Lord Blyton Primary School
Early Years Foundation Stage
Curriculum
Curriculum Intent
At Lord Blyton Primary School, our Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum is designed to promote and encourage all children to be confident, inquisitive and independent happy learners.
We aim to ensure that we provide all children with the best start to their education that enables them to fulfil their full potential and achieve future success regardless of their various starting points and backgrounds by creating a holistic and inclusive curriculum. We ensure that all children’s individual needs are met through careful planning and assessment, identifying and addressing any issues and implementing early intervention or additional support if required.
At Lord Blyton we recognise every child as a unique individual, and we acknowledge and promote children’s interests to provide them with the opportunities to follow their imagination and creativity. We celebrate the differences in our school community, and always strive to promote and instil a love for learning.
Curriculum Implementation
At Lord Blyton Primary School, we ensure that all children experience the seven areas of learning set out in the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework through a balance of adult lead teaching and child initiated play.
There are seven areas of learning and development. The prime areas are: –
• Personal, Social and Emotional Development
• Physical Development
• Communication and Language
The Specific areas are: –
• Mathematics
• Literacy
• Understanding the World
• Expressive Arts & Design
We place a great emphasis on learning through play and direct practical experiences led by the interests of our children. Learning is organised so that the curriculum is delivered through a combination of adult led activities and continuous provision opportunities, encouraging children to develop their learning independently through discovery, exploration, curiosity and challenge.
We recognise that children have a thirst for new experiences and knowledge, and should be provided with opportunities to engage their inquisitive minds. Therefore, we provide stimulating and motivating continuous indoor and outdoor provision, that follow children’s interests, to support learners in investigating and developing their skills.
Whilst the children’s interests are at the heart of our curriculum, we ensure that we provide all pupils with a broad range of experiences and opportunities covering a variety of festivals and celebrations giving them the cultural capital they need for future success.
British Values play a fundamental part of our curriculum and everything we do; we focus on promoting the more general concepts within the Early Years Foundation Stage and understand that the children’s development within these areas is key to promoting the values in the long term.
At Lord Blyton Primary School we believe all children learn best when they feel secure, safe and happy. Our teaching and practice is led by the four guiding principles.
The Principles are;
- That every child is unique
- That every child can learn to be strong and independent through positive relationships
- That children learn and develop best in enabling environments
- That children develop and learn in different ways
The Characteristics of Effective Learning are threaded through, and central, to all learning in the EYFS curriculum. Emphasis is placed upon playing and learning, active learning and thinking critically.
Children are provided with plenty of time to engage in ‘exploration’ throughout the variety of experiences, which is carefully planned to engage and challenge them in the provision. The curriculum is planned for the inside and outside classrooms and is planned in a cross-curricular way to enable all aspects of the children’s development
Curriculum Impact
At Lord Blyton Primary School, we aim to ensure that all children across the EYFS achieve their full potential by providing a broad and balanced curriculum. Our creative and balanced provision of learning experiences enables our children to develop as happy, motivated, and independent learners. We strive to ensure each child makes a very good level of progress through to the Early Learning Goals at the end of Reception from their individual starting points in the Nursery. All children get the best possible start to their school life and develop the knowledge and skills needed to succeed as they continue their learning journey into Key Stag One.
To ensure that we are providing all children with a first class high quality early education, we use the Seven Key Features of Effective Practice.
The Seven Key Features of Effective Practice are;
- The best for every child
- High quality care
- The curriculum: What we want the children to learn
- Pedagogy: Helping children to learn
- Assessment: Checking what children have learnt
- Self-regulation and executive function
- Partnership with Parents
See the Seven Key Features of Effective Practice set out in detail below.
| The Best for Every Child | High-Quality Care | The Curriculum: What We Want Children to Learn |
| • All children deserve to have an equal chance of success. • High-quality early education is good for all children. It is especially important for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. • When they start school, children from disadvantaged backgrounds are, on average, four months behind their peers. We need to do more to narrow that gap. • Children who have lived through difficult experiences can begin to grow stronger when they experience high-quality early education and care. • High-quality early education and care is inclusive. Children’s special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) are identified quickly. • All children promptly receive any extra help they need, so they can progress well in their learning. | • The child’s experience must always be central to the thinking of every practitioner. • Babies, toddlers and young children thrive when they are loved and well cared for. • High-quality care is consistent. Every practitioner needs to enjoy spending time with young children. • Effective practitioners are responsive to children and babies. They notice when a baby looks towards them and gurgles, and respond with pleasure. • Practitioners understand that toddlers are learning to be independent, so they will sometimes get frustrated. • Practitioners know that starting school, and all the other transitions in the early years, are big steps for small children. | • The curriculum is a top-level plan of everything the early years setting wants the children to learn. • Planning to help every child to develop their language is vital. • The curriculum needs to be ambitious. Careful sequencing will help children to build their learning over time. • Young children’s learning is often driven by their interests. Plans need to be flexible. • Babies and young children do not develop in a fixed way. Their development is like a spider’s web with many strands, not a straight line. • Depth in early learning is much more important than covering lots of things in a superficial way. |
| Pedagogy: Helping Children to Learn | Assessment: Checking What Children Have Learnt | Self-Regulation and Executive Function | Partnership with Parents |
| • Children are powerful learners. Every child can make progress in their learning, with the right help. • Effective pedagogy is a mix of different approaches. Children learn through play, by adults modelling, by observing each other and through guided learning and direct teaching. • Practitioners carefully organise enabling environments for high-quality play. Sometimes, they make time and space available for children to invent their own play. Sometimes, they join in to sensitively support and extend children’s learning. • Children in the early years also learn through group work, when practitioners guide their learning. • Older children need more of this guided learning. • A well-planned learning environment, indoors and outside, is an important aspect of pedagogy. | • Assessment is about noticing what children can do and what they know. It is not about lots of data and evidence. • Effective assessment requires practitioners to understand child development. • Practitioners also need to be clear about what they want children to know and be able to do. • Accurate assessment can highlight whether a child has a special educational need and needs extra help. • Before assessing children, it’s a good idea to think about whether the assessments will be useful. • Assessment should not take practitioners away from the children for long periods of time | Executive function includes the child’s ability to: • hold information in mind • focus their attention • think flexibly • inhibit impulsive behaviour These abilities contribute to the child’s growing ability to self-regulate: • concentrate their thinking • plan what to do next • monitor what they are doing and adapt • regulate strong feelings • be patient for what they want • bounce back when things get difficult • Language development is central to self-regulation: children use language to guide their actions and plans. Pretend play gives many opportunities for children to focus their thinking, persist and plan ahead. | • It is important for parents and early years settings to have a strong and respectful partnership. This sets the scene for children to thrive in the early years. • This includes listening regularly to parents and giving parents clear information about their children’s progress. • The help that parents give their children at home has a very significant impact on their learning. • Some children get much less support for their learning at home than others. By knowing and understanding all the children and their families, settings can offer extra help to those who need it most. • It is important to encourage all parents to chat, play and read with their children. |