Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)

Intent

The period from age three to the end of the Reception year is described as the Early Years Foundation Stage. It is a distinct stage and important both in its own right and in preparing children for later schooling.

We follow the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum where learning encourages children to develop into independent, happy and confident children who have a desire to learn and play. 

Our EYFS curriculum ensures we are able to meet the individual needs of every child within our school. The principles that guide the work in the EYFS are grouped into four themes:

• A unique child
• Positive relationships
• Enabling environments
• Learning and development

We use the EYFS curriculum to identify the Characteristics of Effective Learning. This shows us how each child engages with other people and their environment, how they play and explore, if they are active learners and if they are creating and thinking critically. We have a balance of adult initiated and adult directed tasks as part of our curriculum offer to ensure that children make the best progress. We also use the Leuven Scale to help us to gain a deep understanding of children’s emotional wellbeing and involvement. The Leuven Scale is a five-point scale that allows childcare practitioners to measure children’s ’emotional well-being’ and ‘involvement’ – two vital components of learning, development and progress in children. This is particularly useful when children first start school but is also used throughout the year.

We make observations of children’s learning which enable us to move learning forward in a way which is appropriate to each child’s stage in their development.

We record observations using the online assessment tool Tapestry which captures these precious and valuable moments and allows the adults to link these to the stages of development in Development Matters. This non-statutory guidance material supports adults in the EYFS in implementing the statutory requirements of the EYFS. Parents and carers are able to access Tapestry at home to respond to learning that has been put on there and also to document home experiences.