St Mary’s Primary School and Nursery is a school where all children are valued and where all staff work hard to help every child. This is central to our teaching and learning offer where we want the children to be the best they can be.
The Foundation Stage is the name given to the phase of learning from 0 to 5. By the end of the Foundation Stage (the end of Reception) most children are expected to achieve the Early Learning Goals and where appropriate go beyond them.
Our curriculum follows the Early Years Statutory Framework for the Early years Foundation Stage. This document specifies the requirements for learning and development in the EYFS and provides the prime and specific areas of learning we must cover in our curriculum. We also use Development Matters to support the delivery of the curriculum.
The prime areas:
- Communication and language
- Physical development
- Personal, social and emotional development
The specific areas through which the three prime areas are strengthened and applied:
- Literacy
- Mathematics
- Understanding the world
- Expressive arts and design
A child’s individual learning characteristics determine the way they respond to both the teaching and learning taking place within the provision. The three characteristics of effective teaching and learning are:
- playing and exploring – children investigate and experience things, and ‘have a go’
- active learning – children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties, and enjoy achievements
- creating and thinking critically – children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things.
We believe strongly in the Seven Features of Effective Practice as referred to in the; Working with the revised Early Years Foundation Stage Principles into Practice by Julian Grenier)
- The best for EVERY child
- High-Quality care
- The Curriculum: What we want children to learn
- Pedagogy: helping children to learn
- Assessment: checking what children have learnt
- Self-regulation and executive function
- Partnership with parents
Seven features of effective practice
EYFS Planning
Throughout the year, our teachers plan an exciting, hands on curriculum for the children in Early Years.
Below is our Nursery and Reception progression of knowledge and skills document and also our more detailed St Mary’s C of E Primary School and Nursery EYFS reception curriculum document.
Early Years – Curriculum Design
St Mary’s C of E Primary School and Nursery EYFS Curriculum 2024 (including nursery)
EYFS Reception books and literacy links
Across the year each class focusses on 6 topics, 1 topic per half term. These topics are carefully planned so that the children are receiving well sequenced, high quality lessons that build on prior knowledge and show clear progression throughout the year. Each half term our topic plan is posted on our class pages. These documents take the contexts for learning and develop them, showing what children are learning in all areas of the curriculum.
Examples of termly overviews for Nursery and Reception are linked below.
Nursery
Nursery – All About Me Topic Plan
Nursery – All Aboard – Transport Topic Plan
Nursery – Down On The Farm Topic Plan
Reception
Reception – Into the woods
Reception – People who help us
Early Learning Goals
The Early Learning Goals establish expectations for most children to reach by the end of the Foundation Stage. They are not age but developmentally related as we fully realise children at this stage can develop at an uneven rate within different areas.
At the end of the reception year we use these goals to assess your child’s level of development. If they are confident and secure within these goals they are assessed as expected. If they are working towards these goals they are emerging. These assessments are based on what the child can do independently.
Early Learning Goals
