 hour children the rest of the children either attend a morning or afternoon session. We accommodate a 45 children in our reception class unit within 2 classes. Nursery and Reception classes work closely together to ensure consistency and progression throughout a child's time in our Foundation Stage Unit. Our Mission statement ‘you are precious in my eyes’ is at the heart of everything we do.

Intent  

At St. Joseph’s catholic Primary school the curriculum is designed to recognise children’s prior learning and experiences which always start from home. Every child is recognised as a unique individual and we welcome and celebrate differences within our school community. We believe that a child’s first experience of school should be a memorable and a positive start to their learning journey.

We use a topic based approach to teach the EYFS curriculum. We have a new topic each term which aims to widen children's vocabulary, consolidate and deepen knowledge whilst ensuring children meet their next steps. 

We provide a vocabulary rich environment that supports learning which is carefully planned for and provided in both the indoor and outdoor classrooms. The support of parents /carers is actively encouraged and greatly valued. We work with parents in order to nurture independent, happy learners who thrive in school and reach their full potential from their various starting points.

Throughout their time in our EYFS, the children develop a sense of belonging to the school community and are ready to transition into year 1. They have secure foundations and are ready to continue their learning journey at St. Joseph’s catholic primary school. They move forward as confident, independent learners who are able to communicate their ideas.

Implementation   

At St. Joseph’s catholic Primary School we follow the Early Years Statutory framework for teaching and learning of the EYFS curriculum. This ensures there is a broad, balanced progressive learning environment and curriculum. The children will learn new skills, acquire new knowledge and demonstrate understanding through the seven areas of the EYFS curriculum. These areas are and include the 3 prime areas which are:

• Personal, Social and Emotional Development – involves providing opportunities for young children to be active and interactive; and to develop their co-ordination, control, and movement. Children must also be helped to understand the importance of physical activity, and to make healthy choices in relation to food.
• Communication and Language – involves giving children opportunities to experience a rich language environment; to develop their confidence and skills in expressing themselves; and to speak and listen in a range of situations.
• Physical Development – involves helping children to develop a positive sense of themselves, and others; to form positive relationships and develop respect for others; to develop social skills and learn how to manage their feelings; to understand appropriate behaviour in groups; and to have confidence in their own abilities.

As children grow and make progress in the prime areas, this will help them to naturally develop skills within the four specific areas. These are:

• Literacy – the early teaching of literacy involves encouraging children to link sounds and letters and to begin to read and write. Children are given access to a wide range of reading materials (books, poems, and other written materials) to ignite their interest.
• Mathematics – the early teaching of mathematics involves providing children with opportunities to develop and improve their skills in counting, understanding and using numbers, calculating simple addition and subtraction problems; and describing shapes, spaces, and measures.
• Understanding the World – this involves guiding children to make sense of their physical world and their community through opportunities to explore, observe and find out about people, places, technology and the environment.
• Expressive Arts and Design – this involves enabling children to explore and play with a wide range of media and materials, as well as providing opportunities and encouragement for sharing their thoughts, ideas and feelings through a variety of activities in art, music, movement, dance, role-play, and design and technology.

The curriculum is designed around a topic approach and is one that values, and takes into account children’s interests. We encourage active learning to ensure that the children are engaged and motivated.

Many of our children enter school at a low starting point with poor language skills. As a result of this, we maximise opportunities to widen their vocabulary through focused activities, story time, talk for writing and talking opportunities wherever possible.

We put in place Early Talk Boost for every child in Nursery and any child who needs extra language development in Reception. It is an intervention carried out by experienced TA 3 times a week for 20 minutes a sessions to develop listening and speaking skills.

Due to the limited experiences many of our pupils have outside school, we organise various educational trips in order to provide them with new experiences. Nursery plan a trip towards the end of the year to the farm and Reception plan two trips. One trip to Imagine that and another to the beach.  

Oracy is a key focus for our school. We expect our environment to be vocabulary rich with children being introduced to new vocabulary and being encouraged to use this appropriately.

In Nursery, the focus is on the prime areas of learning. Children often enter with low levels of personal and social skills, language skills and physical skills including not being toilet trained. Therefore, emphasis is placed upon these areas. Children experience a wide range of activities to support their physical development including gross motor and fine motor skills; both indoors and outdoors. Staff work closely with parents to support them to develop their children’s self-care skills. Staff will support children to develop their social skills, encouraging them to share resources with their peers, to talk to one another and to learn to play together.

In Reception, children will have a phonics session, either a maths or literacy session every day.  There is one other planned directed task which reflects the needs of the children in other curriculum areas including P.E. with Miss Bell and R.E.

Practical, purposeful resources in continuous provision support play, the learning process and language development. Through continuous provision children are using, consolidating and challenging skills taught throughout the year on a daily basis. During the school day, children will have an opportunity to work independently, work collaboratively with their friends and with members of staff.

We ensure activities support the Characteristics of Effective Learning to ensure learning takes place. These are:   

• Playing and Exploring – children investigate and experience things, and have a go; 
• Active Learning – children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties, and enjoy achievements; 
• Creating and Thinking Critically – children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas and develop strategies for doing things.

The role of the adult is key. Adults are organised to accommodate indoor and outdoor provision. They support learning through a mixture of direct teaching and supporting play through child initiated activities. Through observation, direct teaching, quality interactions, questioning and modelling the adult will create an ‘enabling’ environment in which children can progress.

EYFS staff play a pivotal role in supporting children’s transition into Key Stage 1. We prepare children for Year 1 with visits to their new class, meeting the teacher and ensuring that the classroom environments are similar at the end of EYFS and the start of Year 1.

Impact 

We want each child to get the best possible start in life and to be ready to thrive in KS1. At St. Josephs’ we do this by ensuring ongoing assessment is an integral part of the learning process. Staff observe pupils and these observations are used to plan next steps.

We use an online and paper learning journey to record assessments which is also shared with the parents in nursery and reception. Reception also have writing and a R.E. book which shows evidence of their developing skills.

At the end of EYFS, staff completes the EYFS profile for each child. Pupils are assessed against the 17 early learning goals. We aim that our pupils will leave our Foundation stage ready for the next stage in their education and be ready for Year 1 by:

• Using their phonics knowledge to read accurately with increasing speed and fluency.
• Write correctly punctuated simple sentences.
• Understand and use early numbers.
• Have good personal, physical and social skills.
• Enjoy, listening attentively and responding with comprehension to familiar stories and rhymes.
• Demonstrate positive attitudes to learning through high levels of curiosity, concentration and enjoyment.
• Children will listen intently and respond positively to adults and each other.
• Be resilient learners who are keen to learn and are proud of their achievements