Rationale

We recognise the importance of high-quality Early Years provision in ensuring that all children have the very best start to their school journey. Children develop quickly in their earliest years and the experiences and interactions children have between birth and the age of five have a major impact on their future life chances. Quality Early Years provision lays the foundation for later learning and ensures that children are ready and able to access the national curriculum.

We aim to:

• make certain that all children receive their early years curriculum entitlement

• develop consistent and high-quality early years provision in line with the statutory early years framework

• ensure that all children have access to a broad, balanced knowledge-rich early years curriculum that gives them the range of foundational knowledge and skills needed on which to build

• provide environments to learn where all children feel safe, secure and happy

• guarantee that practice is inclusive of all children, that every child is included and supported through equality of opportunity and anti-discriminatory practice

• motivate children intrinsically, fostering high aspirations, building on their passions and interests.

Implementation

We have a clear pedagogical approach to the Early Years curriculum that is based on a balance of adult led and child-initiated activities. The balance includes age-appropriate structured explicit teaching which is adult led alongside adult guided learning activities, child-initiated provision and enhanced provision.

The role of the adult is key to planning purposeful learning. New knowledge is taught, learning is embedded and reinforced through thoughtful and selective use of provision and adult interaction. The development of early language and communication is a priority and is recognised as the key to success in every area of the curriculum. Practitioners are trained to be able to intervene effectively, observe and facilitate children interacting and learning, and plan their next steps. They know how to model language and develop communication enabling children to secure knowledge and embed key skills.

Our Early Years provision ensures that the curriculum planning includes motivating and purposeful opportunities to learn and develop both indoors and outdoors, in all areas of learning whilst prioritising adult and peer interaction and conversation whilst facilitating physical development. We recognise the importance of the outdoor learning environment in supporting a child’s development. As such, the outdoor environment is carefully planned for, is language rich, with provision that further embeds or facilitates curriculum learning and development. The outdoor environment is seen as essential to early years development.

On entry to the setting or at the beginning of a unit of work practitioners identify what children already know and can do. Scaffolds and adaptations are planned carefully into provision to ensure that the curriculum is accessible to all children using the indoor and outdoor environment, so that gaps do not appear or widen. Practitioners plan opportunities to revisit prior learning, pre-teach and build on existing knowledge and skills. During adult guided activities practitioners address misconceptions at the point of error, support children in making connections to develop schema, facilitating the development of skills and enabling children to know and remember more.

Where a child may have a special educational need or disability, practitioners will work with the school or Early Years SENCo who will support in line with the SEND Code of Practice to consider whether specialist support is required, engaging with relevant services from other agencies, where appropriate. Early identification of a special educational need and/ or disability is key to ensuring children receive the support they are entitled to.

The EYFS statutory framework includes seven areas of learning and development that are equally important and inter-connected. However, three areas known as the prime areas are seen as particularly important and should be prioritised. Practitioners working with our youngest children focus principally on the three prime areas as these lay the foundations for later learning.

The prime areas are:

• Communication and language

• Physical development

• Personal, social and emotional development

The prime areas are strengthened and applied through four specific areas.

The specific areas are:

• Literacy

• Mathematics

• Understanding the world

• Expressive arts and design

Weaving throughout the EYFS curriculum are the Characteristics of Effective Teaching and Learning:

• playing and exploring - children investigate and experience things, they ‘have a go’

• active learning - children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties, they enjoy achievements

• creating and thinking critically - children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, they develop strategies for doing things

These elements underpin how practitioners reflect on each child’s development, adjusting practice and provision accordingly.

Impact

We teach an ambitious, planned and sequenced, knowledge-rich curriculum. The curriculum is the progression model which begins in EYFS, designed to teach foundational knowledge in the early years that forms the bedrock on which later learning in key stage one and two builds. The curriculum has been designed to encourage children to build resilience, ambition, and integrity. It is designed progressively from early years to ensure that children have time to embed knowledge and basic skills that are developmentally appropriate, in preparation for later learning.