Welcome to EYFS
EYFS Parent Presentations and Handouts
Open Evening
New Parent Meeting
An Introduction - EYFS at Locking Stumps
Click here to see our Twitter Account where you will see a snapshot of some of our learning
Our Intent and Vision for EYFS at Locking Stumps
At Locking Stumps Primary School we believe that every child deserves the best possible start in life in order for them to fulfil their potential. All staff deeply care about the children in our school. We treat all children as individuals and promote positive relationships and secure bonds. We make it a priority to form close relationships with families and the wider community to promote the best outcomes for all children. Staff members use consistent boundaries and praise and rewards form the backbone of our behaviour management system. We recognise and value individual’s strengths and talents and believe in praising effort and valuing the little steps that really make a difference to a child’s progress. We know that by doing this, we are building happy and secure children, who feel safe. Praise and clear boundaries contribute to the confidence and resilience of our children. Creating children who are independent, not only in their organisational skills but also in their learning, is a high priority for us. We believe that all children are intrinsically capable of amazing things and we develop this through having high expectations of all children. We pose challenges, build confidence and self-esteem, show children how capable they are and support them to reach their potential. We take time to teach independence skills explicitly and support children to develop into well-rounded, ambitious learners. Taking risks is an important part of learning and we have developed both our environments and our teaching and learning strategies to promote children measuring and assessing risks for themselves and in having confidence and resilience to attempt challenges. Confidence and resilience are key skills for a developing learner. We explicitly teach children to understand the learning process and understand mistakes are valuable learning experiences. Through the Characteristics of Effective Learning, we develop children’s active learning skills and help them to understand and respond to feedback. Perseverance is highly valued and praised. We strongly believe that in order to develop resilience, we must teach children to be independent learners who problem solve for themselves and know to keep trying and how and when to access help. Excitement and motivation for learning are developed through planning fun, engaging and challenging lessons based on the needs for the children. We provide new and interesting experiences, building on and adding to the range of activities children will have had at home or through pre-school experience. We make learning purposeful and rooted in real-life contexts, where possible, so that children have motivating reasons to learn and to help them to apply their knowledge to a range of situations.
We aim to ensure that children are:
- Happy, secure and to feel safe
- Independent, self-assured risk takers
- Confident and Resilient
- Excited and Motivated to learn
- Socially strong and able to form positive relationships
How we implement our Vision and Intent for EYFS at Locking Stumps
We meet the needs of all our children through:
- Planning opportunities that build upon and extend children’s knowledge, experience and interests, and develop their self-esteem and confidence.
- Valuing parental contributions to their child’s learning.
- Using a wide range of teaching strategies based on children’s learning needs.
- Providing instant marking and feedback to support and extend skills.
- Providing a wide range of opportunities to motivate and support children and to help them to learn effectively.
- Providing a safe and supportive learning environment in which the contributions of all children are valued.
- Using resources which reflect diversity and are free from discrimination and stereotyping.
- Monitoring children’s progress and taking action to provide support as necessary.
- Working with outside agencies to continually update SEN support and provide relevant speech and language, physical development and social interaction schemes when required
Our Curriculum
In EYFS we use ‘The Early Years Foundation Stage Profile’ for planning and assessment which is followed in all early years settings. During the year the children will be working to meet the Early Learning Goals across the seven areas of learning. These seven areas are as follows:
The EYFS curriculum is centred on 3 prime areas of learning:
Personal Social and Emotional Development
- Self-Regulation
- Managing Self
- Building Relationships
Communication and Language
- Listening, Attention and Understanding
- Speaking
Physical Development
- Gross Motor Skills
- Fine Motor Skills
As a provider we support activities through 4 specific areas which strengthen the prime areas. These are:
Literacy
- Comprehension
- Word Reading
Maths
- Number
- Numerical Patterns
Understanding of World
- Past and Present
- People, Culture and Communities
- The Natural World
Expressive Arts and Design
- Creating with Materials
- Being Imaginative and Expressive
These Areas of Learning and Development address children’s physical, cognitive, linguistic, social and emotional development. No one aspect of development stands in isolation from the others as all Areas of Learning and Development are all closely interlinked. This ensures the delivery of a holistic, child-centred curriculum which allows children to make lots of links between what they are learning.
The guidance and objectives have been reviewed and the goals for the end of reception year have been updated. The reforms bring about some exciting changes and we have planned interesting Topics to ensure coverage of all these objectives.
The terminology that will now be used to assess each child within each of the learning areas will now be referred to as 'on track' and 'not on track'.
Throughout their year in Reception, the children will be observed and assessed through their play and during activities in order to gain insights and make reasonable judgements against the Early Learning Goals (ELG). In the final term we will report to parents using the terms ‘emerging’ or ‘expected’ to describe our judgements, under the new guidance the term ‘exceeding’ has been removed.
Admissions & Induction
On receipt of the Reception Admissions list, our EYFS leader contacts each child’s Nursery setting to arrange a visit to introduce themselves to each child and to discuss their level of develop, specific interests, safeguarding concerns, additional needs and any medical/dietary requirements.
Parents are invited to an induction meeting in June.
In July the children are given the opportunity to visit school through a series of transition sessions, these include a Teddy Bears picnic (accompanied by a parent), and a stay and play session (non-accompanied).
At Locking Stumps we follow the Warrington guidelines of a staggered start to school life. Children attend school part time for the first two weeks of term.
At the end of Reception there is extensive transitioning as they move into KS1. The year 1 teachers spends time in the Reception classrooms as well as the Reception children spending time in the Year 1 classes.
Click here to see more information on our admissions page on the school website.
Links with home
At Locking Stumps Primary School, we recognise the importance of establishing positive relationships with parents and carers. We believe that an effective partnership between school and home will have a positive impact on children’s learning and development.
We value the role of parents as children’s primary educators. Parents are kept informed of what is happening in school through regular letters, reading records, school pings and informal discussions at the beginning and end of the day. Class newsletters are sent home each half term and Whole school newsletters are sent fortnightly.
Parents are invited to attend parents’ evenings during the course of the academic year. The first of these takes place during the autumn term to allow teachers and parents to discuss how children have settled into the school. Another parent’s evening takes place during the spring term where teachers will feedback on children’s learning and development progress.
EYFS Curriculum
Topic Planning in EYFS
Below is an overview of our EYFS topic plan. The planning and focus is subject to change depending on the needs and interests of the children.
Autumn 1 Who is my Superhero?
In this unit, children will begin to explore their own feels and that of others around them. They will understand that to be a 'Lockies Superhero' there are rules that need to be followed. They will begin to know the difference between right and wrong and behave accordingly. The children will talk about the lives of the people around them and their roles in society. They will describe and begin to draw simple maps of their favourite room in their house and home. They will begin to explore the past and present in relation to the different generations in their immediate family.
Spring 1 The world around me
In this unit, children will explore the town they live in, building on from prior learning in Autumn 1 about their home. Through stories and experiences they will begin to compare village and town locations.
They will explore the world around them and how it changes during winter. Children will conduct their own freezing and melting experiments and test which materials are suitable for different purposes.
Through Chinese New Year the children will experience traditions from another culture.
Summer 1 Do all animals come from eggs?
In this unit, children will make observations about animals and plants. Learning about lifecycles of plants and animals. They will make comparisons from the past through learning about dinosaurs.
Autumn 2 Celebrations
In this unit, the children will explain occassions and events that they; and their families, celebrate. They will begin to learn that people in different countries and cultures have occassions / celebrations significant to them and their beliefs. They will compare the similarities and differences between these celebrations and festivals.
Spring 2 Beyond my world ....
In this unit, children will explore cities, in particular the capital city of their country, London. They will build on prior learning from Autumn 1 about their home and Spring 2 their street, village and town. Through stories and experiences children will begin to compare locations and have the opportuity to compare their location with an African village. Children will discover different types of transport and develop an understanding of past and present and how vehicles have changed through the years.
Summer 2 Watery World
In this unit, children will compare seasonal change through summer and a beach location. Through the text, 'The Seesaw' children will build on prior learning about life cycles and compare it to human life cycles. Children will explore Toys and Traditional games their Grandparents played with as a child.
Reading
Reading for pleasure is of high importance at Locking Stumps and we aim to ensure a rich and varied reading diet is provided. Teachers place a high value on books and reading by ensuring their classrooms and departmental areas are engaged with reading. Children read independently, teachers and assistants read aloud and model good practice, promote the use of accessing books that are challenging, provide opportunities to read individually to and select high quality texts to engage children in their discussions, reading and writing.
As a school we provide additional events and activities to widen the scope of reading and to ensure that our environment fully promotes its importance. We do this through annual book weeks, book sales, after school clubs, implementation of reading buddies, author visits, library visits, sponsored activities, utilisation of the Education Library Service to supplement our Topic Resources and class reading sets we also highly promote the love of reading through an engaging World Book Day.
The profile and importance of reading is delivered to all parents and prospective parents at parent meetings, presentations, newsletters and during regular correspondence.
A programme of Phonics is delivered daily across EYFS and KS1 through discrete lessons and integrated into the curriculum through whole class sessions and guided reading. Children are regularly assessed, grouped and targeted according to their needs and additional intervention is provided to accelerate progress.
Reading is primarily taught through whole-class reading in KS2 although it is integrated into all of our curriculum. We believe that teaching the whole class allows the teacher to develop a shared love for reading, raise expectations and experiences for all children and better prepare children to meet age related expectations. Some children receive additional intervention outside of the whole class reading sessions to enable them to make accelerated progress.
Reading efficiency is further developed in Year 5 and 6 through the implementation of ‘Reading Plus’. This a piece of software is designed to bridge the gap between functional literacy skills and reading for meaning. Research suggests that students reading more efficiently (i.e. at a speed proportionate to chronological age) are more confident and motivated: the more confident and motivated a student is, the more capable they are at understanding text.
We teach and revisit reading skills and strategies linked to the ability to decode, retrieve, infer, deduce and summarise. Teachers do not limit the teaching of reading strategies and comprehension to the utilisation of class books. Teachers implement the modelling of reading from peer reading or choral reading, using pictures or short films, mystery boxes/or bags, investigating different scenes and ‘hook’ activities.
Children are provided with a home reading book appropriate to their reading ability. These reading books are challenging and regularly monitored to ensure children are reading progressively more challenging and stimulating books. A variety of assessments including a benchmarking tool is used to support the level of book a child is reading. Children who are not reading as frequently at home are identified for further support within school / home.
Across school, children receive spelling homework based on the sounds and spelling rules they have been learning in school. In EYFS and KS1, when relevant, ‘Key words’ are also sent home to read and be assessed each half term.
Vocabulary and language acquisition are a high priority throughout school and every class implement a range of strategies in order to amplify and learn some of the new words that have been visited through whole class and guided reading sessions.
Teachers and teaching assistants have a clear understanding of how children learn to read throughout our school and are provided with regular training.
Writing
At Locking Stumps, Writing is taught using the ‘Talk for Writing’ approach from EYFS to Year 6. This approach enables children to imitate orally the language they need for a particular topic, before reading and analysing it before writing their own version. The approach moves from dependence towards independence with the teacher using shared and guided teaching to develop the ability in children to write creatively and powerfully.
The Talk for Writing approach emphasises the importance of the following structure and elements to writing:
Imitation – Creative hook and context
- Internalise model text –text map
- Read as a reader: vocabulary/comprehension
- Read as a writer: Box up text to establish structure
Analyse features
Construct toolkit
Innovation – Box up new version
Shared writing
Independent Application - Hot write
A programme of Letters and Sounds and Phonics is delivered daily across EYFS and KS1 through discrete lessons and integrated into the curriculum through whole class and group sessions. When children are confident with phonics they move towards learning spellings taken from the National Curriculum. Discrete spelling lessons are held weekly in KS2. Children are regularly assessed, grouped and targeted according to their needs and additional intervention is provided to accelerate Writing progress. Across school, children are expected to complete Phonics/Spelling homework (dependent on age or ability) to practise the sounds/spelling patterns which have been taught in school. SPaG teaching is incorporated in to daily English lessons and is an integral part of the Talk for Writing teaching sequence.
Vocabulary and language acquisition are a high priority throughout school and every class implements a range of strategies and discrete teaching in order to amplify and learn some of the new words that have been introduced through Talk for Writing and whole class and guided reading sessions. Children are encouraged to use these within their writing.