Curriculum

St Mary’s CE Primary School EYFS Curriculum

The objectives of our Early Years curriculum are to engage children and parents, to create happy, independent learners who thrive in their new environment, using opportunities to follow their own interests in an enabling environment. This will ensure that children will make good progress from their own starting points.

We want pupils to develop skills and interests through child centred WOW experiences and topics that engage the children. We encourage active learning to ensure the children are motivated and interested. We understand that this is not possible without parental engagement, which we start as early as possible through preschool visits, home visit.

Our Early Years curriculum is clearly structured to allow a broad, balanced and progressive learning environment and curriculum. The children will learn new skills, acquire new knowledge and demonstrate new understanding through the seven areas of the Early Years curriculum. Planning for this curriculum is designed to be flexible so that a child’s unique needs and interests are supported. Every child has access to and an understanding of their Next Steps that are clearly identified through ongoing teacher assessment. There are a range of stimulating and engaging activities that children can engage with, independently.

We have developed our key drivers for Early Years: -

Enabling environment – To ensure children have ample opportunities to develop their independence, explore the world around them and develop their interests.
Rich vocabularies – To support the children in developing their language skills and develop a rich language with deep technical vocabulary.
Quality teaching – To ensure that all children have access to quality first teaching and learning experiences across all areas of the curriculum.

We have followed the expectations set out in the Early Years Curriculum but have placed a particular focus on the Prime Areas and early exposure to books. We ensure activities support the Characteristics of Effective Learning to enable our early year’s pupils to develop their learning behaviours and prepare them for the rest of their educational journey at St Mary’s CE Primary School and beyond.

Pupil engagement and enjoyment in learning is at the core of everything we do. With this, we are determined to ensure that all children achieve the best possible progress across all areas of the Curriculum. Our children take PRIDE in their learning, behaviour and our school community. Children in the EYFS learn by playing and exploring, being active and through creative and critical thinking, both indoors and outdoors.

Every child at St Mary’s CE Primary School is recognised as a unique individual and as such, we endeavour to celebrate our differences within school and with the local community.

We strive to ensure that children leave Early Years with a Good Level of Development, as confident, enthusiastic and adaptable learners, ready to start their journey in Key Stage One.

EYFS Curriculum Overview 2020-2021

Autumn 1:All about Me

Spring 1: Journeys

Summer 1: All Creatures great and Small

Autumn 2: Once upon a Time

Spring 2: Our Wonderful World

Summer 2: Infinity and Beyond

Children in nursery are provided with a stimulating learning environment, which encourages learning through play – a fundamental part of early learning.