Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum Statement

Our school vision

The Lord says, ‘I will instruct you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye

on you.’ Psalm 32:8

We live our vision with three dynamics at the heart: Living, Learning & Flourishing together.

We live as role models and advocate good choices

We learn in all we do with a loving eye upon us

We flourish in the way we go, within school and into the world beyond

Our five Core Values are: Kindness – Koinonia – Compassion – Responsibility – Forgiveness

At Great Massingham and Harpley CE Primary Schools Federation our delivery of the EYFS

curriculum aims to provide a variety of opportunities for our children to develop as independent,

resourceful, and positive learners. We want our children to have a desire to learn new things and

challenge themselves each day. We work extremely hard with the children to develop their

independent learning skills and their approach to challenge. We follow our whole school vision

and introduce this in our Reception class:

INTENT

At Great Massingham and Harpley CE Primary Schools Federation we design our curriculum and

learning to build upon the children’s prior learning, in their Preschool and Nursery settings, as well

as from their experiences at home. We recognise that every child is unique, and we embrace this.

We aim to create a learning environment and build relationships which support, enhance and

invite a child’s curiosity, confidence and individual competency to flourish. Our curriculum is

designed around a language rich environment and aims to develop the foundations for excellent

communication skills. Our curriculum intent is to provide the children with both a range of familiar

topics, linked to their experiences, as well as unfamiliar topics, to spark their interest and

exploration of the wider world. In doing this we provide a curriculum and environment where the

children feel safe and secure when developing their language skills, yet are challenged and are

exposed to new language and vocabulary. Teaching and learning is led by the interests of the

children and our planning and delivery complements this. As such we have no set long term

plans, yet aim to remain flexible to provide the best learning opportunities for the children at the

time. Our half termly plans are used to support and fill in gaps when learning opportunities are

not led by the children’s interests. We aim to meet the children’s needs through identifying and

responding to the many ‘teachable moments’ that happen across the day, though also recognise

the importance of high quality adult-led activities and interactions. The ‘focus child’ approach is

used to ensure that on a cyclical basis all children have the opportunity for their needs and

interests to be prioritised. We believe planning should be based around the needs and interests of

the children.

We work closely with our families to provide positive and engaging learning experiences and

provide the children with a strong and united support network. It is extremely important that the

children feel excited, engaged, and encouraged throughout their learning journey. We work with

our families to foster a strong relationship and our ‘open door’ policy invites and encourages

parents and carers to engage with us and foster strong links between us.

As a team we work extremely hard to create an indoor and outdoor learning environment that

inspires the children to investigate, question and challenge themselves through a broad,

balanced, differentiated and personalised curriculum. We ensure that each child explores and

accesses a wide range of continuous provision and enhanced provision opportunities

incorporating sensory, physical, writing, number work and creative role play activities.

Our EYFS curriculum aims to enable our children to be:

Competent and creative learners; who are curious about the world around them.

Secure and confident; who enjoy coming to school and learning new skills and knowledge

building on their existing knowledge and understanding.

Skilful communicators; who connect with others through language and play, ensuring that they

play in a language rich environment.

It is our intent to ensure that all children will receive the teaching of early reading through

systematic, synthetic phonics to learn to read words and simple sentences confidently by the end

of Reception. We intend to provide our children with every opportunity to fulfil their potential and

to prepare them for future experiences, including working towards reaching the Early Learning

Goals at the end of the Early Years Foundation Stage. By following our children’s personal

interests and individual needs this allows us to plan and provide opportunities throughout our

EYFS curriculum to support learning and development and achieve their next steps. The

challenges our children face as they move into Year 1 is recognised and it is our intent to support

this transition by ensuring our children leave us ready and excited to take on new these new

challenges. We actively support our children and families throughout their final term in Reception

with transition opportunities to aid their move into KS1.

IMPLEMENT

Within our EYFS at Great Massingham C of E Primary School, we are guided by the Early Years

Statutory Framework 2021. The framework sets out the requirement for learning and

development within the EYFS and consists of four overarching principles that shape our teaching

and learning opportunities:

Unique Child – Every child is a unique child who is constantly learning and can be resilient,

capable, confident and self-assured.

Positive Relationships – Children learn to be strong and independent through positive

relationships.

Enabling Environments – Children learn and develop well in enabling environments, in which their

experiences respond to their individual needs and there is a strong partnership between

practitioners and parents and carers.

Learning and Development – Children develop and learn in different ways. The framework covers

the education and care of all children in early year’s provision, including children with special

educational needs and disabilities.

Planning and curriculum:

Our curriculum provides a play-based and experiential learning environment, combined with

focussed teaching and basic skills. Our children are access indoor and outdoor provision and

engage in planned, focussed activities as well as self-initiated and free flow activities. The

learning experiences within our Early Years are linked to the seven areas of learning and

development within the EYFS. These areas are split into three prime areas and four specific areas

as follows:

Communication and Language

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

Physical Development

Literacy

Mathematics

Understanding the World

Expressive Arts and Design

These areas are used in our planning for the children’s learning and their activities. We believe

planning should be based around the needs and interests of the children. As such we have no set

long term plans, yet aim to remain flexible to provide the best learning opportunities for the

children at the time. Our EYFS practitioners use of questioning engages and stimulates our

children’s learning and thinking to fill in gaps when learning opportunities are not led by the

children’s interests. Weekly planning is interest led. We believe an enabling environment is

key. We carefully plan our continuous provision and enhanced provision to ensure it meets the

needs of our children. Our provision ensures the children’s gaps in learning are addressed and

that there is sufficient challenge to ensure children remain engaged and active learners. We

encourage active learning and aim to develop the learning characteristics that will support

lifelong learning. We want all our children to:

Learn actively – Where they try their best and persevere even when they face challenges.

Play and explore – To investigate and experience things and are willing to ‘have a go’

Create and think critically – To develop their own ideas both independently and in collaboration

with others.

Environment

Our continuous provision and enhanced provision areas use high quality resources that provide a

range of open ended learning opportunities to ensure the children can follow their interests and

meet their next steps. We fully recognise the importance of the outdoor environment and ensure

children have access to the wide range of opportunities this provides as often as possible.

Assessment Cycle

On-going formative assessment is at the heart of outstanding EYFS practice. At Great

Massingham and Harpley CE Primary Schools Federationour EYFS practitioners aim to engage

and be involved with children during their play based activity, across all areas of

learning. Through this, we are able to gather a clear picture of where children are in their learning

and any gaps they may have. We provide effective and focused intervention for those children

who are finding learning challenging and are not on track to meet expectations at the end of the

year. This will be provided in an inclusive way and support from parents is also enlisted at an

early stage to ensure that the children have every chance to achieve the Early Learning Goals.

We use the Tapestry online learning journal to record and share the children’s learning with their

parents. Staff meet regularly to discuss observations made and use them to plan the next steps

in learning. We use the outcomes from observational assessment to inform planning for children,

acknowledging their interests and facilitating their next steps in learning. Our timetables are

designed to create balance between whole class tasks, child initiated and adult-led play based

learning. We aim to give the children enough time to engage and be involved in their

learning. We value the importance of outdoor learning and fully recognise the benefits it has.

Reading

Reading is at the heart of our curriculum and our aim is to encourage a love of reading right from

the start. The aim is to expose children to a range of quality books that not only develop a love of

reading, but have been chosen specifically to develop their oracy, vocabulary and comprehension.

The books on our EYFS Reading Spine are embedded in our provision through activities and story

sessions. The books are kept on display for children to access independently. Through this,

children begin to internalise new vocabulary, language patterns and begin to retell stories. We

share a range of fiction and non-fiction books with our Year 5 and 6 Buddy weekly.

Phonics

We deliver discreet daily phonics sessions in ability groups and aim for the children to practice

and apply these skills during real and meaningful activities. We provide parents and families with

opportunities to join us in our phonic sessions and hold information mornings to share our

teaching of phonics with families and to offer ideas and strategies to support and engage

phonics and reading at home. We follow the Twinkl scheme of work.

Maths

In Reception we follow the White Rose Maths scheme of work as a guide. High quality learning

environments and meaningful interactions with adults, support children in developing

mathematical thinking and discussion. Children learn through games and tasks using concrete

manipulatives and pictorial structures and representations which are then rehearsed, applied and

recorded within their own child-led exploration. Children in Reception have daily adult-led maths

inputs to develop fluency, revisit key concepts and address misconceptions.

We provide children with opportunities that enhance their learning in school. We go on visits to

support this and have a particular focus on our local area, including walks to our local church,

through our village and to our village hall. We ensure that all of our visits are learning related and

will provide the spark for further immersion in a theme or project. Towards the end of the

Reception year we provide opportunities for children to increase their independence in recording

their learning as appropriate to ensure they are well prepared for the move into Year 1. We also

ensure that the pedagogy in Year 1 reflects the independent learning skills children have gained

in Reception, working together as teams to develop expertise and confidence in all teaching staff.

We do this through staff meetings where reflections on practice are made, evaluated and

decisions about the best way to move forward to enhance children’s learning. Our EYFS team

work tirelessly to ensure that children are surrounded by a kind, caring and happy environment

which helps them develop these skills in their journey through school and this begins during their

smooth transition from Preschool into Reception. It is a positive place to be where resilience,

perseverance and successes are celebrated and every child feels valued and respected

IMPACT

The impact of the EYFS curriculum is reflected in having well rounded, happy and confident

children transitioning into Year 1. We measure progress and children’s learning across the year

through formative and summative assessments which are based on the teacher’s knowledge of

the child, their learning journeys, photographs and videos recorded on Tapestry. The impact of

our curriculum can be measured by the way in which our children are inspired and excited about

their learning. We work hard to ensure our children develop into confident and lifelong positive

learners, who are excited by new challenges, are good citizens and kind friends. We endeavour to

ensure that our children leave the EYFS ready to move with confidence into Year 1 and their

lifelong learning journey.