Welcome to the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) at St John’s Church of England Academy. We believe that every child deserves the best possible start in life to enable them to fulfil their full potential. The EYFS at St John’s CE Academy builds those foundations in a happy and nurturing environment.
Intent
The curriculum in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is designed to provide a broad and balanced education that meets the needs of all pupils from our 2 yr Nursery, 3 yr Nursery through to the end of Reception. It facilitates the children to gain the skills, knowledge and understanding, as they start out on their educational journey.
Together with parents/carers, we engage each child and support them to learn through play, including a mixture of adult-led and child-initiated activities which include following the children’s interests. During play, children learn at their highest level, they explore and investigate, helping them to make sense of the world. Activities are planned for both the inside and outside areas.
Many of our children arrive below the national expectations for their age. As such, we prioritise Personal, Social and Emotional Development and Communication and Language in the curriculum, teaching them how to listen, speak and meet the high expectations for behaviour by working together and being kind. Our enabling environments enable staff to deliver a curriculum to develop a love of reading, writing and number. We provide opportunities for cross curricular links as well as promoting the unique child by offering activities that follow the children’s interests and ideas.
Implementation
The EYFS uses the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework from birth to five years old, to provide a range of learning experiences through which the children have opportunities to develop the Characteristics of Effective Learning:
- Playing and exploring
- Be an active learner
- Be creative and think critically
The curriculum is planned around 7 Areas of Learning.
All areas of learning and development are important and inter-connected. Three areas are particularly crucial for igniting children’s curiosity and enthusiasm for learning, and for building their capacity to learn, form relationships and thrive. These three areas, the Prime Areas, are:
- Communication and Language;
- Physical Development; and
- Personal, Social and Emotional Development.
Teachers and teaching assistants also support children in four Specific Areas, through which the three Prime Areas are strengthened and applied. The Specific Areas are:
- Literacy;
- Mathematics;
- Understanding the World; and
- Expressive Arts and Design.
We plan our curriculum by looking at the individual needs of our children and their different starting points. Effective interactions between staff and children and regular home/school communication ensures that our curriculum planning and provision is flexible and continuously adapted to meet the needs of all learners and to reflect children’s needs and interests as they continue to develop and grow.
At St John’s CE Academy the EYFS includes our 2-year-old Nursery, 3-year-old Nursery and the Reception class.
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