Early Years Foundation Stage

Curriculum Intent

At Wivelsfield, we aim to support all children to develop their knowledge and skills in all areas if the curriculum, understanding new information and mastering new skills on order to be successful lifelong learners.

At Wivelsfield, we aim to:

Promote children’s curiosity through a well-planned environment.
Give them the confidence to take risks and ‘have a go’.
Create critically, analytical thinkers that can explore their own ideas and question those of others.
Widen then children’s vocabulary by explicitly teaching new words and exposing them to a language rich environment
Allow children to learn that their own pace supporting individual needs and desires
Ensure every child leaves the early years with the key skills they need in order to be successful learners throughout the school
Build positive relationships with all those around them, learning to cooperate, empthasise and show compassion

Overarching principles

Four guiding principles should shape practice in early years settings. These are:

• every child is a unique child, who is constantly learning and can be resilient, capable, confident and self-assured

• children learn to be strong and independent through positive relationships

• children learn and develop well in enabling environments with teaching and support from adults, who respond to their individual interests and needs and help them to build their learning over time. Children benefit from a strong partnership between practitioners and parents and/or carers.

• importance of learning and development. Children develop and learn at different rates.

Curriculum Implementation

Play

Learning through play!

Play is a vital part of growth and development for young children. We provide a well-planned environment which supports children to explore and experience a range of activities. We use both indoors and outdoors and give the children opportunities to extend their own ideas. We understand that children learn best when at play and are absorbed in interesting activities displaying high levels of involvement. Children are given opportunities, objects, ideas, stimuli and experiences that aim to engage them in purposeful play for sustained periods of time. Ensuring the children have high levels of well being is something we are really proud of at Wivelsfield’s, we do this by guaranteeing every child initiated interaction is valued, supported and child led. Adults interact and join children in their play to guide them, support new thinking and feed in key skills.

Characteristics of Effective Learning

There are 3 characteristics of effective learning

Playing and exploring – engagement

Finding out and exploring
Playing with what they know
Being willing to have a go

Active learning – motivation

Being involved and concentrating
Keeping trying
Enjoying achieving what they set out to do

Creating and thinking critically – thinking

Having their own ideas
Making links
Choosing to do things

EYFS Literacy Overview

EYFS Maths Overview

Skills Progression Document.pdf