“At Parklands EYFS we are explorers!”

Intent

At Parklands Community Primary School we offer our children a positive environment where perseverance and successes are celebrated, every child feels valued and enjoyment is key. A balance of child-initiated and adult-led learning takes place through continuous play and small group activities.  The continuous provision on offer provides children with motivating first-hand experiences which encourage children to build resilience, ambition and a lifelong love of learning.  Our staff recognise that all children are unique and aim to celebrate and welcome their differences within our school community.  We want our children to engage themselves in their learning and support them when they lead and drive their learning in a different direction. 

Within both our continuous and enhanced provision we aim to:

• Provide a curriculum that offers a wide range of opportunities, broadening their experiences by encouraging them to try new things and be up for a challenge
• Provide high expectations, encouraging them to problem solve and achieve more than they expected
• Develop their selfesteem, resilience and confidence by encouraging them to ‘give it a go’ in everything they do
• Provide a language rich environment in order to develop their social and communication skills
• Provide children with opportunities to develop their sense of wellbeing and ability to regulate

their feelings

Implementation

Children in our EYFS learn by playing and exploring, being active and thinking creatively and critically both inside and outside of the classroom.  They receive a balance of whole class, guided groups, adult-led and child-initiated activities dependant on the nature and needs of the class or individuals.  The children’s day always starts with ‘linked provision’ that is tailored to their individual needs in any of the areas of the EYFS curriculum.  This is a very successful part of our practice at Parklands and provides a very calming and purposeful start to the morning.

Through our knowledge of each child, the EYFS team plans engaging and exciting activities that drive the children’s learning forward.  These may involve following a class theme that takes advantage of cross curricular links, combining transferable skills and helping to develop a wide-ranging vocabulary which underpins the children’s learning. 

A love of reading is something we are passionate about at Parklands.   Children follow the Twinkl phonics programme with every child having access to a phonics session daily.  Phonics sessions are also used to develop children’s expertise in handwriting using a pre-cursive style.  Each child takes part in a guided reading session weekly with the teacher in order to develop their reading and vocabulary knowledge.  Children take home a book matched to their phonics ability each week as well as a ‘sharing book’ that they can change daily. Reading for pleasure/enjoyment is encouraged.  Our inclusive approach means that all children learn together but in addition we have a range of effective and focussed interventions to provide support, enhance and scaffold learning for children who may not be reaching their full potential.  This includes, additional phonics and reading support, fine-motor groups and speech and language sessions including the NELI programme.   

We follow the Maths Mastery approach with an emphasis on key skills of number, calculation and shape so that pupils develop a deep understanding and acquisition of mathematical language.  Pupils learn through games and tasks using concrete manipulatives.  Our children also follow the Mastery Number daily programme which aims to secure firm foundations in the development of good number sense. 

The EYFS team collects evidence of children’s learning through work completed in their learning journals, observations, photos and videos which are shared with parents using our online platform – Seesaw.  This enables parents to engage with children regularly about their learning as well as allowing them to record any achievements that the child makes at home.  Our aim is to provide children with opportunities that they may not have experienced before or that enhance their learning.  This also includes trips and visits such as the local farm, Pizza Express and our community church.

Impact

The impact of our EYFS curriculum is reflected in having well rounded, happy and resilient children transitioning into Year 1.  Our curriculum aims to meet the needs of all our children, including our disadvantaged and those with SEND, so our staff spend time looking at and evaluating how children are learning. We measure progress in their learning by talking to children, looking at their work, observing their learning experiences, looking at photos and videos on Seesaw and analysing any data obtained - Reception baseline, NELI, termly milestones.  We use this information obtained to plan learning experiences and next steps so that knowledge and skills are built upon.

Our curriculum, and its enriched continuous provision, provides a rich diet of balanced learning experiences that not only ensures children in EYFS make good progress from their starting points, but who are confident, happy and curious children.