At Woodley Primary School, our Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) includes both Nursery and Reception classes. Our curriculum in this foundational phase is thoughtfully designed, drawing inspiration from Development Matters, the Characteristics of Effective Learning, our CARE values, and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Our intent is to cultivate an environment where curiosity thrives through enriching experiences. We focus on developing a strong sense of self and fostering a love of reading, ensuring that children flourish in a play-based setting. Our approach inspires children to question and explain their surroundings, nurturing inquisitive minds to encourage language development.
We are committed to creating a supportive and engaging atmosphere where each child can begin their educational journey with confidence and joy.
Our children in Nursery and Reception follow the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Framework. We plan activities, which allow our children to achieve the objectives outlined in the `Curriculum Guidance for the Early Years Foundation Stage’. The curriculum covers 7 areas of learning, to start in the Nursery and continuing into Reception:
We provide opportunities for children to learn how to work, play and co-operate with each other. They learn to share, to communicate and to express their feelings and develop their self-confidence.
We encourage conversation and discussion throughout all areas of the curriculum; to enable the children to develop their confidence and skills in expressing themselves, and to speak and listen in a range of situations.
We promote the importance of being healthy and active. We plan activities to enable the children to develop greater physical control, mobility, awareness of space and manipulative skills. We utilise our indoor and outdoor space to give all children the best opportunities for effective physical development and to introduce sports and games skills.
We have adopted the Phonics Shed scheme, which enables the children to develop early reading and writing skills necessary for their future education. We promote a love of books through the enjoyment of a wide range of texts and through sharing books at home. We write for a variety of purposes, using a lot of different media.
We provide a lot of practical experiences and games to provide the foundation for numeracy and develop early counting and number manipulation skills. The children experiment with shape, space and measures including length, weight, capacity and time, and they experience & learn appropriate accompanying vocabulary.
We offer children opportunities to develop their understanding of their environment, other people and features of their world. We approach this curriculum area through topic-based learning. The children are encouraged to observe, ask questions and explore using their senses. They are taught to use tools safely and to use ICT to support and extend their learning.
Here the children represent their own ideas, thoughts and feelings through singing songs, making music and dances, and experimenting with ways of changing them. They safely use and explore a variety of materials, tools and techniques, experimenting with colour, design, texture, form and function.