Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum Statement
The EYFS was revised in September 2020 and was legally effective from September 2021 for all providers of early years education and care.
The Government's two key aims for the changes to the EYFS are;
- To improve outcomes at age five, particularly in early language and literacy
- Reduce workload so that practitioners can spend more time interacting with children in their care.
Our Nursery School and Children’s Centre considers the holistic development of all our children.
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is based around four steering principles and these inform our curriculum and shape our practice at Woodlands. They are…
A Unique Child
Every child is a unique child who is constantly learning and can be resilient, capable, confident and self-assured.
Positive Relationships
Children learn to be strong and independent through the development of caring, secure and positive relationships with parents/carers and the adults who are supporting them in school.
Enabling Environments
The internal and external environment plays a key role in supporting and extending children’s development and learning with adults teaching and supporting children with different interests and needs.
Learning and Development
Children develop and learn in different ways and at different rates and all areas of learning and development are equally important and inter-connected. The framework covers the education and care of all children in the early years, provision, including children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
We provide rich and engaging opportunities which will support all children to make choices, share ideas and form opinions, reflect and adapt and be excited by discovery and investigation.
We plan carefully thought through and exciting activities that will support and enhance the children’s learning and ensure that all our teaching is focussed and considered to ensure that all children make good progress. We want to build on children’s knowledge and skill-sets to provide sequentially challenging and demanding opportunities for them to be developing and growing over time.
We plan using the children’s learning needs, interests and a series of mini projects. Our plans change daily to reflect the ever growing and changing needs of the children.
The EYFS (2021)
There are three prime areas and four specific areas of learning and development in the Foundation Stage Framework curriculum.
The Three Prime Areas are especially important for building a foundation of learning and curiosity and creating an enthusiasm for lifelong learning and working successfully together with others.
Prime Areas:
- Personal, Social and Emotional Development (PSE)
- Communication and Language
- Physical Development.
In the Prime Areas, the children learn to:
- Share, take turns and recognise and respect difference and similarity.
- Make friends, learn how to be a good friend and expect others to be a good friend to them.
- Be autonomous and independent in their learner and behave appropriately when playing with others.
- Listen to others and understand spoken language to support effective communication development.
- Learn new words rapidly, use them in conversations and develop their own narratives and explanations. They will be immersed in a language rich environment and be provided with endless opportunities to join in conversations with adults and children.
- To begin to develop control of their bodies appropriately. Using large scale gross motor movements e.g. running and climbing and also fine motor movements such as holding pencils and using scissors.
The prime areas are then strengthened and enriched by the specific areas. They cannot be developed alone and should build on the development gained through the Prime areas. They need to reflect the individual children’s backgrounds including cultural backgrounds and their life experiences.
Specific Areas:
- Literacy
- Mathematics
- Understanding the World
- Expressive Arts and Design.
In the Specific Areas, the children learn to:-
- Love books and enjoy sharing books and stories alone and with groups of children and adults. Learn how to read simple sentences using phonic knowledge to decode regular words.
- They will be encouraged and supported to want to write and understand the purpose of writing. The will draw, make marks, write letters, words and simple sentences.
- They will be encouraged to enjoy problem solving and to accurately count groups of objects and recognise numerals.
- They will learn about simple mathematical concepts such as addition, subtraction etc.
- Use everyday language to talk about size, weight, capacity, distance, time, money and shape.
- Look closely at how things work, why things happen, living things and the natural world.
- Be creative, imaginative and inventive. They will be supported to sing songs, dance and create models, drawings, paintings and stories and imaginative role play scenarios.
The children’s learning is further enhanced by:
