Early Years Intent
Early years provision at Evendons Primary School will deliver the highest quality education, whilst providing a firm foundation on which to build future academic, enterprise, social and emotional success. We recognise that every child is unique, and will join the school with differing levels of prior learning and social skills. We aim to create a purposeful and meaningful curriculum that maximises cross-curricular links and builds strong foundations for their future. We strive to promote a love for learning by following the children’s interests and engaging their inquisitive minds.
Early Years Implementation
Our ambitious Early Year’s Curriculum aims to teach all children the skills and knowledge in order to reach the seventeen Early Learning Goals described by the Early Years Foundation Stage 2021. This Framework specifies the requirement for learning and development in the Early Years and provides prime and specific areas of learning we must cover in our curriculum. These areas are:
- Personal, Social and Emotional Development
- Physical Development
- Communication and Language development
- Literacy
- Mathematics
- Understanding the World
- Expressive Arts and Design
Our 2021 EYFS Curriculum has been designed to celebrate the diversity of our children, the nature around our school and the beautiful seasonal changes the children can observe first hand. Our STEM curriculum is another essential part of our EYFS provision and provides children a wide range of experiential learning opportunities that promote the development of skills and knowledge in science, maths, technology and engineering. We aim to capture children’s interests and innate desire to explore the world around them, encouraging the children to problem solve, work collaboratively and develop general life skills. We aim to take the children on a range of educational visits (including in our local community) to build upon these experiential learning opportunities and to bring ‘learning to life’.
We endeavour to offer each child the following key experiences in Reception:
- A visit to Wellington Country Park.
- A cooking experience at the Fire pit.
- A trip to the Pantomime.
- To participate in a Christmas performance.
- An opportunity to look under a car bonnet.
- The opportunity to bake in our STEM room.
- A trip to the local town Library and to take out a book from the library.
- Observe a caterpillar turning into a butterfly.
- Observe an egg turning into a duckling.
- A visit to a farm
- A camping experience.
- A trip to the beach.
Evendons Primary School recognises the importance of play to children’s development, building their confidence as they learn to explore. Children learn by leading their own play and by taking part in play which is guided by adults. Therefore, the school ensures there is an appropriate balance in the day of activities led by children and activities led or guided by adults, responding to each child’s emerging needs and interests. The weekly timetable is carefully planned so that children have directed teaching in Literacy, Mathematics and Phonics. We also ensure regular Circle Times to focus on CL, PSED and Topic sessions that focus on UW and EAD. Some of these sessions are followed by group work where children work with a member of staff who can quickly respond to misconceptions and provide real-time verbal feedback which results in a strong impact on the acquisition of new learning. It is expected that over the year, the balance will gradually shift towards more adult- led activities, to help children prepare for their transition into Key Stage 1.
We recognise that children have a thirst for new experiences and knowledge, and should be provided with plenty of time to engage and explore in ‘independent learning time’. Therefore, we have implemented ‘in the moment planning’ that follows the children’s interests and provides them with meaningful continuous indoor and outdoor provision. The learning environment is set up to support the Characteristics of Effective Learning, ensuring that in-depth learning is taking place. These are:
- Playing and Exploring – children investigate and experience things, and have a go.
- Active Learning – children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties, and enjoy achievements.
Creating and Thinking Critically – children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas and develop strategies for doing things.
We promote reading for pleasure right from Reception with children following the Little Wandles Revised Letters and Sounds program, providing them a strong foundation of phonics skills that are required for early reading. This programme is continued throughout the school to ensure consistency and steady skill progression throughout Key stage 1. Children also enjoy reading a variety of books inside and outside of school through quality key texts for each topic, grouped reading sessions, independent reading with adults and regular access to a book corner in each classroom. The children visit our school library weekly and visit the local Library during Book Week.
We are an inclusive school and all children in reception learn together but we have a range of additional intervention and support to enhance and scaffold children who may not be reaching their potential or moving on children who are doing very well. This includes, for example 1-1 and group interventions in Maths, Phonics, Speech and Language and Physical Development to promote fine motor skills.
Teaching and learning is monitored continuously with teachers receiving coaching and feedback from our phase leader and subject specialists within our MAT. We receive current, relevant training and professional development so that teachers and support staff develop a good subject knowledge and are effectively supported. We are also highly focused on frequently moderating outcomes across the year group so that every member of our team feels confident in making accurate judgements about where individual pupils are and their next steps for learning. In addition to this, our staff have regular contact and support from our SENCO, Speech and Language therapists and Occupational therapists who are helping to build subject knowledge of working with children who may need any extra support.
At Evendons we work hard to ensure that all our children make good progress in their Reception year. In addition to our professional judgment, evidence and observations of the children’s progress are expertly noted with key achievements being recorded on Tapestry, our online recording platform. Our dedicated staff take time to get to know each child as an individual by spending time with them and delivering and prompting quality learning throughout the day, Our team work together in order to have expert knowledge on each child’s ability and the next steps required to progress their learning. Throughout the year we carry out our summative assessments to look at children’s attainment in relation to age related expectations, using our own checkpoints in relation with the Development Matters 2021 framework.
EYFS Curriculum and Topic Overview 2022-2023
Early Years Impact
We aim for all children to leave our Reception class:
- happy, resilient, capable, confident and self-assured individuals;
- strong, inquisitive and independent learners who thrive in all areas of learning and development;
- capable of developing and sustaining positive relationships within their school community and beyond.
We also measure the impact of our curriculum by assessment procedures which allow us to measure outcomes against all schools nationally. We measure the percentage of pupils achieving a “Good level of development‟ (GLD) by the end of the Reception year.
EYFS Good Level of Development 2022
| Evendons | Wokingham | Nationally |
| 77% | 73% | 65% |
We endeavour for pupils to have a good understanding of our school motto ‘Kindness Matters’ and all six of our school’s values embedded by the time they leave Reception. These are: Respect, Resilience, Trust, Love, Forgiveness, Courage.
Pupil Voice:
“We’ve been learning about sounds and trigraphs and digraphs. We only learn them in Phonics and we also learn tricky words in Phonics.” Isabelle age 5.
“I liked the Christmas dinner party. I like doing tricky words and sounds that we know.” Hanna- Age 4.
“I liked learning digraphs and tricky words and the blue sounds (digraphs)” Lydia- age 5.
“I love Reception when I get to play outside. I like to play new games every day.” Oliver- age 5.
“I like building numberblocks higher and higher.” Alfie- age 5.
Fire station visit February 2022
Reception Camping 2022
Wellington Country Farm Reception Trip
Celebrations and Special Events
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-foundation-stage-framework–2
By Lucy Humphreys – EYFS Lead