Our Early Years Foundation Stage aims to provide a secure foundation for all future learning, giving our children the skills to thrive and succeed with confidence and independence across the curriculum.

The Early Years Foundation Stage comprises three Prime Areas and four Specific Areas. These seven areas of learning are implemented through a combination of planned and child-initiated play opportunities within indoor and outdoor provisions. The Early Years Foundation Stage also embraces three Characteristics of Learning:

• Playing and exploring – engagement
• Active learning – motivation
• Creating and thinking critically – thinking

The Characteristics of Learning are at the heart of our Early Years Foundation Stage and are promoted to support children’s development into self-sufficient and confident learners. Our children are encouraged to use skills such as evaluating and reasoning within their learning and play, to collaborate and share thoughts and ideas with others, and to persevere when things get difficult.

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Pupils learn through a balance of child-initiated and adult-directed activities. The timetable is carefully structured so that children receive daily, focused teaching in English, maths, and phonics, alongside regular sessions dedicated to the specific areas of learning.

Literacy and language are at the heart of our curriculum. Children follow the highly successful Read Write Inc. programme, enabling them to achieve strong outcomes in reading, with almost all pupils passing the Year 1 phonics screening. A carefully chosen reading spine ensures that children are exposed to high-quality texts rich in essential vocabulary, supporting their knowledge and understanding of the world. Writing is taught through Talk for Writing, where language-rich texts are selected to enable children to internalise and apply the structures they need to become confident writers.

In mathematics, we follow the NCETM Mastering Number programme in Reception, helping children develop a secure number sense and fluency in calculation. Pupils learn through discrete lessons and in an enabling environment, with opportunities to apply their learning during exploration and play.

Through positive relationships, we foster the Characteristics of Effective Learning in every child. Children are supported to become well-regulated and sociable through the consistent modelling of positive interactions and language.

We believe that every child is capable of achieving amazing things, and we nurture this by maintaining high expectations across our setting. Working in close partnership with parents ensures that together we provide the best outcomes for all children.

Our dedicated EYFS staff work tirelessly to create an environment that promotes personal, social, and emotional development while also instilling a love of learning through our engaging, topic-based curriculum. With a strong emphasis on speech and language development, we ensure that children can access the EYFS curriculum fully and make excellent progress towards achieving a good level of development by the end of the Foundation Stage.