Our Early Years Curriculum

Our ethos throughout the EYFS is that children learn through play. Our environments are set up to allow children to progress in the seven areas of learning, with a particular focus on language development. Activities are planned to reflect the children’s interests and individual circumstances in order to provide each child with a challenging and enjoyable experience. We respond to each child’s emerging needs and interests, guiding their development through friendly, encouraging and positive interactions.

There is a balance of child-led and adult-led activity, ensuring that children learn new skills and then have chance to practice them in different ways. Our activities are open ended, ensuring that children have the scope to progress in line with our high expectations. We learn outdoors as much as we do indoors. Children requiring support will have additional small group or 1:1 teaching to ensure progress. The way in which we work progresses through the EYFS as children become ready to learn in different ways. We prepare them for more formal learning in the summer term of reception if they are ready.

Active learning, creating and thinking critically and playing and exploring ensure that children become effective learners. Armed with these skills, they will be able to solve problems, tackle open ended activities, work and play together and have their own ideas. Our setting understands these principles and aims to provide ample opportunities to develop them.

Our planning is in line with the statutory framework for the EYFS, and whilst we have some themes that we use to move our learning forward, the children have a lot of input into the provision. This depends on the cohort and the needs of the children, so our planning is always reflective and adaptable. The long term plans show the scope of what we achieve in the EYFS and the children show how much they enjoy it! We introduce projects in line with our learning and find that they work well in short bursts with the younger children. 

We want to ensure that our children leave the EYFS, having had a vast range of experiences and opportunities to develop their language.  As they progress through our nursery and reception, the experiences deepen, and the children remember and reflect upon their learning.  We ensure that children are interacted with regularly and that they are exposed to masses of language from texts, made up stories, conversations, role-play and videos.