Early Years
Subject Leader: Miss Durrant
Linked Governor:
Intent:
At The Arches Community Primary School, we offer a curriculum rich in wonder and memorable experiences. We work hard to provide a stimulating environment that provides exciting opportunities, promotes challenge, exploration, adventure and a real love of learning. It is our intent that all children develop physically, verbally, cognitively and emotionally in an environment which values all cultures, communities and people. We aim for our children to be confident and independent, to believe in themselves and interact positively with others. We understand that play is an integral part of learning, and this is at the heart of our Early Years curriculum. We believe that the correct mix of adult directed and uninterrupted child-initiated play ensures the best outcomes for pupils. Warm and positive relationships between staff and children, consistent routines and strong relationships with parents are key. We recognise the crucial role that early year’s education plays in providing firm foundations upon which the rest of a child’s education is successfully built.
At The Arches, we meet the welfare requirements laid down in the Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage and actively safeguard and promote the welfare of all of our children. We prioritise creating a ‘language rich’ environment using songs, nursery rhymes, stories and providing time for quality interactions between adults and between peers. Trained staff ensure that interactions are positive and progressive, allowing children to flourish and gather words at pace in order to become confident communicators. Children are encouraged to become early readers through enjoyment of books and the systematic teaching of phonics. We are implementing a new revised phonic scheme which is in line with the DFE Statutory framework. We will be using Letters and Sounds Little Wandle phonics teaching programme. To go alongside this, we will ensure all our children have phonetically decodable books and will use the Big Cat Collins Reading scheme. At The Arches, we aim to build a love of storytelling and a firm understanding of the key skills to write through the Read to Write Foundations scheme, which is a whole school approach. The children learn nursery rhymes and develop their mathematical thinking through direct teaching and exploration. We want our children to become confident mathematicians who can apply what they have learnt to real life experiences.
We have created our environment to enable our children to strengthen their core muscles through physical play, children spend time outdoors in their natural environment in all weathers. They develop through wonderful, exploratory, sensory experiences in our mud kitchen and the pebble pit. Our learning environment is adaptable in order to reflect children's interests and progression. The children are supported to learn to work together, manage their feelings and ask questions through skilled adult facilitated play.
Implementation:
The curriculum is taught through topics which are enriched with classroom enhancements, trips and visitors. Topics are supported by quality key texts from the Read to Write and Steps to Read programmes of study. These are chosen carefully to encourage children's speech, language and communication development. All planning is flexible and responsive to children’s needs, ensuring plans can be changed and adapted to reflect children’s interests. We understand the importance of parental engagement and believe that our parents have a crucial role to play in their children's education. We work hard to create strong partnerships between home and school. Parents are invited in for weekly ‘Proud Parent’ sessions in Foundation Stage 2 where they can talk to their child’s teachers and celebrate the learning at school through the provision floor books. The early years staff model how to play and interact with children as well as how to read a story and engage in book talk. We also use Tapestry within FS2, so that parents can share proud moments from home. Parents enjoy using this to engage in their child's learning and share experience from home. We also provide parents workshops across the year to help develop parents understanding of the curriculum. As part of the learning and teaching process, children are assessed in relation to their progress towards the Early Learning Goals, assessment underpins everything we do. These judgements are made on the basis of accumulative observations and in-depth knowledge of the children acquired through ongoing assessment As an Early Years team, we share our knowledge of all children in pupil conversations. During these discussion we identify and celebrate children’s progression and also establish their next steps. These pupil conversations are also valuable in moderating to ensure that all staff are fully aware of expectations of learning and development. These ongoing assessments are used to inform planning and next steps in teaching and learning for all children throughout the year.
Impact:
Our curriculum and its delivery ensure that children, from their own starting points make good/outstanding progress. During their time with us children make rapid progress towards the national expectation for a good level of development at the end of the year. Pupils also make more than good progress toward their age-related expectations both academically and socially, developing a sense of themselves before transitioning into Year One. Children develop their characteristics of learning and are able to apply their knowledge to a range of situations making links and explaining their ideas and understanding. Children are confident to take risks and discuss their successes and failures with peers and adults drawing on their experiences to improve or adjust what they are doing. We believe our high standards are due to our carefully planned environment, enriched play-based curriculum, quality first teaching and the rigour of assessment.
