Early Years Foundation Stage
EYFS Intent:
‘Christ at the Heart of all we do’ resonates through all aspects of school life. The Catholic ethos, celebrating the unique child, is cherished. Opening children’s eyes to awe and wonder and encouraging them to marvel at the incredible world in which they live is promoted through the provision of first-hand learning experiences of the world around them.
Here are St Anne's, the education of our youngest children is informed by current, and relevant, pedagogical thinking and research. It is our belief that children reach their full potential when securely immersed in a safe, nurturing and fun environment. We are committed to providing the best possible provision for all - children and their families. Nurturing respectful, trusting relationships with children and their families is central to all we do; a happy, secure child is a child who will thrive. The unique child is celebrated, with equality of opportunity for all.
Working to ensure that all aspects of EYFS Statutory Framework, 2021 are delivered as a minimum, adults within the setting are committed to ensuring that each child is nurtured to achieve their best in line with their personal, social and emotional needs. A safe, enabling environment with clear, structured routines is provided. The intention is to foster a love a learning within each child; nurturing self-confidence, independence and self-regulation, ensuring that all children are well equipped for the next stage of their learning.
EYFS Implementation:
The learning environment is designed to promote independent exploration and engagement with first hand learning experiences that promote interpersonal skills, build resilience and foster creative, critical thinkers whilst challenging imagination and valuing originality. The children within the setting are considered to be the driving force of learning; the enabling environment supports free play and exploration, offering quality resources to facilitate child-initiated play and learning. We love to play - we understand the value of play in facilitating language, social, creative, inquiry and physical skills - to name just a few!
It is widely recognised that children are most likely to achieve their full potential when respectful, co-operative relationships between home and school are forged. We enjoy getting to know our families, believing that our whole is greater than the sum of our parts. We welcome families into school for social events, class-based activities such as 'Stay and Pray' and for supportive workshops such as 'Early reading and writing at St Anne's'. We support learning at home through Mathshed - an online learning platform for number - and through the provision of carefully selected reading materials. A reading diary accompanies reading books; within, feedback from work in class and guidance on how to support progress at home are provided. We actively encourage open channels of communication between home and school.
Our highly ambitious, aspirational curriculum plan offers an outline of proposed teaching sequences for the academic year and carefully considered progression maps ensure content of the curriculum is taught in a logical, hierarchical progression. Teaching practices are informed by current pedagogical knowledge; reflective practice ensures that the quest for offering the best possible provision for all is a continuous cycle of monitoring, evaluating and action planning. This is formalised within the School Development Plan. Given our commitment to pedagogy that is influenced heavily by child-initiated learning; interests of the children are, wherever possible, embraced and used to inform planning for learning. Such changes to the proposed curriculum are monitored to ensure that all areas of learning meet statutory requirements. A link to the curriculum plan can be found at the bottom of this page.
As it becomes developmentally appropriate, children will be encouraged to record some learning; this is collated in the child's 'Best Book', RE Book or Writing Book.
Religious Education is a central tenet of life at St Anne's; distinct lessons are consolidated through daily life. Holding Christ at the heart of all we do, we learn the importance of prayer. Prayers are shared as a part of the daily routine and whole class prayer is scheduled to learn about and celebrate God's greatness.
Summative and formative assessment is used sensitively to monitor individual and cohort attainment and progress and to ensure that teaching and learning opportunities are correctly pitched and suitably challenging for all. Statutory Baseline Assessment and a carefully structured transition into life at St Anne's is used to ascertain each child's starting points and next steps across the seven areas of learning; this is shared with parents and carers via an online observation and assessment tool - Development Map. Termly assessments are shared this way; two parent interviews are scheduled across the year to enable discussion of progress and attainment and an end of year report is issued providing an overview of the year's attainment and progress and a summative assessment against the statutory Early Learning Goals.
Where assessment highlights that quality for teaching is not resulting in expected levels of progress and attainment, in collaboration with parents, carers and our school SENDCo, consideration to additional needs is given.
EYFS Impact:
The impact of our provision is carefully monitored and evaluated through ongoing formative assessment and planned summative assessment. Progress and attainment for individual children and whole cohorts is tracked carefully and used to inform next steps planning. Where less than good progress is identified, swift action is taken to identify and irradicate possible barriers to learning. Parents and carers are informed of outcomes of assessments via online Development Map, written parent reviews, parent interviews, annual written report and face-to-face informal feedback during the course of the year. To guarantee accuracy of all assessment judgements made, moderation occurs internally, across schools and county.
The impact of our EYFS provision is reflected in the happy, secure and confident children and families who feel a valued part of the St Anne's family. Children eagerly engage with all aspects of life at St Anne's and the EYFS provision ensures that our children flourish into confident, independent learners who are ready to transition into Year 1 with the knowledge, skills, understanding and self-belief required to enable them to access the National Curriculum.? Although the youngest in school, our Reception children are fantastic role models for others in school.
