Early Years Foundation Stage
Intent
The Early Years Foundation Stage at St Joseph’s provides a solid foundation for children's learning and development. Our aim is that every child receives high-quality provision that is inclusive, stimulating and supportive of their individual needs and interests so that ultimately our pupils go on to be active citizens of society and be happy, inquisitive, life-long learners. The principles and purpose of our curriculum are driven by developing:
- a love for learning
- a sense of self
- awe and wonder
- aspiration and achievement
The Reception curriculum allows children’s creativity, curiosity and confidence to flourish whilst developing interpersonal and social skills, building resilience and fostering a growth mindset. We aim to provide a nurturing, fun, positively challenging and rich educational environment that enables each individual to thrive. We celebrate children’s individual talents and achievements and provide them with the skills they need for the next steps of their education.
Our Mission statement, ‘We work, learn and grow together in God’s love’, is at the heart of everything we do. We place a strong emphasis on the religious, spiritual, social, moral and cultural development of all our pupils, encouraging all to achieve positive human potential.
At St Joseph’s we ensure our curriculum provides children with both a range of familiar topics, linked to their previous experiences, as well as unfamiliar topics, to spark their interests and exploration of the wider world. This helps to provide a curriculum where children feel safe and secure when developing new knowledge and skills, yet challenged and exposed to new learning.
We encourage all our children to be resilient and aim high. An emphasis on the development of the characteristics of effective learning provides children with the skills they need to thrive and reach their full potential. We work collaboratively with parents to ensure they have the confidence to support their child’s holistic development.
Implementation
We have implemented a child-centred Early Years curriculum that aligns with the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) framework. The curriculum is carefully planned and sequenced to ensure a broad and balanced range of experiences and opportunities for our young learners. Each day we stimulate the children’s interests, respond to each child’s emerging needs, and guide their development through warm, positive and genuine interactions. We incorporate active and play-based learning, where children are engaged in purposeful, hands-on activities that develop their skills across all 7 areas of learning.
Our teaching is facilitated by a team of skilled practitioners who have a deep understanding of child development, and the specific needs of young children. We prioritise high quality interactions and ensure all staff have received training to implement this effectively.
The daily timetable ensures children have access to uninterrupted child led learning as well as opportunities to take part in adult guided whole class and group activities. The characteristics of effective learning are introduced to the children through stories to ensure children have a deep understanding of the skills they need to learn and solve problems.
At St Joseph’s, we want all children in EYFS to develop the ability to communicate effectively. Our daily story time provides an opportunity to teach rich and exciting vocabulary. Focus texts are carefully mapped out and ensure there is a balance of fiction, non-fiction and rhyming books. Children are exposed to stories by new authors and classic authors and by reading high quality texts on multiple occasions, story language is retained and applied across the curriculum. We promote a love of reading through inviting reading areas with engaging, high-quality texts and open-ended story-based tasks. The NELI programme is used each year to support and improve children’s language and early literacy skills.
Children access daily phonics lessons based on our chosen scheme ‘Red Rose Letters and Sounds’. Regular assessment ensures gaps in children’s learning are identified quickly and support is implemented through tailored teaching within phonics sessions and continuous provision, and through targeted intervention groups.
Daily maths in EYFS is taught using the ‘White Rose’ scheme. Maths is embedded through daily routines and within continuous provision. Follow up activities in small groups are also implemented where appropriate to consolidate learning and support children needing additional guidance.
Children's progress is carefully monitored through ongoing formative assessments, which inform next steps and allow for adaptive teaching to meet individual needs. Assessments also provide opportunities for dialogue and collaboration with parents, so that they are actively involved in their child's learning journey. We keep parents up to date with ways to support learning at home through weekly guidance in School Planners, by delivering ‘Learning Evenings’ and ‘Stay and Play’ sessions. We believe working in partnership with parents can help children to grow in confidence and develop to their full potential.