Harold Court Primary School

Implementation of the EYFS Curriculum

At Harold Court, we offer a curriculum which is broad and balanced and which builds on the knowledge, understanding and skills of all children, whatever their starting points. We follow the Early Years curriculum using topic themes and enrichment opportunities.

The aim of our curriculum is to develop a thirst and love for learning by:

• Carefully planning sequences of activities that provide meaningful learning experiences, developing each child’s characteristics of learning.
• Providing high quality interactions with adults that demonstrate and impact on the progress of all children.
• Using high quality questioning and interactions to check understanding and address misconceptions.
• Staff acting as role models to the children they teach in order for children to develop their own speaking and listening skills.
• Carefully assessing, through observations, which are recorded on 2 Simple and shared with parents. These are used to inform the next steps of learning and meet individual needs.
• Developing an effective and engaging environment that is set up so that children can access all areas of learning both inside and outside at any one time.
• Providing activity starting points for child initiated activities that enhance children’s learning and impact on progress.
• Allowing children to be successful in their attempts at an activity and using effective feedback to help facilitate next steps in learning.
• Suggesting home learning opportunities with information about what has been taught, allowing parents to build on their child’s school experiences, at home.

We recognise the changing needs and interests of our pupils and we are responsive to this, regularly developing existing topics.

The Early Years uses core texts as a basis for topic planning and usually start with an exciting hook to engage children in both the topic and the book. Phonics is explicitly taught daily and discreetly throughout the day. The phonics activities are revisited to embed over the year and supported in a range of ways including associating actions with these.

The English curriculum is taught daily with small groups of children. Children have opportunities to show independence in their writing by planning and writing their own stories. Literacy 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 to small groups of children. These sessions are carefully planned using concrete resources and build on prior learning and real life experiences across the theme and year. This starts with mastering numbers 0-5 and then progresses through to 0-10 and 0-20. We want our children to become confident mathematicians who can apply what they have learnt to real life experiences.

All seven areas of learning are encompassed within the classrooms and our Learning Garden enabling children to take risks in different environments whilst developing leadership skills and promoting mental health and wellbeing.

All seven areas of learning are delivered throughout the topic and linked closely together. They are equally important and depend on each other. All areas are delivered through a balance of adult led and child initiated activities. These areas of learning also provide an essential link between the pre-statutory curriculum and the Key Stage 1 programme of study. We have adopted these areas of learning and experience and the learning journeys as the basis for our planning, as they provide a framework which enables us to achieve our aims.

The EYFS classes have their own outdoor area ‘Learning Garden’ which is used all year round in all weathers. Being outdoors encourages learning in different ways. It offers the children more opportunities to be creative and explore on a larger scale as well as to be physically active linking the indoors and outdoors together, promoting the children’s mental health and well-being.

Parents will be provided with termly curriculum newsletters informing them of the topics to be covered, and how to support their child’s learning at home. Additional information is available at  https://www.foundationyears.org.uk/files/2012/03/Development-Matters

Impact of the EYFS curriculum

Children demonstrate high levels of engagement in activities, developing their speaking and listening skills, enabling them to access more areas of the learning and communicate to both adults and children. Children develop skills across all areas of the curriculum including literacy, mathematics and physical development using these in different ways.

Children have developed a wider sense of the world around them and can draw on these experiences during interactions with others and link this to new learning.

Children develop their characteristics of learning and are able to apply their knowledge to a range of situations making links and explaining their ideas and understanding. Children are confident to take risks and discuss their successes and failures with adults drawing on their experiences to improve or adjust what they are doing.

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 Key Stage 1.