Early Years Foundation Stage

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is a very important stage as it helps your child get ready for ‘big school’. In Flora Gardens Primary School we ensure that your child is learning from the moment they enter our warm and interactive classrooms, our friendly and enthusiastic team also ensure that your children are safe and secure. Our EYFS endeavour to provide your child with the best start through our daily fun and child centred activities. Our learning is happy, active, exciting and fun and we support pupil’s development, care and learning needs daily. Between the ages of 3-5 years old your children are learning and developing the vital skills needed to ensure that they are secure with moving on to KS1.

Flora Gardens EYFS – Intent, Implementation and Impact 

Intent:

At Flora Gardens Primary School our aim is to create a learning experience for our children which supports, enhances and inspires physical, cognitive, emotional and social development, regardless of their backgrounds or needs. We are lucky to be in such a culturally diverse area which we use to our advantage in immersing children with high quality learning experiences. We work collaboratively with parents and carers to encourage learners to be independent, creative and curious.

We baseline each child when they start with us in the EYFS, and use this information to plan a diverse, rich and differentiated curriculum. Our intent is to provide each child with the opportunity to fulfil their potential and work on reaching the Early Learning Goals at the end of the Early Years Foundation Stage, ensuring that the children make progress from their individual starting points.

Our curriculum design is a topic based, holistic approach which maximises opportunities for cross-curricular links, whilst also offering periods of extended free flow where children are encouraged to develop their thoughts, interests and ideas, through the help of skilful interactions from practitioners. The EYFS team works hard to ensure both our indoor and outdoor environments inspire children to challenge themselves, and reach their full potential.

Implementation:

At Flora Gardens Primary School we follow the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework, putting special emphasis on the following four principles:

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 positive relationships.

Enabling Environments – Children learn and develop well in enabling environments, in which their experiences respond to their individual needs and there is a strong partnership between practitioners and parents and carers.

Learning and Development – Children develop and learn in different ways. The framework covers the education and care of all children in early year’s provision, including children with special educational needs and disabilities.

Our curriculum delivery provides lots of play based learning, combined with whole class carpet sessions, small group activities, and 1-1 teaching to ensure children make rapid progress. Children across the EYFS are provided with opportunities throughout the day to access both the indoor and outdoor provision. Some activities are planned, focused and adult led, whilst there is also ample opportunities for self-initiated play too. The learning experiences are linked to the seven areas of learning within the EYFS:

• 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.
• 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 children at Flora Gardens also benefit from a range of other meaningful learning experiences including specialist PE, Music and Speech & Language lessons. Rich first hand learning experiences also include trips, visitors, and the use of Ravenscourt Park which allows children to widen their knowledge, whilst building on existing skills, including the Characteristics of Effective Learning.

Impact:

The impact of our curriculum is measured by assessment outcomes and progress. We use observations of the children to formatively assess their progress which helps to inform our future planning. Summative assessments look at the children’s attainment in relation to age related expectations, using Development Matters. Their work and observations are evidenced in their individual learning journeys and exercise books. Parents often comment on how lovely our learning journeys are and it is a wonderful keepsake to remember their time in the EYFS. We endeavour to ensure that our children all make progress from their initial starting points, including EAL, SEND and the disadvantaged. To ensure standards are kept high, we moderate both internally with other classes, as well as externally with other local schools and EYFS advisors.

The impact of our curriculum can also be measured by the way in which the children at Flora Gardens are excited and enthusiastic about their learning. We ensure they develop into positive learners who enjoy challenge and are ready for the next stage in their education, both academically and socially.

Whilst we follow the Development Matters curriculum for our children, we also aim to provide our children with a broad and balanced education. We are aware of our children's starting points and have set our own curriculum goals of outcomes we would like them to achieve by the end of the EYFS.