EARLY YEARS FOUNDATION STAGE
Leader - Miss L Milligan
Long Term Planning
Welcome to our Early Years!
At St Pius X we passionately believe that young children learn best through play and exploration. We are extremely proud to offer an OFSTED rated “Good” play based provision in our Little Lambs Nursery and Reception Class. Wherever possible we offer children the opportunity to experience real life events that are linked to their learning. Every day our children get the opportunity to be an artist, writer, mathematician, scientist, designer or a storyteller to name but a few! These play-based experiences enable the children to consolidate their skills, knowledge and understanding and enable them to be become independent and resilient learners. Throughout the environment, both inside and outside, you will see busy children actively engaged in a wide range of activities that they themselves have chosen. Continuous provision supports and encourages our children and staff to have a lifelong love of learning.
Our Early Years Classrooms are carefully organised to promote and develop continuous provision. This continuous provision enables children to return to their explorations and consolidate their learning over the course of a day or a more extended period. It also allows children to make choices and initiate play without interaction with an adult.
Early Years Curriculum
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Curriculum is the statutory framework that sets out children’s learning and development in the Foundation Stage. It gives children a broad range of knowledge and skills that provide the right foundation for good future progress through school and life.
Your child will be learning skills, acquiring new knowledge and demonstrating their understanding through seven areas of learning and development.
Children should mostly develop the three prime areas first:
- Communication and language;
- Physical development;
- Personal, social and emotional development.
These prime areas are those most essential for your child’s healthy development and future learning.
As children grow, the prime areas will help them to develop skills in four specific areas:
- Literacy;
- Mathematics;
- Understanding the world;
- Expressive arts and design.
These seven areas are used to plan your child’s learning and activities which are tailored to suit your child’s individual needs. The curriculum is designed to be really flexible so that staff can follow your child's unique needs and interests.
We consider ourselves partners in your child’s learning. The activities that you do with your child at home are important in supporting their learning and development, and have a really long lasting effect on your child’s learning as they progress through school. For example, talking, listening, reading, singing nursery rhymes, cooking and baking or playing outside with them.
Continuous Provision in Early Years
Our Early Years children are provided with large chunks of child initiated learning throughout the day. This allows them to use what they know in ways that interest them. The role of the adults in this time is to support and question the children; making observations and pushing the learning on further. Our children have the opportunity to free flow between the classrooms and the large outside area. We provide these opportunities whatever the weather as we understand that children benefit from outside learning in the sun, rain, hail and snow. There is a focus on the Prime Areas of learning as these are the building blocks for all future learning. As well as this, reading and writing are promoted throughout all areas of provision. This ensures that the children's learning is purposeful and interests them.
Early Years Classrooms
Both of our Early Years classrooms and been planned and resourced from Early Excellence. Our classrooms provide ample opportunity to investigate and problem solve during play.
