Early Years
Our Intent
At Thorley Hill we offer a curriculum rich in wonder and memorable experiences. We work hard to provide a stimulating environment that provides exciting opportunities, promotes challenge, exploration, adventure and a real love of learning. It is our intent that all children develop physically, verbally, cognitively and emotionally in an environment which values all cultures, communities and people. We aim for our children to be confident and independent, to believe in themselves and interact positively with others.
We understand that play is an integral part of learning, and this is at the heart of our Early Years curriculum. We believe that the correct mix of adult directed, adult led and uninterrupted child-initiated play ensures the best outcomes for pupils. We promote warm and positive relationships between staff and children, establish consistent routines and recognise positive behaviour. We believe strong relationships with parents are key.
Implementation: How do we deliver the EYFS curriculum?
At Thorley Hill we meet the welfare requirements stipulated in the Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage and actively safeguard and promote the welfare of all of our children.
We prioritise creating a ‘language rich’ environment using songs, nursery rhymes, stories and providing quality interactions between adults and children. All staff ensure that interactions are positive and progressive, allowing children to flourish and gather words at pace to become confident communicators. Our learning environment is adaptable to reflect children's interests and facilitate progression. The children are supported to learn to work independently and together, manage their feelings and ask questions through adult facilitated play. The curriculum is taught through topics which are enriched with classroom enhancements, trips and visitors. Topics are supported by quality key texts. These are chosen carefully to encourage children's speech, language and communication development. All planning however, is flexible and responsive to children’s needs so plans can be changed and adapted depending on children’s interests. We understand the importance of parental engagement and believe that our parents have a crucial role to play in their children's education. We work hard to create strong partnerships between home and school. We do this through parent workshops, parent ‘Mystery Readers’, stay and play sessions, and termly newsletters. We provide information about what their child will be learning and use the Tapestry platform to share ‘wow’ moments or if children need more practise to embed any new skills. Parents enjoy using Tapestry to engage in their child's learning and are also encouraged to share experiences from home.
There is a strong focus on the three Prime Areas especially in the first term of school when children are learning to; separate from their main carer, learning new rules and routines and adjusting to transitions. Children will be encouraged to view themselves as independent learners.
Our EYFS Curriculum
The curriculum is built up of specific and prime areas of learning:
Communication and Language
The development of children’s spoken language underpins all seven areas of learning and development. Children’s back-and-forth interactions form the foundations for language and cognitive development. The number and quality of the conversations they have with adults and peers throughout the day in a language-rich environment is crucial. By commenting on what children are interested in or doing, and echoing back what they say with new vocabulary added, we will build children's language effectively. Reading frequently to children, and engaging them actively in stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems, and then providing them with extensive opportunities to use and embed new words in a range of contexts, will give children the opportunity to thrive. Through conversation, story-telling and role play, children share their ideas with support and modelling from their teachers, and sensitive questioning that invites them to elaborate, children become comfortable using a rich range of vocabulary and language structures.
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
Children’s personal, social and emotional development (PSED) is crucial for children to lead healthy and happy lives, and is fundamental to their cognitive development. PSED underpins all learning across the seven areas of the EYFS framework. Strong, warm, positive and respectful relationships with adults enable children to learn how to understand their own feelings and those of others. Children are supported to manage emotions, develop a positive sense of self, set themselves simple goals, have confidence in their own abilities, to persist and to learn to wait for what they want. Through adult modelling and guidance, they learn how to look after their bodies, including healthy eating, oral hygiene and manage personal needs independently. With supported interaction and modelling with other children they learn how to make good friendships, co-operate and resolve conflicts peacefully. These attributes will provide a secure platform from which children can achieve at school and in later life.
Physical Development
We have built our school environment to enable our children to strengthen their core muscles through physical play. Children have fluidity to spend time learning indoors and outdoors in all weathers. They develop through wonderful, exploratory, sensory experiences in our mud kitchen, water area and sandpit. Physical activity is vital in children’s all-round development, enabling them to pursue happy, healthy and active lives. Gross and fine motor experiences develop incrementally from Nursery to Reception, starting with sensory explorations and the development of a child’s strength, coordination and positional awareness through play movement and dance. By creating games and providing opportunities for play both indoors and outdoors, adults can support children to develop their core strength, stability, balance, spatial awareness, coordination and agility. Fine motor control and precision helps with hand-eye coordination which is later linked to early writing. Repeated and varied opportunities to explore and play with small world activities, puzzles, arts and crafts and the practise of using small tools, with feedback and support from adults, allow children to develop proficiency, control and confidence.
Literacy
It is crucial for children to develop a life-long love of reading. We do this through daily story time and invite ‘Mystery Readers’ into the classroom to help foster a love of reading. Reading consists of two dimensions: language comprehension and word reading. Language comprehension (necessary for both reading and writing) develops when we talk with the children about the world around them and the books (stories and non-fiction) we read to them. Word reading is taught daily in Reception using the ELS Phonics scheme which involves both the speedy working out of unfamiliar printed words (decoding) using robot arms and the speedy recognition of High Frequency Words. Children are matched with reading books that only contain phonemes the child knows. Writing involves transcription (spelling and handwriting) and composition (articulating ideas and structuring them in speech, before writing). We use the Talk for Writing approach in Reception for literacy lessons and the use of story maps. Children write in their ELS workbook daily where they practise letter formation, writing dictated sentences and reading comprehension.
Maths
Developing a strong grounding in numbers is essential so that all children develop the necessary building blocks to excel mathematically. Children are taught to subitise and then count confidently, develop a deep understanding of the numbers to 10, the relationships between them and the patterns within those numbers. By providing frequent and varied opportunities to build and apply this understanding - such as using manipulatives, including small pebbles and ten frames for organising counting - children will develop a secure base of knowledge and vocabulary from which mastery of mathematics is built. In addition, we provide rich opportunities for children to develop their spatial reasoning skills across all areas of mathematics including shape, space and measures. It is important that children develop positive attitudes and interests in mathematics, look for patterns and relationships, spot connections, ‘have a go’, talk to adults and peers about what they notice and not be afraid to make mistakes. We use a combination of Maths Mastery and White Rose Maths to help our children become proficient mathematicians.
Understanding the world
Involves guiding children to make sense of their physical world and their community. The frequency and range of children’s personal experiences increases their knowledge and sense of the world around them – from visiting parks, libraries and museums to meeting important members of society such as police officers, nurses and firefighters. In addition, listening to a broad selection of stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems will foster their understanding of our culturally, socially, technologically and ecologically diverse world. As well as building important knowledge, this extends their familiarity with words that support understanding across cross curricular domains. Enriching and widening children’s vocabulary will support later reading comprehension.
Expressive Arts and Design
The development of children’s artistic and cultural awareness supports their imagination and creativity. It is important that children have regular opportunities to engage with the arts, enabling them to explore and play with a wide range of media and materials. The quality and variety of what children see, hear and participate in is crucial for developing their understanding, self-expression, vocabulary and ability to communicate through the arts. The frequency, repetition and depth of their experiences are fundamental to their progress in interpreting and appreciating what they hear, observe and respond to. Nursery and Reception both have well equipped art areas to encourage exploration and the practising of key skills. Songs and rhymes are introduced each term and children are encouraged to act out their own stories using recently introduced vocabulary. Children’s speech is written down verbatim using the ‘Helicopter’ programme, where children can see their stories written down and shared with their peers.