Emmaville Primary School

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Early Years

At Emmaville we know that the Early Years are absolutely fundamental in a child's life. Early child development sets the foundation for lifelong learning, behaviour and health. The experiences children have in early childhood shape the brain and the child's capacity to learn, the capacity to get along with others and to respond to daily challenges.
We are passionate that the children at Emmaville receive a happy; positive, active, exciting, fun, secure, and supportive start to their school life.
Curriculum Intent
 
Our EYFS curriculum is designed to:
  • Recognise and value children’s prior learning from previous settings and home experiences.
  • Provide first hand engaging, stimulating, and challenging, play-based learning experiences, allowing learners to build positive identities through managing and taking risks, having a go, developing resilience, and promoting a ‘can do’ attitude.
  • Provide high-quality provision, along with high-quality interactions, so that we are laying the foundations for the children to become independent, active, successful, and ambitious lifelong learners.
  • Offer a balance of child-initiated and adult-led learning using a continuous provision-based approach.
  • The children’s choices and interests are the driving force for building knowledge, skills, and understanding.
  • Every child is valued as an individual, safe and well cared for.
Curriculum Implementation
 
  • Across our EYFS, we follow The Early Years Statutory Framework 2021 for the Early Years Foundation Stage.
  • We also use the Birth to 5 Matters 2021 document to guide our curriculum.
  • The Framework specifies the requirement for learning and development in the Early Years and provides prime and specific areas of learning we must cover in our curriculum.
  • Prime Areas: Personal, Social and Emotional Development, Physical Development, Communication and Language development.
  • Specific Areas covered- Literacy, Mathematics, Understanding the World,  Expressive Arts and Design.
  • Focus at first is on the prime areas of learning. These form the foundation of a child’s learning. Once the children are secure in these areas they will begin to work on the specific areas of learning.
  • A vital aspect in the development of essential knowledge and skills is the use of continuous provision. This means that children are using and developing taught skills throughout the year on a daily/weekly basis.
  • Continuous Provision practice and principles begin in the Early Years Foundation Stage and support children to develop key life skills such as independence; creativity, inquiry, and problem-solving.
  • Continuous provision areas are set up to reflect children’s interests, as well as ensuring that reading, writing, and maths are high profile.
  • Throughout a typical day, learners will have the opportunity to work independently, work collaboratively with their peers and work with practitioners.
  • There are several direct teaching sessions taking place daily in Reception. These include:

-       Read, Write Inc phonics

-       Maths, using the White Rose Maths Hub Mastery planning as well as NCETM progression documents

-       English using the Talk for Writing approach

  • In Reception we also have:

-       Two PE lessons each week

-       Weekly PSED lesson, using the Jigsaw scheme of work

-       ‘Thought of the Day' lessons that incorporate the Discovery RE scheme of work

  • In Nursery, we have two ‘group times’ in each half-day session. These are teacher-led sessions and each day will focus upon one or more of the seven Areas of Learning.

          These will always include:

-       Early Phonological Awareness

-       In the summer term of the year, some children will progress to the Read, Write Inc phonics programme

-       A storytime each session using a carefully considered text

-       Each half term we use the Talk for Writing approach to study a key text

-       Maths

-       Fine motor skills development using programmes such as ‘Dough Disco’ and ‘Squiggle Whilst you Wiggle.’

-       Gross motor skills using programmes such as Yogabugs and skill-based games.

-       PSED using the Jigsaw scheme of work

Curriculum Impact
 
  • The impact of our curriculum is measured by the observations and assessments that we carry out on a daily basis.
  • The impact on our curriculum is measured by how well practitioners know each individual child.
  • The impact of our curriculum is measured by internal termly data, as well as measuring outcomes against the LA and nationally at the end of the EYFS phase.
  • The impact of our curriculum will also, in fact, be measured by how effectively it helps our learners to develop into well-rounded individuals who are independent, active, successful, and ambitious lifelong learners.
Statutory & Non-Statutory documents
EYFS_framework_-_March_2021.pdf
Birthto5Matters-download.pdf
Emmaville Primary School Early Years Policy September 2024.pdf