EYFS

EYFS

At St Jerome's, our Early Years Foundation Stage is a vibrant, friendly place where children are encouraged to learn and play in a caring, happy environment. Our mission statement is at the heart of everything we do:

“Growing in God's love”   

The EYFS is a very important stage in a child’s life as it helps prepare for school ‘readiness’ as well as preparing them for their future learning and successes. Children’s early years experience should be happy, active, exciting, fun and secure; and support their development, care and learning needs.  Every child deserves the best possible start in life and the support that enables them to fulfil their potential.  Children develop quickly in the early years and a child’s experiences before the age of five will have a major impact on their future life chances.

The EYFS framework explains how and what children will be learning to support their healthy development and provides the foundation children need to make the most of their abilities and talents as they grow up.

Children in the EYFS learn by playing and exploring, being active, and through creative and critical thinking which takes place both indoors and outside. It is very important that they develop social skills, such as turn-taking, sharing and independence, which help them greatly in the next stages of their learning.  The guiding principles that shape our practice in the Early Years are that children are born ready, able and eager to learn.  They actively reach out to interact with other people, and in the world around them.  Development is not an automatic process, however.  It depends on each unique child having opportunities to interact in positive relationships and enabling environments.

At St Jerome's, our curriculum is built upon purposeful play, rich learning experiences, and high-quality interactions that support children’s development across all areas of learning. Children grow in early language, communication, physical development, literacy, mathematics, understanding of the world, and creativity.

Communication and Language

The development of children’s spoken language underpins all seven areas of learning and development. Children’s back-and-forth interactions from an early age form the foundations for language and cognitive development. The number and quality of the conversations they have with adults and peers throughout the day in a language-rich environment is crucial. By commenting on what children are interested in or doing, and echoing back what they say with new vocabulary added, practitioners will build children's language effectively. Reading frequently to children, and engaging them actively in stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems, and then providing them with extensive opportunities to use and embed new words in a range of contexts, will give children the opportunity to thrive. Through conversation, story-telling and role play, where children share their ideas with support and modelling from their teacher, and sensitive questioning that invites them to elaborate, children become comfortable using a rich range of vocabulary and language structures.

PSED

Children’s personal, social and emotional development (PSED) is crucial for children to lead healthy and happy lives, and is fundamental to their cognitive development. Underpinning their personal development are the important attachments that shape their social world. Strong, warm and supportive  relationships with adults enable children to learn how to understand their own feelings and those of others. Children should be supported to manage emotions, develop a positive sense of self, set themselves simple goals, have confidence in their own abilities, to persist and wait for what they want and direct attention as necessary. Through adult modelling and guidance, they will learn how to look after their bodies, including healthy eating, and manage personal needs independently. Through supported interaction with other children, they learn how to make good friendships, co-operate and resolve conflicts peaceably. These attributes will provide a secure platform from which children can achieve at school and in later life.

Physical Development

Physical activity is vital in children’s all-round development, enabling them to pursue happy, healthy and active lives. Gross and fine motor experiences develop incrementally throughout early childhood, starting with sensory explorations and the development of a child’s strength, co-ordination and positional awareness through tummy time, crawling and play movement with both objects and adults. By creating games and providing opportunities for play both indoors and outdoors, adults can support children to develop their core strength, stability, balance, spatial awareness, co-ordination and agility. Gross motor skills provide the foundation for developing healthy bodies and social and emotional well-being. Fine motor control and precision helps with hand-eye co-ordination, which is later linked to early literacy. Repeated and varied opportunities to explore and play with small world activities, puzzles, arts and crafts and the practice of using small tools, with feedback and support from adults, allow children to develop proficiency, control and confidence.

Literacy

Literacy sessions are planned for daily. Our Literacy sessions are based upon the themes that we are to cover and follow our teaching style. We follow the 'Drawing club' approach in Reception. This is an initiative which integrates drawing activities into the learning curriculum. It leverages the natural inclination of children to express themselves through art, using this as a bridge to develop their writing skills.

Reading

It is crucial for children to develop a life-long love of reading. Reading consists of two dimensions: language comprehension and word reading. Language comprehension

(necessary for both reading and writing) starts from birth. It only develops when adults talk with children about the world around them and the books (stories and non-fiction) they read with them, and enjoy rhymes, poems and songs together.

Skilled word reading, taught later, involves both the speedy working out of the pronunciation of unfamiliar printed words (decoding) and the speedy recognition of familiar printed words.

Reading starts in the Early Years and is facilitated through the Read, Write, Inc Phonics programme; children are taught the sounds and then taught how to blend these sounds for reading. Children are introduced to tricky words; words that cannot be sounded out. When they are ready, the children take home a reading book that is suited directly to their phonics ability.

Writing

Writing involves transcription (spelling and handwriting) and composition (articulating ideas and structuring them in speech, before writing.)

In the Early Years, any mark that a child makes is considered important as these are the early stages of writing. Children are monitored as they experience using different grips with writing implements, with the aim of encouraging children to use the tripod or pincer grip when they are developmentally ready. Children will start ascribing meaning to their marks and as they take part in daily phonics sessions their writing will develop into beginning to write some simple CVC words and then onto writing phrases, captions, speech bubbles, posters and finally sentences. We follow the 'Drawing club' approach in Reception. This is an initiative which integrates drawing activities into the learning curriculum. It leverages the natural inclination of children to express themselves through art, using this as a bridge to develop their writing skills.

Phonics

Reading starts in the Early Years and is facilitated initially through developing their 'listening ear' which build secure early foundations which helps prepare them for successfully accessing the Read, Write, Inc Phonics programme. In Read, Write, Inc the children are taught the sounds and then taught how to blend these sounds for reading. Children are introduced to tricky words; words that cannot be sounded out. These Read, Write, Inc sessions are explicitly taught with opportunities for the children to rehearse and develop confidence in knowledge previously learned as well as apply their knowledge to new situations.

Mathematics

Reception children are immersed in maths; it is planned for in the environment and with additional opportunities to develop mathematical skills - (enhanced continuous provision and continuous provision.)

Developing a strong grounding in number is essential so that all children develop the necessary building blocks to excel mathematically. Children should be able to count confidently, develop a deep understanding of the numbers to 5 and then to 10, the relationships between them and the patterns within those numbers. By providing frequent and varied opportunities to build and apply this understanding - such as using manipulatives, including Numicon , counters and five and ten frames for organising counting - children will develop a secure base of knowledge and vocabulary from which mastery of mathematics is built. In addition, it is important that the curriculum includes rich opportunities for children to develop their spatial reasoning skills across all areas of mathematics including shape, space and measures.

In line with Bruner’s theory of learning, new concepts are taught enactively, then iconically and, finally, symbolically as ways of capturing experiences in the memory. We also believe that it is important to include practical activities and discussion as an integral part of mathematics lessons; and the use of pictorial recording and the classroom environment are also important.

New mathematical concepts begin with the use of structured concrete materials including: structural apparatus such as cubes, counters, 3D shapes or weighing scales as well as contextual objects such as teddies or coins for counting or sorting; then develop imagery with pictorial representations including: children’s own mark making and simple drawings; and lastly move to the abstract/symbolic which include: young children’s emergent graphics, early number formation and number sentences.

It is important that children develop positive attitudes and interests in mathematics, look for patterns and relationships, spot connections, ‘have a go’, talk to adults and peers about what they notice and not be afraid to make mistakes.

Expressive Art and Design

The development of children’s artistic and cultural awareness supports their imagination and creativity. It is important that children have regular opportunities to engage with the arts, enabling them to explore and play with a wide range of media and materials. The quality and variety of what children see, hear and participate in is crucial for developing their understanding, self-expression, vocabulary and ability to communicate through the arts. The frequency, repetition and depth of their experiences are fundamental to their progress in interpreting and appreciating what they hear, respond to and observe. 

Children have access to a variety of different musical instruments that allows them to explore with pitch and sound. Children participate in singing lessons and regular music sessions where children are encouraged to sing as part of a group or individually.

Understanding the World

Understanding the world involves guiding children to make sense of their physical world and their community. The frequency and range of children’s personal experiences increases their knowledge and sense of the world around them – from visiting local shops, the farm, Imagine That, Beach school and Laurel's Wood to meeting important members of society such as nurses, police officers and post people. In addition, listening to a broad selection of stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems, will foster their understanding of our culturally, socially, technologically and ecologically diverse world. As well as building important knowledge, this extends their familiarity with words that support understanding across domains. Enriching and widening children’s vocabulary will support later reading comprehension.