Intent

At Petham Primary School we strive to create an exciting, engaging and flexible Early Years Curriculum which fosters our young children’s natural curiosity, builds upon their prior experiences and allows them to flourish whilst in our care. We believe that children learn best through meaningful, hands on experiences.  Therefore, in Robins Class we learn through play with the support of our caring and experienced staff who develop our children’s ideas and link learning to their play and exploration right from the start. Our children are encouraged to be problem solvers, independent thinkers and resilient learners. We work closely with our parents so that we can develop your child’s education together. Our main aim is to ensure your child is happy and has a positive and exciting learning experience at our school.  We are very fortunate to have beautiful grounds at Petham and we actively encourage our children to regularly explore their own ideas in a safe environment both indoors and outdoors all year round.

Our EYFS Curriculum aims to enable our children to:

• Be reflective learners who build upon their prior learning and experiences.

• Be happy, content and successful learners in our classroom and school environment.

• Achieve their fullest potential through quality teaching and child-initiated opportunities.

• Build positive relationships with all staff and children within our small village school.

• Learn through exciting, playful experiences in a safe and nurturing setting.

Implementation

At Petham we follow the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum (Sept 2021) and we work towards meeting the Early Learning Goals by the end of the year. We know that, to learn well, children need to approach learning opportunities with curiosity, energy and enthusiasm and that learning needs to be meaningful to them.

We ensure activities support the Characteristics of Effective Learning.

• Playing and Exploring – Children explore, investigate and ‘have a go’.

• Active Learning – Children concentrate on their activities, keep trying if they encounter difficulties and enjoy achieving their goals.

• Creative and Critical Thinking – Children think of their own ideas, make link between their learning and develop strategies for doing things.

Our curriculum provides play-based, and child initiated, learning alongside focused teacher led sessions to ensure our children make good progress and have a strong foundation of knowledge and skills which they can further build upon in Year 1. Our classroom environment and outdoor areas provide the children with skills-based activities which have been carefully planned to integrate  progression of skills, children’s interests and encompasses the seven areas of learning.

The seven areas of learning and development allow us to support each child holistically and ensure we provide a broad and balanced curriculum.

Prime Areas:

• Personal, Social, Emotional Development (PSED)

• Physical Development

• Communication and Language

Specific Areas

• Literacy

• Mathematics

• Understanding the World

• Expressive Arts and Design

Each day at Petham, our children are given time and space to work independently as well as working collaboratively with their new friends and teachers. We also work closely with parents as we know they are the children’s first teachers, role models and know them their children the best. We aim to provide opportunities throughout the year for parents and carers to join us in the classroom to learn how to support their children at home and also to share their learning achievements. Parents are regularly updated with their children’s learning via Tapestry and through weekly Newsletters.

Over Arching Principles

Unique Child: Every child is unique and has the potential to be resilient, capable, confident and self-assured.

Positive Relationships: Children flourish with warm, strong & positive partnerships between all staff and parents/carers. This promotes independence across the EYFS curriculum. Children and practitioners are NOT alone – embrace each community.

Enabling environments: Children learn and develop well in safe and secure environments where routines are established and where adults respond to their individual needs and passions and help them to build upon their learning over time.

Learning and Development: Children develop and learn at different rates. We must be aware of children who need greater support than others.

Impact

To ensure our curriculum is meeting the needs of all of our children we spend much of our time in Early Years spending time with the children, talking to them and observing their learning. Each staff member in our Early Years classroom use ongoing observational assessments to identify each child’s starting points and plan subsequent activities to ensure progress. We use observations and exercise books to evidence the children’s learning and progress.

We have three assessment windows during the year, during which we update the progress our children are making which allows us to assess the impact of teaching and evaluate our practice. As a trust, we also carry out moderation sessions each term to ensure we are confident in our judgments.

We want our children in EYFS to develop the skills they need to become curious, life-long learners which a great foundation upon which they can continue to build throughout the rest of their time at our school.

At Petham we know our curriculum has been successful when we see our children:

• Becoming confident individuals who are willing to try their very best.

• Taking pride in their achievements.

• Being kind, caring and respectful to others.

• Demonstrating good communication and inter-personal skills.

If you would like to explore our curriculum please click on the attachments below:

Development Matters