St Matthew's C.E Primary School

“I can do all things because Christ gives me strength” Philippians 4:13

EYFS

EYFS at St Matthew’s CE (Aided) Primary School

 

“Individuals working together to potential with God”

At St Matthew’s Primary school, our school vision is to encourage all children to flourish spiritually, morally, emotionally, physically and intellectually in all aspects of life demonstrating perseverance and resilience; this is emulated across all curriculum areas. 

 

 

The Early Years Team is committed to providing all our children with the best possible start to school life, creating a collaborative, safe, caring and happy community where everyone feels safe, nurtured and supported.

Through a sequential and progressive curriculum designed to reflect the needs and interests of our children, we aim to provide language rich, engaging, enjoyable and purposeful experiences that allow our children to develop skills that build upon their prior knowledge that enables them to know more and remember more. 

We want our children to leave our EYFS as confident, independent and ambitious learners who have secured skills and knowledge that form firm foundations to ensure their success throughout their educational journey and beyond.

 

Our Intent

At St Matthews our priority is the development of children as individuals. The Early Years Foundation Stage at St Matthew’s nurtures and educates children between the ages of three and five years. It consists of up to 64 nursery age children and 40 full-time reception age children. Within the EYFS, we provide the children with the skills, knowledge and understanding they need to prepare them for the challenges in Key Stage One and beyond.

For most children starting in our Nursery centre this is their first experience of education, so it is essential that we work closely with parents to establish positive working relationships from the very first meeting. We aim to work closely with parents to gather as much information regarding their child as possible to ensure their needs can be met from the very first day.

Most of the children starting in Reception have either attended our nursery or another pre-school setting. We have a large number of feeder Nurseries/pre-schools and we work to develop good relationships with all, gathering as much information relating to the individual child prior to them starting with us.

We have one Nursery class that consists of AM, PM and thirty hours children. Our Reception cohort is spread across two classes; a straight Reception class and a Reception/Yr1 mixed class. All classes share a large outdoor classroom that all EYFS children can access. There are qualified teachers in all EYFS classrooms and at least one full time teaching assistant/HLTA in each class.

We want all our children to achieve no matter what background they come from. We therefore support them to become confident children who communicate effectively and develop positive relationships with those around them. We strive to create resilient pupils, who have a strong sense of self-belief and a love for learning. We want our children to believe in themselves and their abilities.

We work in partnership with our parents and carers to promote independent, confident and enthusiastic learners who thrive in school so that they make at least good progress from their various starting points.

We endeavour to provide our children with the cultural capital they need to enable their future success. By giving each child the best start in life and providing them with rigorous support, we enable them to fulfil their full potential and achieve their utmost. We believe it is imperative to foster a sense of belonging within the school's learning community and the wider community in order to be successful in their academic career and beyond. We are passionate about creating opportunities for children to communicate more easily. As such, we concentrate on developing language and communication skills and teaching vocabulary specifically. 

Our EYFS curriculum is designed to:

  • recognise children’s prior learning and experiences;
  • provide first-hand learning experiences which allow the children to develop interpersonal skills;
  • build resilience; and
  • become critical and creative thinkers.

Our curriculum is driven by the children's interests, key concepts from the Developmental Framework and the Birth to 5 document along with a wide range of texts (both fiction and non-fiction). We are proud to expose children to core texts throughout the year in Nursery and Reception

We use a variety of resources to implement the Early Years Curriculum and to support and enhance home/school learning opportunities. We also support teaching through the use of a number of online resources including the RWI portal and Evidence Me.

The four principles of the Early Years Foundation Stage underpin our everyday practice in the EYFS at St Matthew’s:

At St Matthew’s we are fortunate to have a Nursery that provides children with morning or afternoon sessions. We are also able to offer places for children eligible for 30 hours funding within our nursery setting. In addition to our Nursery we have a Reception cohort that can accommodate 40 children.

Our Early Years leader, Miss K-A Booles oversees our three EYFS classes. We offer a warm, friendly and supportive environment which enables all children to make a confident start to their learning journey where the importance of the home school partnership is truly valued.

 

At the core of all learning opportunities both planned for and spontaneous, are the characteristics of effective learning:

  • Playing and Exploring
    • Engagement – Finding out and exploring, playing with what they know and being willing to ‘have a go’.
  • Active Learning
    • Motivation - Being involved and concentrating, keep trying and enjoying achieving what they set out to do.
  • Creative and Critical Thinking
    • Thinking – Having their own ideas, making links and working with ideas.

 

Aims of the Foundation Stage are:

  • To work in partnership with parents, developing close, respectful relationships.
  • To support the individual needs of pupils through early identification, planned additional support and early help.
  • To offer support to children and families through continuing to form links with local agencies and community groups.
  • To promote equality of opportunity and anti-discrimination in our day-to-day interactions with each other.
  • To meet the emotional needs of all through the development of self-esteem, independence, resilience, and enjoyment ensuring a sense of value and belonging is fostered.
  • Provide a secure and safe learning environment, indoors and out that is engaging and purposeful.
  • To provide a rich and balanced curriculum that uses play and exploration as the vehicle for learning that provides children with a broad range of knowledge and skills needed for good progress through school and life.
  • To plan and provide challenging learning experiences, based on the individual child and their prior knowledge.
  • Provide opportunities for children to engage in activities that are adult directed and child initiated.
  • To provide quality and consistency in teaching and learning so that every child makes good progress, and no child gets left behind.
  • To work as a ‘TEAM’, committed to raising standards in child development and achievement.

 

Session Times

St. Matthew’s Nursery Centre provides Nursery places for up to 64 children on a part-time basis.  The Nursery is open five days per week.  Session times are as follows:

Monday – Friday morning 8.40 am - 11.40 am.

Monday – Friday afternoon 12.15 pm - 3.15 pm.

All parents are offered up to 15 hours provision per week for their children to a maximum of three hours a day.  This is in line with the Government’s statutory requirement. We have a limited number of 30 hour places available in Nursery for those parents eligible for this funding. 

 

Our Implementation

The curriculum is planned using the revised Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework, Development Matters and Birth to Five Matters documentation. The EYFS lead has worked in consultation with the advisory team to merge key information into one Progression of Skills document that runs from Nursery to the end of Reception.

The children in both Nursery and Reception are provided with ample opportunities accessible in our indoor and outdoor provision. They engage in planned, focussed activities as well as child-led activities. Structured well established routines are timetabled. Pupils investigate and experience the world around them by being willing to always have a go. Pupils need to be active and this active approach to learning supports their ability to concentrate and to keep persevering when they encounter challenge and difficulty.

The pupils will learn new skills, acquire new knowledge, and demonstrate understanding through the seven areas of the EYFS curriculum:

  • Personal, Social and Emotional Development
  • Physical Development
  • Communication and Language
  • Literacy
  • Mathematics
  • Understanding the World
  • Expressive Arts and Design

All staff are experts in teaching systematic, synthetic phonics (Read, Write, Inc). Daily RWI lessons in Reception and half termly assessment ensure all pupils practice their reading from books that match their phonics knowledge. Our school’s approach to teaching early reading and synthetic phonics is systematic and ensures that pupils learn to read words and simple sentences accurately by the end of Reception. Opportunities to develop maths skills are carefully planned using concrete resources and build on prior learning and real-life experiences. Daily maths lessons planned using White Rose embed repetition which ensures our children will become confident mathematicians who can apply the knowledge they have learnt to real life experiences. Teacher directed and teacher led lessons teaching higher knowledge through careful steps in subjects such as maths, phonics, handwriting, and basic grammar enables children to use their taught knowledge.

On entry to nursery and reception staff baseline the children carefully observing the child’s skills and knowledge as well as their strengths and interests. The reception statutory baseline assessment will be carried out within the first six weeks and is an activity-based assessment of pupils’ starting point in language, communication and literacy and mathematics. Throughout the nursery and reception years as part of the learning and teaching process, children will be assessed and their progression is monitored and addressed both on a daily, half termly and termly basis. These judgements are made based on observations and our expert staffs in-depth knowledge of the pupils acquired through ongoing assessment. These ongoing assessments are used to inform planning and next steps in teaching and learning for all pupils throughout the year and any specific interests to fill in knowledge and skills. End of year summative assessments are finalised during the summer term, summarising each pupil’s development at that point against the our progressive curriculum and the Early Learning Goals.

To ensure all children acquire a varied and wide vocabulary, and can communicate effectively, the EYFS lead has worked closely with the SENCo and EYFS team to establish vocabulary that children in Nursery and Reception need to be exposed to, to ensure this supports them when they move through into KS1. All vocabulary has been carefully linked to the themes being taught over the course of the year, ensuring that all children are exposed to new language that supports their learning in all areas of the curriculum.  We use our observations along with the Stoke Speaks Out assessment tool to identify gaps in communication and Language. Staff then place emphasis on developing the communication skills of these children through a range of activities including story sharing, songs, rhymes and specific targeted support. Specific interventions are delivered to close the gaps identified in Speech and Language using Talk Boost.

Our EYFS staff are passionate about fostering excellent parent partnerships and we encourage parents to be involved in all aspects of their child’s education. There are induction programmes in place for both Nursery and Reception children. All Reception children new to school will receive a visit either to the Nursery that they currently attend or to their home as this provides opportunity to meet all new children.

  • We hold regular parent workshops and events across nursery and reception.
  • We hold parent consultation meetings twice yearly for both Nursery and Reception parents.
  • Parents are informed of the Term’s planning activities, visits and special events via email, the school website and the school’s weekly newsletter – ‘Friday Feature’.
  • Nursery receive a weekly newsletter relating to the learning that has happened in the week along with ideas to support children at home.
  • Parents are invited to a phonics workshop in the Autumn Term.
  • We share observations with parents via our observation platform ‘Evidence Me’.
  • All children in Nursery and Reception will receive an end of year progress and attainment report.

 

Our Impact

  • Have positive relationships with staff and peers.
  • Understand the importance of good health (oral, food and exercise).
  • Develop detailed knowledge and skills across the 7 areas of learning in an age-appropriate way.
  • Develop their vocabulary and use it across the EYFS curriculum in preparation for KS1.
  • Use their knowledge of phonics to read and write accurately and with increasing speed and fluency.
  • Have gained knowledge in key concepts to make them ready for the next stage of education.
  • Have the personal, physical, and social skills they need to succeed such as high levels of curiosity, concentration, and enjoyment of learning ready for the next stage of their education.
  • Enjoy, listen attentively, to their peers and adults and respond with comprehension to familiar stories, rhymes and songs that are appropriate to their age and stage of development.
  • Demonstrate their positive attitudes to learning through high levels of curiosity, concentration, and enjoyment.
  • Are resilient to setbacks and take pride in their achievements.
  • Can manage their own feelings and behaviour, understanding how these have an impact on others.
  • Have a clear sense of right from wrong.
  • Impact of our well-planned curriculum is that children know and remember their learning ready for KS1.
  • Have a deep understanding of early numbers and the ability to recognise the pattern of the counting system as well as key aspects related to shape, space, and measure.
  • Automatically recall number bonds to 10.
  • Parents are informed and fully involved with their children's learning by attending workshops and events throughout the year.