Early Years Foundation Stage Intent

Our Early Years curriculum is designed to foster a lifelong love of learning by providing a nurturing and stimulating environment that balances purposeful, adult-led instruction with rich, child-led exploration. We believe in a holistic approach, where structured schemes in phonics and mathematics provide the core knowledge and foundational skills necessary for school and KS1 readiness. Our structured sessions are carefully planned alongside continuous provision—both indoors and outdoors—offering a constant, stable environment where children can revisit, consolidate, and extend their learning through play. We honour the importance of child-led learning, enabling children to follow their own interests, develop independence, and initiate their own inquiries. By observing children’s unique schemas and interests, our expert practitioners enhance the environment to scaffold deep thinking and critical curiosity, ensuring every child flourishes and makes consistent progress from their individual starting points.

Our intent is rooted in our core values, which shape how children learn and experience The Early Years Foundation Stage

• Curiosity – We encourage children to be curious learners and critical thinkers. We encourage them to explore their environment and ask questions to independently develop their learning.
• Creativity – We inspire the children use a range of resources in the inside and outside classroom that compliments their natural creativity. We consistently challenge the children to explore, manipulate and create, thus developing life-long creativity with the learner. 
• Collaboration – We support the children to develop compassion and empathy towards others, as well as encourage the children to build togetherness and teamwork. 
• Challenge – We constantly challenge the children to develop independence and confidence to ensure we create learners that strive to be the best versions of themselves.
• Community – We strive to ensure a ‘family feel’ within the classroom, ensuring children feel safe, valued and respected. We endeavour to create a sense of belonging and community throughout the Early Years Department and the wider school.

How is the Early Years curriculum implemented?

The Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum follows three separate teaching approaches that are carefully planned to support one another. These elements are structured sessions using follow government backed schemes, continuous provision and child-led learning. These three approaches ensure that all children are being supported to become the best learners they can be.

Our curriculum implementation ensures a rigorous, consistent approach to early literacy and numeracy through daily, structured sessions, providing the foundational knowledge children need to thrive. We deliver systematic, synthetic phonics through daily Read Write Inc. sessions, where children practise speed sounds, blend words, and read books carefully matched to their current phonic knowledge. This is complemented by White Rose Education maths, which uses small-step, concrete-pictorial-abstract approaches to develop a deep conceptual understanding of numbers and shape. To ignite a passion for writing, we use Drawing Club, allowing children to develop their fine motor skills, imagination, and vocabulary by bringing story characters to life, mapping the journey from spoken language to written sentence.

To support and extend this structured learning, we use high-quality continuous provision both indoors and outdoors, which serves as a "second teacher". Our learning environment is meticulously organised, with accessible resources designed to prompt curiosity and independence, allowing children to revisit and embed skills taught in direct sessions. For example, phonics speed sound cards, mini-whiteboards for writing, and tactile maths resources are placed in our classroom areas, encouraging children to apply their "Fred Talk" or number knowledge during their play. This consistent, engaging environment ensures that learning is active, enabling practitioners to observe, interact, and extend children’s understanding through skilful questioning while they play.

Child-led learning is at the heart of our practice, fostering independence and allowing children to take ownership of their learning journey. We carefully balance structured teaching with child-initiated play, recognising that children often deepen their understanding when exploring their own interests. Our practitioners act as facilitators, listening to the children's ideas, observing their play, and adapting the environment to introduce new possibilities that match their current passions. Whether through transforming a role-play area based on a child's story idea, or providing resources for a complex construction project, we nurture resilience, problem-solving, and a genuine love for learning.

Progression of Skills and Knowledge

Research into ‘Cognitive Load Theory’ has supported our current pedagogy regarding how we teach and expect children to learn and revisit prior learning. We have a focus on retrieval practice, ensuring the children are revisiting fundamentals of the Early Years curriculum regularly throughout the day. For example; key texts, phonics flashcards, sound blending opportunities, numerical pattern knowledge. This is conducted methodically and through the use of games and songs to ensure all children are developing a secure understanding of some of the Early Years fundamentals. This will cement the knowledge within their long-term memory, ensuring future knowledge and skills can become easily attainable and prior knowledge does not overload the working memory.

How is technology integrated to enhance teaching and learning?

Technology is woven into the Early Years Curriculum; children are exposed to a variety of technology-based resources within the classrooms continuous provision. Both classes have a tablet station that is accessible to all, whereby children can scan QR codes and learn through safe and age-appropriate applications. Classes also use resources such as a Tonies box to develop the children’s love of reading in a fun and technology-based way. Finally, children will partake in weekly sessions, targeting specific ICT skills using an ‘app’ called ‘Busy Things’.

What is the impact of the Early Years Curriculum?

We begin each child’s journey by building a strong understanding of their starting points, using national baseline assessments, WellComm, and the Leuven Scales to monitor communication and emotional well-being. Their progress is supported through daily high‑quality interactions, verbal feedback, and next‑step marking, alongside termly tracking through Insight and the Read Write Inc. programme. We value partnership with families, so our ‘All About Me’ meetings and progress reports ensure parents play an active role in setting goals for reading, writing, and maths.

Beyond data, we celebrate the whole child by observing their developing curiosity, collaboration, and resilience during daily discovery. As the Foundation Stage concludes, we complete a detailed profile for every learner to capture their achievements. This journey culminates in a seamless transition to Key Stage 1, where dedicated handover meetings and familiarisation visits ensure that Year 1 staff are fully prepared to build upon each child’s prior successes and support them in reaching their Good Level of Development (GLD) and beyond.

Early years pupils will thrive and feel nurtured through a tailored, play-based curriculum that builds emotional resilience and a strong sense of belonging. Both settings will foster a safe, language-rich environment, whereby dedicated staff ensure that every child’s unique voice and background are valued, empowering them to confidently explore their world and develop a lifelong love of learning.

Furthermore, a positive impact will also be evident in a variety of ways; Pupils will demonstrate significant progress in their social and emotional development by building secure attachments with key staff and peers. Through targeted social-emotional learning (SEL), children are learning to identify and regulate their emotions, fostering a sense of self-worth and resilience that allows them to navigate new social situations with confidence.

Our engagement model ensures that children are deeply involved in a broad and balanced curriculum that prioritises their unique interests. By creating a language-rich environment and offering high-quality interactions, we empower pupils to become active participants in their own learning, leading to measurable gains in communication, literacy, and early numeracy.

Recognising parents as a child's first educator, we prioritise meaningful engagement that extends learning into the home, this is celebrated through a whole school reading challenge and celebrating work on class dojo. By fostering open dialogue and sharing regular progress, we build a trusting community where families feel valued and informed, directly contributing to improved child outcomes and a cohesive support system.