Early Years

Every child deserves the best possible start in life and the support that enables them to fulfil their potential. Children develop quickly in the early years and a child’s experiences between birth and age five have a major impact on their future life chances. A secure, safe and happy childhood is important in its own right. Good parenting and high quality early learning together provide the foundation children need to make the most of their abilities and talents as they grow up.                                      

Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage March 2021

The EYFS is based upon four principles:

• Every child is a unique child, who is constantly learning and who can be resilient, capable, confident and self assured.
• Children learn to be strong and independent through positive relationships.
• Children learn well in enabling environments with teaching and support from adults, who respond to their individual interests and needs and helps them to build their learning over time.
• The importance of learning and development. Children develop and learn at different rates,

At Christ Church CE Primary School, all teaching staff deliver the EYFS through high quality teaching alongside an enriched learning environment. Our philosophy is to nurture every child’s enthusiasm for learning, developing both skills and confidence as they take their first steps on their own unique journey of lifelong learning.

Intent  (Learn).

The intent for our children is to enter the next stage of their education ready to tackle new challenges with confidence and a positive mind-set. We provide a broad and balanced Early Years Curriculum that is based on first hand experiences and purposeful interactions, and pays regard to the skills and attitudes that the Key Stage One curriculum will demand.

We aim to provide a Curriculum that is responsive to individual starting points and needs. Through our curriculum we aim to:

• make the child’s first experience of school happy, positive and fun
• provide a rich, interesting, and stimulating learning and teaching environment that allows children to fully develop their skills and attributes during their independent play
• foster a love of learning and develop enquiring minds
• promote emotional well-being
• build positive relationships and work in partnership with families
• support children’s development in all areas of the EYFS
• support every child as an individual.

Implementation (Grow).

At Christ Church our approach is influenced by the work of educationalists and researchers who have guided our knowledge of how young children learn and how adults can best support learning. Our provision is underpinned by a complimentary relationship between teacher-initiated, teacher- directed and child initiated learning (please see definitions in the Glossary). Learning takes place in both our indoor and outside learning environments. Each area of learning and development in the EYFS is implemented through planned, purposeful play, with practitioners responding to each child’s emerging needs and interests, and guiding their development through warm, positive interactions.

Throughout their time in the EYFS our children partake in an ambitious curriculum which is designed in a sequential way to ensure progress towards Developmental checkpoints and end of Reception goals as detailed in ‘Development Matters 2020’.

In planning for, and guiding learning and development, practitioners plan activities and experiences for children that enable the children to develop and learn effectively. They take into account the individual needs, interests and stages of development of each child in their care. They use this information to plan challenging and enjoyable experiences.

As children grow older, and as their development allows, the balance in activities gradually shifts towards more adult-led activities to help them to prepare for more formal learning in year one.

Weaving throughout the EYFS curriculum and our environment at Christ Church are the three characteristics of effective teaching and learning. These are:

• playing and exploring – children investigate and experience things, and ‘have a go’
• active learning – children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties, and enjoy achievements
• creating and thinking critically – children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things

Indoor and Outdoor resources are organised to develop children’s skills in personal interaction and exploration and are linked to current assessment information. Resources are carefully selected to meet the development needs of the children in order to enhance potential for new learning and consolidate prior learning. Resources are dressed/displayed to reflect children’s interests and to allow them to discover, experiment and explore our key themes.

Role of the adult:

Research shows that children’s progress will be significantly enhanced by the effective support from and role modelling by adults within a high-quality learning environment. When supporting children in the continuous provision at Christ Church interactions between adults and children will involve:

• adults tuning into what is happening or a child’s thinking
• showing genuine interest
• respecting children’s own decisions and choices
• inviting children to elaborate
• Recapping on what has happened so far
• Offering personal experience
• Clarifying ideas
• Using specific praise
• Speculating – using ‘I wonder if…’
• Offering an alternative viewpoint

When working with children in the early years adult practitioners will have regard to and ensure their actions and interactions reflect what ‘teaching’ should look like in the early years as defined by Ofsted.

Teaching should not be taken to imply a ‘top-down’ or formal way of working. It is a broad term which covers the many ways in which adults help young children learn. It includes their interactions with children during planned and child initiated activities:

• Communicating and modelling language, showing, explaining, demonstrating, exploring ideas, encouraging, questioning, recalling, providing a narrative for what they are doing, facilitating and setting challenges.

It takes account of the equipment they provide and the attention to the physical environment as well as the structure and routines of the day that establish expectations. 

Extract from definition of teaching in the Early Years OFSTED 2015.

Impact (Flourish).

We aim to ensure that we give all pupils the best start we can to their primary education so that they are well prepared for the next stage but also having developed an enthusiastic and curious approach to learning.

  Our new Early Years Outside area (April 2023).

CURRICULUM

COMMUNICATION AND LANGUAGE

In the Early Years at Christ Church CE Primary School we foster and make the most of children’s instinctive need and desire to communicate by:

• Role modelling the qualities and characteristics of an excellent communicator
• Immersing children in a rich environment of words, sounds, rhythm, verbal and non-verbal expression
• Engaing children in conversation through-out the day
• Providing genuine reasons, provocations and a real purpose to listen and talk
• Valuing the different ways and means children use to communicate.

PERSONAL, SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL

In the Early Years classes at Christ Church CE Primary School we create a supportive and nurturing atmosphere and ethos which provides our children with a sense of safety, security, belonging and self worth. We do this by:

• Establishing and developing mutually respectful relationships with and between adults and children.
• Understanding children’s idiosyncrasies, qualities, and attributes so they feel values and develop positive attitudes towards themselves and others.
• Knowing and understanding our children’s family contexts and dynamics.
• Setting rules, establishing boundaries, following routines and explaining consequences.
• Modelling and explaining behaviours and emotions and how to manage and resolve conflict.
• Empowering children to be independent enabling them to make informed choices and decisions.
• Using praise to build confidence.

PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT

At Christ Church we nurture children’s strong need and desire to be physically active which builds the foundations for other areas of their development by:

Building children’s

• Strength, stamina, balance, co-ordination and dexterity
• Developing a range of large and small movements which they can control
• Improving and refining children’s control and manipulation of a variety of tools
• Instilling a sense of confidence in children’s own physical abilities enabling them to negotiate spaces
• Promoting independence by teaching them to make decisions and choices that will keep them healthy and safe

LITERACY

EXPRESSIVE ART AND DESIGN