EYFS at St Peter’s

What is our intent?

At St Peters we provide a nurturing environment which supports all of our learners to aspire to be the best that they can be. We strive to provide all children with a strong foundation to develop their individual characteristics in a social and learning context. We support children in Reception to quickly establish themselves as members of our school community when they start their learning journey with us in September. We also ensure that children have excellent role models socially and academically to ensure that they can establish and develop excellent friendships and learning behaviours to ‘Dream, Believe and Achieve’. We believe that all of our pupils can achieve regardless of their starting point on entry into Reception. We encourage our learners to be ambitious, resilient and self assured. At St Peters we use the Early Years Foundation Stage framework and we shape our curriculum around each individual unique child, by forming positive relationships and by establishing an enabling classroom environment. We use the ‘Development Matters’ guidance published by the Department for Education to support our planning. We aim to establish excellent relationships with our pupils and their families and this contributes towards an effective home-school partnership to support child development.

How do we implement our EYFS curriculum?

Teaching and learning in the Early Years Foundation Stage is so unique. We facilitate learning through whole class Phonics, Maths and Storytelling and we further develop the children’s learning through guided groups to extend and build upon learning shared during whole class sessions.  Children in our Reception class also participate in PE, Forest School and topic themes to explore the wider world around them. We encourage children to take ownership of their learning through ‘choosing your own learning time’. During ‘choose your own learning time’ activities are set up which provide opportunities for children to explore and extend their learning across the curriculum. We use Tapestry learning journals to document the learning journey throughout Reception for each unique child and we also encourage parents to share learning and successes at home by sending in photographs using the Tapestry app.

An overview of what we aim to cover as part of our EYFS curriculum in Reception at St Peter’s:

Our learning environment, both indoors and outdoors, is designed to encourage children to explore, develop curiosity and build upon their prior knowledge. Children in Reception are encouraged to take ownership and pride in their learning environment by children to taking responsibility of their resources in a safe and respectful manner. We encourage the children to free flow between the indoor classroom and a secure outdoor classroom each of which is set up and resourced to spark the children’s imagination, curiosity and independence.

How do we measure the impact?

At the beginning of your child’s learning journey at St Peter’s we track pre-school data and we contact your child’s previous setting to discuss their progress to date and to identify any needs or gaps in their learning which may need further support when they join us in September. We carry out a statutory baseline assessment in the first academic term and we also use this time to establish relationships to further understand your child’s starting points. This allows us to determine the next steps in each child’s unique learning journey. We also assess children against the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum across the academic year to monitor their progress in all areas of learning.

We offer parent consultation meetings twice per academic year to keep you informed of your child’s progress and social development. We also meet with parents when needed to discuss any concerns regarding their child’s progress if observation and assessment flags any concerns.

Pupil progress is shared with the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) at St Peters to share individual progress and to discuss how to best support all children. Children’s work is moderated with other schools in our cluster to ensure that our judgements on pupil progress are accurate.

How do we record the children’s learning?

Each child will have a Tapestry account (subject to parental permission) which is used to record observations from across the curriculum. These can be seen at home if you sign up for a Tapestry account. As we follow the Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS) phonics scheme each child will have a collection of phonics based activities relating to the sound taught each day. Each child has a book for writing which is kept in school as well as a maths book for mathematical recording. Topic and RE is recorded in a class floorbook to share and showcase aspects of learning and WOW moments.