All Souls C of E Primary School

EYFS

Welcome to Early Years Foundation Stage at All Souls.

We have 3 classes: Nursery children join us the term after they turn 2.  Our Preschool class is for our 3-4 year olds and finally our Reception class for 4-5 year olds.

We currently offer limited places for 2 year olds for morning sessions only.

Intent

Our aim in All Souls EYFS is for all our children to be “experiencing life in all its fullness” and therefore “grow to be the best that we can be”. We provide a broad and balanced curriculum that will enable each child to develop personally, socially, emotionally, spiritually, physically, creatively and intellectually to their full potential and experience life in all its fullness.

At All Souls, we have developed our own curriculum to make sure that it is engaging, challenging and relevant to our children whilst also covering the EYFS Framework fully.  It reflects our children and staff and is adapted depending on our children and their interests and experiences.  The EYFS education we offer our children is based on the following principles:

●     It builds on what our children already know and can do;

●     It ensures that no child is excluded or disadvantaged;

●     It offers a structure for learning that has a range of starting points, content that matches the needs of young children, and activities that provide opportunities for learning both indoors and outdoors;

●     It provides a rich and stimulating environment;

●     It acknowledges the importance of a full working partnership with parents and carers.

We pride ourselves on being an inclusive setting, with children attending All Souls’ Autism Resource Provision, The Village, learning alongside their peers in the unit at regular opportunities.  We also have a high number of children with English as an additional language both of which has driven us to ensure excellent communication and language is modelled, taught and supported through every interaction.

Implementation

The school day is split into child initiated active Learning and adult directed learning, the latter increasing as the children move up the classes.  Continuous and Enhanced Provision are on offer during Active Learning.  Adults engage with children during this Active Learning time to ensure they are moving children’s learning forward and addressing their next steps.  Adult Directed learning takes place throughout the year and is a designated time to address specific learning with the children.  This can be as a whole-class, small group work or 1:1.  The balance of these learning opportunities will be different for each year group and changes as the year progresses.  We plan activities based on our progression of skills in all seven areas of learning as well as in the moment planning following cultural events and our children’s interests.

Impact

Through implementing the above, we will see the impact in our Children’s progress; making good progress or better based on their individual starting points.  Those with lower starting points will have received targeted support to allow us to bridge the gap with their peers.  Our children will actively demonstrate curiosity, compassion, resilience and other characteristics of effective learning.  At the end of Reception, our children will reach or exceed the Early Learning Goals.  Our children will be ready to transition from the Early Years curriculum to the National Curriculum in Year 1 when they leave us.