Early Years Foundation Stage
“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 between birth and age five have a major impact on their future life chances. A secure, safe and happy childhood is important in its own right. Good parenting and high quality early learning together provide the foundation children need to make the most of their abilities and talents as they grow up.”
“The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) sets the standards that all early years providers must meet to ensure that children learn and develop well and are kept healthy and safe. It promotes teaching and learning to ensure children’s ‘school readiness’ and gives children the broad range of knowledge and skills that provide the right foundation for good future progress through school and life.” Statutory framework 2021
Learning and Development
The principles which guide the work of all the early years’ practitioners are grouped into four themes:
1. A Unique Child – every child is a competent learner from birth who can be resilient, capable, confident and self-assured.
2. Positive Relationships – children learn to be strong and independent from a base of loving and secure relationships with parents and/or a key person.
3. Enabling Environments – the environment plays a key role in supporting and extending children’s development and learning.
4. Learning and Development – children develop and learn in different ways and at different rates and all areas of Learning and Development are equally important and inter-connected.
Curriculum
The EYFS curriculum encompasses seven key areas of learning.
The three prime areas of learning are:
1. Personal, Social and Emotional Development
2. Communication and Language
3. Physical Development
The four specific areas, through which the three prime areas are strengthened and applied, are:
1. Literacy
2. Mathematics
3. Understanding the world
4. Expressive arts and design
At Beit Shvidler Primary School we believe that every pupil is unique. We ensure all children have the opportunity to develop and learn in a safe and nurturing environment where play and learning is combined incorporating both the Secular curriculum and the Kodesh curriculum. Through practical learning experiences, we provide children with a love of learning and a natural curiosity. We are dedicated to giving our pupils the best possible start to their school life, teaching them skills that ensure their well- being now and success in the future.
Intent
At Beit Shvidler Primary School our intent is to ensure there is a nurturing, bright and exciting environment which is full of interesting and challenging activities in which learning can take place. We aim to deliver a broad a balanced curriculum based on the children’s interests whilst ensuring that we instil a love for Kodesh. It is important that we consider each child’s existing knowledge and experiences, and build upon these by using the children’s interests to help inform the planning. Our purpose is to give children opportunities to practise, revise and extend knowledge and skills in a consistent and stable environment, so we can look at cultural capital and provide them with experiences and opportunities to help them progress and achieve success.
Our curriculum is designed to develop the characteristics of effective learning by ensuring that children create and think critically, to develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things. To provide a place where children can experience, investigate and become independent, resourceful and resilient learners now and throughout their education.
Implementation
The Beit Shvidler EYFS curriculum is broad and balanced and builds on the knowledge, understanding and skills of all pupils.
- We want the children’s experience to be meaningful and memorable so that they can develop their characteristics of learning.
-We aim to provide high quality interactions with adults that demonstrate and impact on the progress of all pupils.
- We plan and create careful assessment opportunities through observations, which are recorded on ‘Tapestry’ and shared with parents. These are used to inform the next steps of learning and meet individual needs.
-The curriculum is designed so that there is an effective and engaging environment that is set up so that pupils can access all areas of learning both inside and outside.
• Our children are encouraged to become early readers through enjoyment of books and the systematic teaching of phonics. Daily phonics activities are available for children to consolidate and extend phonic skills and knowledge.
• A ‘language rich’ environment is provided through the use of songs, nursery rhymes and stories so that they can become confident communicators.
• We provide an early language intervention using Talk Boost.
• We have an Early Years lead who monitors teaching and learning to improve standards and outcomes
Our curriculum covers both secular and Kodesh that meets the needs of all pupils
• We provide regular opportunities for parents to attend Oneg/Chaggim to support learning at home and be involved in school life.
Impact
The impact of the EYFS curriculum is reflected in having well rounded, happy and confident children. We measure progress and children’s learning across the year through formative and summative assessment which are based on the teacher’s knowledge of the child, photographs and videos recorded on Tapestry. A good number of children reach or exceed the Early Learning Goals at the end of Reception and we ensure that all children build on their current knowledge and skills at a good pace and are ready to transition from the Early Years curriculum to the National Curriculum in Year 1.