Reception

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

At Waterside we are lucky enough to have two fabulous Reception Classes, we have the Ducks and the Swans we share our fun and creative learning through child led and adult led activities in both class rooms and our fantastic outdoor area which is a major asset to our play based curriculum.

When delivering the EYFS curriculum we do plan half termly topics which we then teach each topic through stories which allows the children to develop their vocabulary, imagination and creativity. We also want the children to have ownership of their curriculum so sometimes through our planning in the moment we may not follow topics which are planned but follow the children's vision to their own learning. All learning takes place through independent play, adult led activities and facilitation through out our Early Years which is carefully planned and resourced for a purpose which develops pure magic!

Children will have phonics and maths sessions which is deliver in ability groups which are short and sharp sessions as we know this is how our children learn best and really retain information. Our maths sessions follow our very own number and patterns scheme which give the children a path to learn numbers to 20 and to know each number inside out, from our sessions we then put out activities which allow the children to show their knowledge independently. We follow the jolly phonics and 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.

To develop our fine motor skills we begin the year drawing our pre-writing shapes which allow us to really develop strong finger and hand muscles to get ready to write.

Once we feel the children are ready we begin writing letters, we write pre-cursively which helps us to begin to join our letters when we go into Keystage 1.

We aim to have every area of learning available within the classroom for the children to access and we try to have as many cross curricular links as possible to allow the children to become all round children and are confident in all areas of their learning. The most important thing about our curriculum is that the children love to learn! That they are having fun, are engaged and are feeling safe and confident and are blooming to reach their maximum potential!