EYFS

Intent

At St Mawes school and Nursery our pupils get off to a flying start! We strive for the best possible outcomes for all children using the Early Years Foundation Stage framework, recognising that every child is unique. We provide high quality care through a well-motivated, knowledgeable and committed team of practitioners. We nurture trust and confidence in our children by creating a fun and varied environment where they can happily learn through play. We actively support children's emotional and social development, enabling them to get the most out of their nursery experience and be ready for the next stage of their life.

Implementation

EYFS- Nursery (3+) and Reception

Within our high-quality early years setting, language is the foundation of children’s thinking and learning with a strong focus on communication.

Along with the statutory guidance, we will be using Development Matters to deliver a carefully sequenced and progressive curriculum which highlights not only what pupils need to learn but how they learn through their play and independent exploration in our carefully crafted continuous provision.

Within our continuous provision, children will learn skills, will challenge their thinking and help them to embed concepts. It will also provide the context for a variety of learning conversations between children and adults with rich opportunities for modelling and extending speech and vocabulary. It is within this learning environment that the children will also develop key learning attributes.

Children learn and develop more from birth to five years old than at any other time in their lives so high-quality training for all staff is essential. This will be accessed through the Aspire Academy Trust’s offer, bespoke support from the Aspire Early Years Lead (Helen Bingham) and Early Excellence.

 Within our EYFS, we will ensure we focus on the 7 key features of effective practice (Development Matters):

1. The best for every child
2. High quality care
3. The curriculum: what we want children to learn
4. Pedagogy: helping children to learn
5. Assessment: checking what children have learnt
6. Self-regulation and executive function
7. Partnerships with parents

 We will also reflect on the different rates at which children are developing and adjust our practice appropriately by linking to the characteristics of effective learning (Statutory Guidance):

• Playing and exploring
• Active learning
• Creating and thinking critically

 We will use NELI (Nuffield Early Language Intervention), which is a programme for children in Reception (4-5 years) which has been found to improve children's language and early literacy skills. Robust evaluations found NELI children made on average 3 months of additional progress in language.

 Our carefully designed curriculum plans will have key texts linked to each topic theme as reading frequently to children, and engaging them actively in stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems, and then providing them with extensive opportunities to use and embed new words in a range of contexts, will give children the opportunity to thrive.

Impact

In the EYFS children build strong foundations, rooted in academic success, they achieve to their full potential socially and emotionally, so that ultimately our pupils go on to be active citizens of society, and become happy and curious life-long learners.