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Our Curriculum

Our Early Years Curriculum

 

The Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum is made up of seven areas of learning;

 3 prime areas and 4 specific.

The prime areas of learning are:

Communication and Language

- Physical Development

- Personal, Social and Emotional Development

 

The specific areas of learning are:

- Literacy

- Mathematics

- Understanding of the World

- Expressive Arts and Design

 

Early Years Foundation Stage at

Barnfields Primary School

 

At Barnfields, we have two fabulous Reception Classes. We share our fun and creative learning through child and adult led activities in both classrooms. We also have a fantastic shared outdoor area which allows for collaborative learning between the two classes.

 

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is a play-based curriculum and learning takes place through independent play which is scaffolded by adults and carefully planned adult led activities.

 

We want the children to have ownership of their learning and therefore when delivering the EYFS curriculum we plan half termly topics based on children’s interests. The topics are exciting and engaging and take shape according to the children’s curiosities and enquiries. We start each topic with a ‘wow’ to engage the children from the beginning. We use a wide variety of stories as a stimulus for the children’s learning, allowing the children to develop their vocabulary, imagination and creativity.

 

The Early Years site is a positive, engaging and enabling environment where all children thrive. The Reception classrooms have been designed and organised to ensure a deeper level of autonomous learning is achieved by allowing children time and space to follow their individual enquiries, interests and motivations with open-ended resources and provocations. In the Reception classes and the shared outdoor area, specific spaces have been designed to support the different areas of the EYFS curriculum. We believe in the importance of outdoor learning and operate a free flow system where children can choose to learn in the indoor or outdoor environment.

 

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Creative teaching and developing children’s thinking are at the forefront of our practice.  We provide and plan for opportunities to develop problem solving.  We use a wide range of strategies to promote learning including the use of provocations to ignite curiosity. This instigates children’s questions and theories and promotes creative and critical thinking. Exposure to these learning opportunities results in the children in Reception demonstrating their curiosity, asking questions, tackling challenges and solving problems. This results in children showing persistence and they regularly talk about “not giving up” and being resilient.  We encourage children to reflect on what they have learnt by talking about it and sharing their learning journeys

 

At the heart of good EYFS practice is on-going observation and assessment, enabling our staff to plan effectively for each child’s next steps for learning. These observations and assessments are recorded on Tapestry, a secure online learning journal helping staff and families celebrate their child’s learning and development. Tapestry builds a very special record of a child’s experiences, development and learning journey through their time in Reception. Using photos, videos and diary entries staff, along with the child’s parents, weaves the story of the child and how they are growing and developing. The tapestry platform then works seamlessly to enable these memories to be kept as a permanent record of each child’s unique journey. Parents are able to view online their child’s progress and how much fun they are having, whilst also uploading their own comments and media. The communication between staff and parents helps build a shared understanding of how every child can reach their full potential.