EYFS Curriculum

Statement

“Play is the work of the child.” When children are allowed to explore their world through meaningful activities, they can learn an unfathomable amount about their world.”

Maria Montessori

Intent

At Holy Family, we offer a curriculum rich in wonder and memorable experiences. We work hard to provide a stimulating environment that offers exciting opportunities, promotes challenge, exploration, adventure and a genuine love of learning.

Our intent is that all children develop physically, verbally, cognitively, and emotionally in an environment that values all cultures, communities, and people. We aim for our children to be confident and independent, believe in themselves and interact positively with others.

We understand that play is an integral part of learning, which is at the heart of our early years’ curriculum. However, we believe that the correct mix of adult-directed and uninterrupted child-initiated play ensures the best outcomes for our pupils.

Warm and positive relationships between staff and children, consistent routines and strong relationships with parents are essential.

We recognise the crucial role that early year's education plays in providing firm foundations upon which the rest of a child's education is successfully based..

Implementation

At Holy Family, we meet the welfare requirements laid down in the Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage and actively safeguard and promote the welfare of all of our children.

We prioritise creating a language-rich environment through songs, nursery rhymes, and stories and providing quality interactions between adults and peers. Trained staff ensure that interactions are positive and progressive, allowing children to flourish and gather words to become confident communicators. Children are encouraged to become early readers through the enjoyment of books and systematic teaching of phonics. The children learn nursery rhymes and develop their mathematical thinking through direct teaching and exploration. We want our children to become confident mathematicians who can apply what they have learnt to real-life experiences.

We have built our early years environment to enable our children to strengthen their core muscles through physical play; children spend time outdoors in their natural environment in all weathers. They develop through wonderful, exploratory, sensory experiences in our mud kitchen, sandpit and nature area. Our learning environment is adaptable to reflect children's interests and progression. The children are supported to learn to work together, manage their feelings and ask questions through skilled adult facilitated play.

The curriculum is taught through loose topics, which is enriched with classroom enhancements. Quality key texts support topics, and these are chosen carefully to encourage children's speech, language and communication development.

We understand the importance of parental engagement and believe that our parents have a crucial role in their children's education. We work hard to create strong partnerships between home and school. Parents enjoy using Tapestry to engage in their child's learning and to share experiences from home.

Impact

Our curriculum and its delivery ensure that children make good progress. During their time in Reception, 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.

Children develop their characteristics of learning and can apply their knowledge to a range of situations making links, explaining their ideas and understanding. Children are confident to take risks and discuss their successes and failures with peers and adults, drawing on their experiences to improve or adjust what they are doing.

 We believe our high standards are due to our carefully planned environment, enriched play-based curriculum and quality first teaching.