Every child deserves the best possible start in life and the support that enables them to fulfil their potential. Children develop quickly in the early years and a child’s experiences between birth and age five have a major impact on their future life chances. A secure, safe and happy childhood is important in its own right. Good parenting and high quality early learning together provide the foundation children need to make the most of their abilities and talents as they grow up.
In the Early Years Foundation Stage children learn best when they experience learning first hand, through meaningful interactions with others, through physical activity and through play. Our Early Years practice is based on on-going observation and assessment of the children and their interests. We believe the best outcomes for children’s learning occur from either child-initiated play, actively supported by adults or focused learning, with adults guiding the learning through playful, rich and experiential activities.
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) sets the statutory standards for the learning, development and care of children from birth to 5 years old. It supports an integrated approach to early learning and care. It gives all professionals a set of common principles and commitments to deliver quality early education and childcare experiences to all children. As well as being the core document for all professionals working in the foundation years, the EYFS framework gives parents and carers confidence that regardless of where they choose for their child’s early education, they can be assured that
the same statutory commitments and principles will underpin their child’s learning and development experience.
The EYFS Framework seeks to provide:
• quality and consistency in all early years settings, so that every child makes good progress and no child gets left behind
• a secure foundation through planning for the learning and development of each individual child, and assessing and reviewing what they have learned regularly
• partnership working between practitioners and with parents and/or carers
• equality of opportunity and anti-discriminatory practice, ensuring that every child is included and supported
Birth to 5 Matters
At Greenfields we use Birth to 5 Matters document (a non-statutory curriculum guidance) to help inform our daily practice and create our own benchmarking checkpoints to monitor children’s learning and development over time. Our benchmarking checkpoints are intended to be used as a guide to support practitioners in making best-fit summative judgements, in collaboration with parents/carers and colleagues across agencies, about whether a child is showing typical development, may be at risk of delay or is working significantly behind age-related expectations. In making these informed judgements, we remember that young children develop at their own rates and in their own ways. We work hard to ensure that all children are given the appropriate challenge or support to reach their full potential.
What to Expect in the EYFS: A Guide for Parents/Carers
Parents and carers have a vital role in supporting their children’s learning and development, especially during their formative early years. Parents/carers need to know what to expect in relation to their child’s development through the different areas of learning & development and age bands of the EYFS.
The EYFS consists of 7 areas of learning and development, made up of 3 prime and 4 specific areas.
Children first focus on the 3 prime areas of Communication & Language, Personal, Social & Emotional Development and Physical Development, which are crucial for igniting children’s curiosity and enthusiasm for learning.
The 3 prime areas are strengthened and applied through the 4 specific areas of Literacy, Mathematics, Understanding the World and Expressive Arts & Design.
EYFS Profile
The level of development children should be expected to have attained by the end of the EYFS is defined by the 17 Early Learning Goals (ELGs) set out in the EYFS Framework. The ELGs should not be used as a curriculum or in any way to limit the wide variety of rich experiences that are crucial to child development, from being read to frequently to playing with friends. Instead, the ELGs should support practitioners in making a holistic, best-fit judgement about a child’s development and their readiness for Year 1. When forming a judgement about whether an individual child is at the expected level of
development, teachers will draw on their knowledge of the child and their own expert professional judgement.
All early years providers (including Greenfields) must complete an EYFS Profile for each child in the final term of the year in which they turn 5. For most children this is the end of
the Reception year in primary school. The main purpose is to provide an accurate assessment of individual children at the end of the EYFS. The profile describes each child’s attainment against 17 Early Learning Goals, together with a short narrative about their learning characteristics.
Intent- Why do we teach what we teach?
Our aim in the EYFS is to enable the children to become confident, motivated and happy learners, developing the skills and attitudes necessary for their own successful future learning.
Our curriculum is based around providing first hand learning experiences, through meaningful interactions with others, through physical activity and through play. We provide the knowledge, skills and understanding they require for success. We always consider the individual needs, interests, and development of each child. We use this information to plan challenging and enjoyable experiences for each child in all areas of their learning and development through the Characteristics of Effective Learning – Play and Exploring, Active Learning and Creative and Critical Thinking. Many of our pupils arrive well below national expectations for their age and a high proportion come from disadvantaged backgrounds and with complex needs. We have to teach them how to listen, speak and meet the high expectations for behaviour by working together and being kind. We prioritise personal, social and emotional development and communication and language in our two year old provision and in Nursery. Our enabling environment and our nurturing and skillful adult interactions support the children as they begin to link learning to their play and exploration. As the pupils move into Reception we continue to focus on these areas as well as early reading, writing and mathematical skills. This is delivered through a holistic curriculum which maximises opportunities for meaningful cross-curricular links and learning experiences as well as promoting the unique child by offering extended periods of play and sustained thinking following children’s interests and ideas. We value imagination and creativity and seek to create a sense of enjoyment and fascination in learning through our indoor and outdoor provision, alongside trips and visits. We promote a forest school approach, where learning outdoors is weaved into our daily activities and learning.
Implementation- How to we teach what we teach?
Teaching in EYFS can take on many forms and it covers the many different ways that adults within the setting help children to learn. We understand that the interactions between the adults and children are vital during planned and child-initiated play and activities. Practitioners interact with children though modelling language, showing, explaining, demonstrating, exploring, questioning, encouraging and investigating and providing challenges. Pupils learn through a balance of child-initiated and adult-directed activities. In Reception the timetable is carefully structured so that children have rigorous directed teaching in phonics, maths and writing. These sessions are followed by small group work/ 1:1 sessions so that the teacher can systematically check for understanding, identify and respond to misconceptions quickly and provide verbal feedback.
Children are provided with time to engage in ‘exploration’ throughout the variety of experiences carefully planned to engage and challenge them in the provision. The curriculum is planned for the inside and
outside classrooms and equal importance is given to learning in both areas. The curriculum is planned in a cross-curricular way to enable all aspects of the children’s development including understanding the world and expressive art and design as well as to promote sustained thinking and active learning. Reading is at the heart of our curriculum. Children follow the rigorous and systematic phonics programme, Read Write Inc. Daily interventions are carried out to support children who are finding phonics more difficult. A love of reading is at the heart of our curriculum with highly engaging books being part of out topics/themes. We develop a love of reading through high quality and positive shared interactions with adults.
In Reception we focus on the maths ‘Big Ideas’ with an emphasis on studying key skills of number, calculation and shape so that pupils develop deep understanding and the acquisition of mathematical language. Pupils learn through games and tasks using concrete objects which are then rehearsed and applied to their own learning during exploration. Reception pupils develop these key skills during daily maths meetings where they explore number, calculation, shape and measure. These early mathematical experiences are carefully designed to help pupils remember the content they have been taught and to support them with integrating their new knowledge across the breadth of their experiences and into larger concepts. Our inclusive approach means that all children learn together but we have a range of additional intervention and support to enhance and scaffold children who may not be reaching their potential or moving on children who are doing very well. This includes, BLAST, which is a language intervention used in Nursery and Reception. We use ‘immediate interventions’ in maths to address gaps in learning. The characteristics of effective learning are viewed as an integral part of all areas of learning and are reflected in our observations of children.
Our regular monitoring of teaching and learning includes coaching and feedback from the phase leader so that teachers develop good subject knowledge and are effectively supported. We tailor our staff CPD to be early years specific and are focused on moderating outcomes across the phase so that every member of our team feels confident in making accurate judgements about where individual pupils are and their next steps for learning.
The EYFS team collect evidence of children’s learning through work completed in their work books and literacy books (Reception), observations, photos and videos which are shared with parents daily using the SeeSaw online system. This means that parents can engage with children regularly about their learning and can contribute to the knowledge we have of the child in school. Parents are very active and love to use SeeSaw to follow their child’s progress.
Impact- How do we know what pupils have learnt and how well they have learnt it?
Baseline: Prior to children starting, staff spend time speaking to the child’s parents, previous settings and read previous learning journey’s to gain an understanding of the whole child and where they are at. During the first half term, all staff use ongoing assessments, observations and conversations with the child to develop a baseline assessment. This identifies each individual’s starting points in all areas so we can plan experiences to ensure progress. The following baseline assessments are also carried out.
The RBA (Statutory Reception Baseline Assessment):
This assessment focuses on ‘Language, Communication and Literacy,’ and ‘Mathematics.’ The purpose of this is to show the progress children make from Reception until the end of KS2.
The Integrated Review at 2 combines the EYFS progress check and the health visitor 2-year-old check. The Two- year progress check is a statutory requirement, set by the Early Years Foundation Stage, it is completed when a child is between 24-36mths old. The progress check should identify any areas of concerns, additional support needed, and if there are any emerging signs of special educational needs.
Ongoing Observation: All ongoing observations are used to inform weekly planning and identify children’s next steps. This formative assessment does not involve prolonged periods of time away from the children and excessive paper work. Practitioners draw on their knowledge of the child and their own expert professional judgements through discussions with other practitioners, photographs and physical examples such as a child’s drawing / making. Some observations are uploaded using SeeSaw.
Assessment:
Phonic assessments are carried out using the ‘RWInc’ tracking and assessment system. This is carried out every half term to quickly identify pupils that are not making expected progress. Our aim is for children to ‘keep up’ rather than ‘catch up’ where possible. Assessments are completed six times per year and shared with parents during termly parent- teacher consultations. In Summer Term 2, the EYFSP is
completed where teacher judge whether the child has met each of the 17 ELG’s. They will be assessed as either ‘emerging’ or ‘expected.’ Impact is also evident through our successful transitions into Year 1. EYFS staff have a good understanding of how ELG’s link to the National Curriculum, and through our robust planning and delivery across the spectrum of subjects – both core and foundation – children leave the EYFS stage with the skills, knowledge and understanding in the prime and specific areas.