At Blowers Green, we implement the Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework through engaging, first-hand experiences and high-quality interactions with adults that enable children to learn more, know more and remember more. We encourage resilience, ambition, and a lifelong love of learning while also supporting children in understanding and managing their mental health and well-being.  

Recognising that every child is unique, we celebrate and embrace diversity within our school community. Our curriculum is thoughtfully developed and adapted each year to reflect the interests and fascinations of the current cohort while ensuring the progression of essential knowledge across the 7 areas of learning. We understand that learning is a sequential process, building on what children already know and can do, guiding them towards clearly defined end points so that all children remain on the learning journey. Our curriculum is designed to prepare pupils for a smooth transition to year 1. 

We aim to:  

• Provide a curriculum that offers children a wide range of opportunities ensuring that we do not expect children to aspire to things they have never encountered.  

• We will work on broadening children’s experiences providing opportunities to try new things and encouraging them to relish a new challenge  

• Provide high expectations encouraging them to develop perseverance and self-belief so that they can problem solve and achieve far more than they expected  

• Provide a learning environment that helps children achieve their potential and support those who need additional help in order to maximise their chances of achieving the Early Learning Goals  

• Provide children opportunities to develop their sense of wellbeing and ability to regulate their feelings so that they feel confident in our community and are equipped with all the tools they need to transition to Year 1 effectively  

• Continue to develop the skills and expertise of staff working in EYFS through regular and comprehensive professional development either run by the EYFS Lead or attending courses run by other providers

  

  ​

Our curriculum follows the Early Years Statutory Framework for the Early years Foundation Stage and uses the Development Matters 2022 and Birth to 5 documents as a basis. These documents specify the requirements for learning and development in the EYFS. We have used these to develop our curriculum offer to ensure that we deliver a carefully planned and progressive curriculum. Through our knowledge of each child and formative assessments, the EYFS team plan exciting and engaging activities that will move the children’s learning forward and give them a context for their learning. This may involve following a class theme such as dinosaurs, space, journeys and traditional tales, where we take advantage of cross curricular links and may also include following individual children’s interests at specific times during the daily offer. The curriculum is designed to include a blend of whole class, guided, adult-directed play and child-initiated learning activities to ensure children are taught the knowledge they need for cumulative gains in learning in a progressive manner as well as following their own interests. We look forward at the start of a year to assessing what our children know and understand and ensure all children systematically develop knowledge in all seven areas of the curriculum.  

Children in EYFS learn by playing and exploring, being active and thinking critically and creatively. This takes place both indoors and in our outdoor area. Our outdoor area is open all year round and in all but the most challenging weather conditions. Children make their own decisions about where they learn best to apply taught knowledge. The Early Years Curriculum is also carefully devised to ensure that the children are introduced to key concepts and bodies of knowledge such as old and new transport, growing and seasons that they will re visit in Key stage 1. 

The school follows ‘Read, Write Inc’ (Ruth Miskin DFE validated systematic, synthetic phonics scheme) from their early days in school. Through this all children learn to read and write with accuracy, fluency and automaticity. The scheme provides support for parents. Staff are trained and monitored regularly to ensure a consistent and successful approach. Children read daily in class and the books are matched specifically to the phonic phase they are learning, ensuring they are able to read independently. 

We provide effective and focused intervention for those children who are finding learning challenging and are not on track to meet national expectations at the end of the year to enable them to catch up quickly with their peers. This is provided in an inclusive and flexible manner depending on the needs of the individual children. Support from parents is also enlisted at an early stage to ensure that the children have every chance to achieve the Early Learning Goals. 

A range of formative and summative assessments are used to identify what children know and understand and to precisely target their next steps in learning. The EYFS team collect evidence of children’s learning through work completed in their learning journey book, observations, photos and videos which are shared with parents. This means that parents can engage with children regularly about their learning and can contribute to the knowledge we have of the child in school. Parents are very active and are encouraged to share any milestones children make at home during the year through ’WOW’ moments. A class learning journey of topics, interests and experiences is also collated to showcase the year. Children are regularly encouraged to ‘Pick a Page’ in the book to refer back to. The children engage in discussions about these specific pages - helping them interrupt the forgetting curve and retain their learning. The judgements of our school are moderated with other schools and the EYFS Strategic Lead.  This means judgements are secure and consistent with government guidelines.  

We are passionate about offering children contextual, first-hand opportunities that many may not have experienced before or that enhance their learning in school. To support this, we organise memorable experiences, such as trips to a forest school or watching eggs hatch into living creatures. We ensure that all our visits are linked to learning and serve as a catalyst for deeper engagement with a theme or project. 

The teaching and pedagogy are reviewed and evaluated regularly through team meetings in Reception.  These have an agenda and actions which are then reviewed in the following meeting. We ensure that the areas we discuss and develop are reflected in changes and developments in our classroom practice. By the end of the year we provide opportunities for children to increase their ability to work independently on tasks ensuring they are well prepared for the move to Year 1. We also ensure that the curriculum and pedagogy in Year 1 continues to reflect the independent learning skills children have gained in reception, working together as teams to develop expertise and confidence in all teaching staff. We do this through key stage meetings where practice is evaluated and reflected upon and decisions about the best way to move forward to enhance children’s learning are made.  

The team work tirelessly to ensure that children are surrounded by a kind, caring and happy environment which helps them develop their own personalities in their journey through school. It is a highly positive place to be where resilience, perseverance and successes are celebrated and every child feels valued and respected. 

The impact of the EYFS curriculum is reflected in having well rounded, happy and confident children. The children transition into Year 1 with key knowledge and overarching concepts to enable them to access the requirements of the National Curriculum. Our children are often wonderful role models for others in school.  

Although our children achieve below the National and Local Authority data for a Good Level of Development, they make exceptional progress from their starting points, demonstrating outstanding growth in their learning. Our children reach end points, identified through our carefully planned curriculum offer, for all seven areas of learning. The teaching and pedagogy are reviewed and evaluated regularly through monthly team meetings. These have an agenda and actions which are then reviewed in the following meeting. We ensure that the areas we discuss and develop are reflected in changes and developments in our classroom practice. The Early Years provision features in all areas of the School Improvement Plan and has a rigorous plan for development each year. This is monitored and evaluated by the EYFS Lead, the Headteacher and designated EYFS governor.  This ensures that all staff understand the Early Years curriculum offer and how it provides the foundation for subsequent learning for all subjects of the National Curriculum.