EYFS Intent
In the Early Years at Ridgeway Farm CE Academy, we want children to be happy, confident, well rounded individuals with a love for learning. We believe in providing all children with a safe and stimulating environment that builds on individual’s wants, needs, and interests and aim to give the children a sense of belonging in the wider school community.
Learning through play should be fun, engaging and promote children’s natural curiosity whilst providing suitable challenge. We aim to encourage children to take turns, share and be thankful to one another and to God, committing to our Christian values. We value the importance of our outdoor environment and believe that it offers children the opportunity to develop their thinking and problem-solving skills.
We are committed to providing the best possible start to school life, teaching them skills, and giving them experiences that will ensure their well-being now and success in the future.
EYFS Implementation
All staff have high expectations and the enhancement of skills for learning is achieved through a well-resourced, stimulating environment that allows children to repeat and consolidate their own learning. Children are encouraged to take an active part in their learning journeys and become independent learners. We foster a love of learning by ensuring that we capture and learn through the children’s interests as much as possible. Every opportunity is a learning opportunity!
Our high quality teaching and learning is based on a team planning approach centred around children’s individual needs and interests, as well as providing the initial building blocks for the wider whole school curriculum which follows.
Our curriculum provision enthuses and generates a love for reading whilst effectively teaching new ideas, concepts and vocabulary. This can be seen through our ‘Book Talk’ teaching focus in Reception which is driven through exposure to quality texts, which is also linked to all areas of our curriculum. Our children also have access to a lending library, home readers, reading in Phonics sessions, daily story time and nursery rhymes.
Our mathematics curriculum is taught daily through exposure and exploration of number and numerical patterns. It encapsulates real life scenarios for example, cookery (weights and measures), shopping (money role play) and general day to day teacher daily activities and routines.
Staff are skilled at asking questions that encourage children to think more deeply about their learning, to extend their use of language across the curriculum and to make connections in order to embed new learning.
Prime areas are a key part of our curriculum. They are covered though all areas of our curriculum provision but specific examples are:
- We have a welcoming and inclusive environment
- We have our key person system
- We have key interventions that cover one or all three prime areas i.e. Dough Disco.
- Educational trips to enhance the children’s language skills
- Daily or Weekly PSED sessions (cohort dependent)
- Weekly PE and Just Dance sessions (from Autumn 2)
- Assessments are relevant and purposeful, leading to improved outcomes for children. We have continuous, daily assessment which influences provision lesson to lesson, day to day, week by week. This can be seen in our planning files, children’s files, daily practice and the learning environment.
We strive to involve parents to engage in supporting their child’s to learning. We do this through parent workshops, information leaflets, newsletters, regular tweets and website class page updates and the use of SeeSaw where families see their child’s progress, add images and progress achieved at home with families.
EYFS Impact
Our children will be actively engaged in their learning and the enjoyment of this learning will be apparent in their daily provision. All children will have experienced a curriculum that provides exciting and enriching learning experiences and opportunities for them to learn through educational visits and practical experiences.
Our young learners will be able to appreciate and understand the world around them by experiencing and learning about different cultures, celebrations, music, dance, art and history. Children will actively ask questions about the world around them and their learning experiences. They will be able to take risks as this is an opportunity to learn.
We also aim to help children to make sense of the world around them, through our school values of kindness, love, faithfulness and an understanding of their rights and the rights of others in an ever-changing world. Our Early Years children will be successful learners and fully prepared for the next stage of their education as they transition from Early Years Foundation Stage into Key Stage One.
We know that by the end of Foundation Stage at Ridgeway Farm CE Academy, our children will have developed the essential knowledge and skills required for everyday life and lifelong learning. We believe the children at Ridgeway Farm CE Academy will be happy, inquisitive and successful learners who have bright futures.
The impact of the EYFS curriculum is reflected in having well rounded, happy and confident children transitioning into Year One. Our curriculum and its delivery ensure that children, from their own starting points make good progress. Children in our early years, on average, arrive with much lower starting points than national. During their time with us children make rapid progress towards the national expectation for a good level of development at the end of the year. Pupils also make good progress toward their age-related expectations both academically and socially, developing a sense of themselves before transitioning into Year One.
We believe our high standards are due to our carefully planned environment, enriched play-based curriculum, quality first teaching and the rigour of assessment. Our curriculum is reviewed annually to ensure relevance and to ensure the voices of our pupils, parents, staff and governors are heard.