Our Early Years Curriculum
The Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum is made up of seven areas of learning; 3 prime areas and 4 specific.
The prime areas of learning are:
- Communication and Language
- Physical Development
- Personal, Social and Emotional Development
The specific areas of learning are:
- Literacy
- Mathematics
- Understanding of the World
- Expressive Arts and Design
Early Years Foundation Stage at Waterside Primary School
At Waterside Primary School we are lucky enough to have one large Nursery class (Ducklings), split into two key worker groups (Yellow and Brown Ducklings) and Two Reception Classes (Ducks and Swans) . Most children tend to join our Nursery the term after their third birthday, however we do have an additional few children that join us, as they enter into their Reception year.
Half termly topics and themed weeks are used in both our Early Years classes as a creative vehicle in delivering the EYFS curriculum. As we are working towards an 'Early Years Unit'', all Early Years classes will focus on similar themed topics, allowing for topic based, collaborative learning in our shared outdoor environment.
Both our Nursery and Reception classrooms have been designed and organised to promote positive, engaging environments for the children to learn in. All classes have designated areas of learning to support different areas of the EYFS curriculum. At Waterside Primary school, we believe in the importance of outdoor learning and use our lovely outdoor area regularly every day for our continuous provision and for adult directed activities.
Children will have phonics and maths sessions for twenty minutes a day and these short and sharp group activities have proven to work well with our children and help them to retain information in short bursts. We follow the letters and sounds scheme of work following the sequence of sounds and memory words which match our home reading books which get sent home weekly. We also write pre-cursively which helps us to begin to join our letters when we go into Keystage 1.
At the heart of good EYFS practice is on-going observation and assessment, enabling our staff to plan effectively for each child’s next steps for learning. At Waterside Primary this is incorporated in several aspects of our practice:
- Key Person system
- Observation notes- post it notes.
- Parental Observations that can be handed to the teacher and feed into children’s learning journeys
- Focused assessment notes
- Individual Learning Journeys
- Pupil voice and self-assessment
As a school, we continually seek open and active two-way communication with parents.
Below are some examples of how endeavor to achieve this within the Early Years:
- Whole School Newsletters
- Daily opportunities for informal chats with staff
- Reports once annually
- Parent’s evenings
- Meet the teacher sessions
- Stay and Play sessions
- Electronic observations for both parents and teachers.
- Regularly updated class pages on the website