EYFS 

In Early Years our ethos is to ‘nurture hearts and inspire minds’, giving our children the best start to life, by providing them with skills, knowledge and understanding in order to thrive today and throughout their life. 

Principles of our Early Years curriculum: 

• We aspire to give children a lifelong love of learning and the tools to succeed. 
• Effective teaching and learning in the EYFS at Anthony Curton and Tilney All Saints Primary Schools identifies children’s needs and interests and helps them learn and develop in all seven areas of learning. 
• Children learn best when they are happy, secure and actively involved in their own learning. 
• Practitioners regularly discuss and review children’s learning and development with each other, and with parents, ensuring children are involved and enjoying their learning. These discussions help us to review children’s development and ensure that they are prepared for their next step in their learning journey. 
• Children learn at different rates, every child can progress well, with the right support. 
• Every child is on their own unique learning journey and can thrive through understanding, questioning and contributing within their curriculum.   

Our curriculum intent: 

At Anthony Curton and Tilney All Saints Primary Schools we offer a broad and balanced curriculum, which has three elements: 

1. Teaching and learning based on our children’s interests. 

2. A regular cycle based on a curriculum (framework of specified knowledge), which feeds into each child’s entire learning journey throughout our whole school. 

3. Our Termly Curriculum Webs. 

Learning within the Early Years is inquiry based, with play being an essential part of children’s learning, this takes place indoors and outside in all weather. Children choose their play through resources, which have been carefully selected to ensure a rich potential of learning and steady progression. There is a balance between child-initiated experiences and adult-guided learning. 

Our curriculum supports children to build, broaden and deepen their knowledge, vocabulary and ambitions. Our Curriculum Learning Webs have a ‘progress model’ where skills, knowledge and understanding changes, develops and grows. 

Our goals are ambitious and provide an overview of many of the things we would like our children to become. They are adaptable to each individual child. Through support and scaffolding, every child can access the curriculum. We recognise that every child will progress and achieve the goals at different rates, however all children will participate in the curriculum. 

How is our curriculum being delivered? 

Children access provision indoors and outside, through enabling environments and engaging in valuable interactions with their peers and adults. The balance of activities planned and taught gradually becomes more structured towards the end of Reception to help children prepare for their next step in their learning journey as they move into Year 1. 

Experiences and activities are planned carefully and purposefully to enhance children’s learning and provision, providing challenging and enjoyable experiences to enable children to develop effectively. 

Children make a strong start to phonics in Early Years, through ‘Sounds-Write.’ Children's vocabulary grows through role-play, discussion, building sentences and using productive questioning. We place a huge emphasis on developing children’s love of reading through enticing story and poetry times. Mark making and writing is woven through all provision areas and focused within a mark making and writing area. 

Maths is interlinked within all areas of learning. Within provision, children are encouraged to talk about number, shape, space and measures, in order to develop these early mathematical skills. We are currently developing our Maths curriculum with the aid of ‘complete Maths’. Children develop the right growth mindset, by solving problems using concrete resources, pictorial representations and abstract thinking. Within our short engaging number time sessions, we use ‘Numberblocks’ (Cbeebies) to engage the children through number characters, which both consolidates current knowledge and introduces new and future concepts. 

White Rose Maths: Autumn Term: Phase 3 - Light and Dark 

In Reception, children will learn and develop knowledge and new skills during daily Literacy and Maths inputs. They will complete adult-guided activities to apply knowledge and skills linked to these inputs. 

We provide progressive enhancements to our provision, linking events and religious celebrations throughout the year to our curriculum. PKC Curriculum Map Overview 2021- 

Our medium term plans then identify specific linked texts, activities, WOW moments and end points we will be working towards through our provision and adult-guided activities. 

As well as our knowledge rich curriculum we give children access to Forest Schools. This follows the 6 Forest School principles and allows for children to gain resilience, confidence and build on self-esteem through a natural and child-led environment. 

Pre-School 2021-22: Autumn 1 - All About Me 

Assessment 

Assessment is designed to shape future learning. It is ongoing and formative, in the moment and in partnership with children, parents and practitioners. We use Tapestry to support this process to function in its entirety. 

Through regular observation and assessment we are able to identify a child who is not on track at key mark points within the Reception Year. These children are flagged as a cause for concern and intervention is put into place to support the area of concern. At the end of the EYFS, the Reception class teacher will complete the EYFS Profile for each child.