Alfriston School

Play brings together the ideas, feelings, relationships and physical life of the child. It helps children to use what they know and to understand the world and the people they meet. Play co-ordinates a child’s learning and makes it whole.

OUR CURRICULUM INTENT FOR EYFS

At Alfriston School, we provide a high-quality EYFS education to ensure all children have a happy and secure start to their school life. We aim for all our children to know more, remember more and be able to do more. Using the aims of the EYFS Statutory Framework, we are committed to ensuring that all children within our care have high quality early education and experiences.

We strive to nurture a lifelong love of learning by providing an inviting and stimulating learning environment both indoors and outdoors. This, alongside the high-quality interactions we provide, engage children in developing the three ‘Characteristics of Effective Learning’ set out in the EYFS.

The EYFS encompasses our school values: collaboration, independence, curiosity, creativity and determination as well as fostering resilience.

We recognise the EYFS is the start of our Alfriston School curriculum and we aim to provide children with the essential knowledge they need to continue their journey through our school and prepare them for future success.

HOW WE IMPLEMENT OUR INTENTIONS

We have a culture of high expectations of our pupils and strive to make our EYFS curriculum engaging and accessible for all. We recognise that all children need to develop firm foundations. To achieve this, we:

ensure the curriculum is personalised, purposeful and deliberately relevant for our children and community
ensure small steps in progression and careful planning which is built upon children’s interests
ensure quality-first teaching across all areas of the curriculum
provide stimulating and challenging learning environments
plan and organise continuous provision which allows children to learn through play
provide high-quality interactions between adults and children to challenge and progress learning and thinking
plan a careful balance of adult-led and child-initiated learning opportunities
provide real-life experiences and opportunities to build upon prior learning
build strong partnerships with parents and carers to support and encourage effective learning at home
have close links with local providers, parents and carers to support a smooth transition
plan story times and use books to enhance learning, build upon children’s vocabulary and develop a love of reading
teach phonics, using ‘Little Wandle’, a systematic synthetic phonics scheme to ensure all children learn to read
teach mathematics, using the mastery approach to develop a deep understanding
provide planned opportunities for outdoor learning.

The Statutory framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage sets the standards for learning, development and care for children from birth to 5 years, but we believe that this is a floor and not a ceiling for children’s learning at Alfriston School. We have an ambitious vision for the children in our care. It is our aim that every child meets the Early Learning Goals (ELGs) at the end of Reception but we also want our children to develop the skills and knowledge that will help them to meet the many challenges that lie ahead and to develop a love of learning that will engage and inspire curiosity along the way.

We recognise that the Prime Areas of learning (Communication and Language, Personal Social and Emotional Development and Physical Development) form the foundations of children’s ability to access the Specific Areas of learning (Maths, Literacy, Understanding the World and Expressive Arts and Design).

Prime Area: Personal, Social and Emotional Development

Through a commitment to the development of self-regulation, confidence and resilience, we aim to develop warm and positive relationships with the children and to encourage them to develop equally effective relationships with their peers. We expect the children to work together harmoniously, sensitively and always with an understanding that they are part of something bigger than themselves.

Prime Area: Communication and Language

We recognise the fundamental importance of developing language and communication skills. Spoken language not only improves academic outcomes and shapes executive function but also equips children to meet the challenges that lie ahead. We want our children to be able share their ideas and express their opinions using newly acquired vocabulary with confidence and in the knowledge that they are warmly supported and encouraged by staff and fellow pupils alike.

Prime Area: Physical Development

By the time they move on to Year 1, we want our children to have developed the fine motor skills, strength and stamina to express themselves through competent and confident writing. Through access to our enabling environment, both inside and out, we aim to support the children in their own individual next steps to develop core strength, stability, balance, spatial awareness, co-ordination and agility.

Specific Area: Literacy

We want our children to develop a love of reading and to become storytellers in their own right. Being able to sequence events and understand basic narratives not only helps to shape and guide the development of executive function (crucial for future academic success) but also develops communication, language and vocabulary and in turn children’s confidence. Through our systematic synthetic phonics teaching we aim that our children will be secure in Phase 2 and Phase 3 of the government’s Letters and Sounds sequence (moving to Phase 4 if the children are ready), they will blend sounds for writing and segment words for reading. We expect all of our children to be equipped with the skills to support the writing of full sentences including capital letters, finger spaces and full stops.

Specific Area: Mathematics

Our mathematics teaching aims to encourage flexible and agile mathematical thinking. We want all of our children to develop a ‘maths mastery orientation’ alongside the specific requirements of the Early Learning Goal for mathematics, which will lay the foundations for our whole-school commitment to maths mastery.

Specific Area: Understanding the World

Understanding the world that we live in is so much more than the development of an understanding of different animals, cultures, climates and landscapes. We want our children to develop their cultural capital during their time with us in Reception and to appreciate beauty in the natural world around them. We want our children to be able to identify and solve their own problems, from pulling up a sticky coat zip to working out how they can make a boat that floats, discovering the joy of learning along the way and developing resilience to setbacks.

Specific Area: Expressive Arts and Design

There is little that is quite as satisfying as making or creating something that works in the way that you planned or expressing yourself, your place in the world and your feelings through a painting, drawing or song. We aim to equip our children with the knowledge and skills they need to express themselves creatively and to help them develop the initiative to inspire their own creations.