Early Years Foundation Stage
Intent
In the EYFS at New Horizons Seaside Primary, the curriculum is designed to encourage children to become independent learners. We aim to prepare our children to achieve the Early Learning Goals at the end of their Reception year and ensure that all children have made excellent progress from their individual starting points. It is our intent that the children in our EYFS setting build resilience, independence and self-belief. We want our children to feel safe and happy in an environment where they can develop a real love of learning.
Implementation
We deliver an EYFS curriculum that is child-centred and built upon meaningful and exciting contexts. We carefully select a range of topics to ensure the children are motivated and engaged in their learning at all times. Through structured play, based on our children’s individual needs, we provide exciting learning opportunities in an outstanding environment.
All areas of the EYFS curriculum are followed and planned for to ensure there is a broad, balanced and progressive curriculum. The children learn new skills and increase and develop their knowledge and understanding through the seven areas of the EYFS curriculum.
Within each of these areas, we maintain a strong focus on the ‘Characteristics of Effective Learning’. At Seaside, we believe it is crucial to develop these key characteristics in order to equip the children with the skills they will need to continue their journey as learners.
Children at Seaside benefit from a unique approach to delivering the curriculum. Our afternoon sessions allow for children to take part in daily walks around the local area which enable them to ask questions and find out about the world around them. Adapting our curriculum in this way means that all children develop independence, confidence and a sense of belonging in their local community. In addition to this, we deliver ‘Discover and Do’ sessions which involve the children taking part in a range of problem solving and discovery activities. By only giving the children a hook or stimulus to spark their thinking, the children feel that they are in control of their learning. Learning in this way builds resilience, develops diligence and encourages self-belief.
Impact
In order to gain an understanding of the quality of our provision, we use a combination of paper-based and online learning journals to assess our children’s achievements. Evidence of the children’s learning includes observations, self-initiated work, photographs and contributions from parents/carers through our ‘wow’ slips.
Through careful moderations, the learning journals are used to assess and track the progress of the children and to identify their next steps. Regular parent’s evenings and workshops throughout the year ensure that our parents are kept up to date with their child’s development and are fully aware of how they can support their child with their learning outside of school.
In addition to our formative assessments, we input summative data every term. This data enables us to monitor the progress that each child is making across all 17 areas of the EYFS curriculum. We use this data to inform our future planning, create individual next steps and to support children where appropriate through targeted interventions.
We believe that our EYFS curriculum ensures that the needs of individual children, including SEND and disadvantaged children, can be met within our learning environment. We strive to ensure that all of our children make good progress towards their age-related expectations so that we can meet national expectations for GLD at the end of the year.