Our Early Years Curriculum
At Waterside, we take time to get to know each individual child well, building good relationships so that we can best understand their needs. Our approach gives the children opportunities to learn, make choices and decisions and develop self-awareness, confidence and independence. This learning takes place in an atmosphere of caring and warmth, where each child and their individual needs and achievements are recognised, valued and praised.
The following information provides an overview of our EYFS Reception Curriculum offer.
EYFS Curriculum Intent
In line with our whole school values, our EYFS Nursery and Reception Curriculum has been designed to support pupils to develop confidence and independence and to persevere in the face of challenge. The design of the curriculum encourages pupils to build respectful relationships and communicate effectively with each other. It is carefully planned to enable pupils to make connections between home and school life, prior knowledge and new learning and begin to make links with the wider community. Children are encouraged to explore their own ideas, fascinations and interests and express their individuality, communicating their thoughts and ideas verbally, through drawing, mixed media and in writing.
Our ambitious EYFS curriculum aims to enable all children to develop the knowledge, skills and understanding they should acquire by the end of the Reception year in order to become confident, self-assured, independent learners, ready for KS1.
Our EYFS Curriculum has been designed to:
- support children’s transition to Reception and then KS1
- teach the children how their environment compares to other places, cultures and nature in their local community and other parts of the world
- learn about themselves, and other important people in their lives, including in the school, their family and the local community
As a result, each planned topic is included in the curriculum for very specific reasons, building upon children’s prior knowledge. We want to ensure that all children leaving the Reception year are ready to start the KS1 curriculum. Although our curriculum includes six half-termly topics, we are responsive to the children’s learning needs and interests and will adapt our EYFS curriculum in order to meet the needs of our youngest learners. All the topics have resources and activities ready to use in the continuous and enhanced provision. The topics are always introduced with a good-quality text, which helps children learn the value and importance of books and reading and promotes reading for pleasure.
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 three key worker groups and Two Reception Classes (Ducks and Swans).
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 Little Wandle scheme of work for our phonics programme following the sequence of sounds and memory words which match our home reading books which get sent home weekly.