EYFS at Redriff
Language and Literacy are the cornerstones of learning in our EYFS. We prioritise time to develop the children’s spoken language, vocabulary development and listening comprehension by building it into all aspects of the day. Reading happens every day in a variety of ways – whole class story times, group reading and in the moment reading. Books have been chosen that link to the curriculum or develop children’s interests and progress throughout the year. As well as stories, children experience a variety of texts, poems and rhymes to feed their imagination, enhance their vocabulary and develop their comprehension. A language rich environment exists that enables children to learn and practice new ambitious vocabulary. This is supported by a Speech and Language programme we have running across our EYFS, where all of our children have speech and language screens carried out with our school speech and language therapist and the adults working with the children. Gaps are identified quickly and children are given the necessary support through intervention to help make accelerated progress.
How children learn
Reading, including phonics, Mathematics and Writing are taught daily using direct, whole-class instruction, this learning is then consolidated and there are opportunities to practice repeatedly throughout the week. We use Sounds-Write, our validated phonics programme, to teach children to read and write successfully, the children will read multiple times throughout the week on books that match the sounds and words they have learnt. Interventions are used across all areas of learning to support children to make accelerated progress and close any gaps that have been identified, whether that’s to support a child to keep up or catch up with their learning.
Our Curriculum
Underpinned by the DfE’s Development Matters and Birth to 5 matters, our curriculum has been created to lay the foundations on which the children will continue to build throughout their time at Redriff. It prepares them for year 1 and goes above and beyond the statements in the EYFSP, being broad and ambitious, focusing on learning step-by-step. It is delivered through high-quality interactive whole-class carpet times and specific planned group activities. Specialist teachers add to our offer with PE lessons, music and our MFL – Mandarin. Exploiting the entirety of their day at school, broader experiences are embedded to form part of our curriculum too. Careful thought has gone into the beginning and end of each day, snack times and lunchtime, hygiene routines, tidy up time and when transitioning around the school for different parts of their learning. Rules, routines and expectations of learning are quickly set that will enable children to be successful throughout their schooling. All of these add to preparing the children for year 1, the timetable throughout the year increases the adult led foci and whole class direct teaching to ensure they are prepared for the transition. In addition we provide opportunities for the children to visit year 1, meet their teachers and spend time in the whole school playground at playtimes and lunchtimes.
Support for all
Our curriculum offer encompasses all children, particularly those who require extra support to achieve the expected outcomes. In addition to this we offer targeted support through 1:1 and focus group interventions. This year these have included additional phonics sessions, reading groups, writing, mathematics, fine motor skills and a speech and language programme. The speech and language programme starts on entry to our EYFS whether this is Nursery or Reception, the children are baselined and then are grouped based on their need, these include early speech sounds, listening and attention, sentence structure and vocabulary. Interventions are then carried out multiple times per week to ensure progress is made, this is in addition to them being able to access a variety of language rich opportunities throughout the learning environment. We also provide enrichment support, the children we teach often come from a variety of backgrounds and not all of them have had access to the same opportunities. This offer focuses on providing opportunities for all children to learn the essential knowledge that children need to educated citizens, we want to prepare them for what the future holds. We provide children with short trips, visits and outings to nearby shops, parks, the farm, Canada Water Library and post boxes. As well as ensuring they access our enhanced curriculum where they will be baking, making smoothies, gardening and growing flowers, posting letters and post cards and many more real-life experiences.
The Learning Environment
Our learning environment is structured and organised, it is planned for and is adapted throughout the year, continually extending the children through alternative provision and enhancements. We provide a variety of open-ended materials to enhance pretend and dramatic play, this nurtures their creativity and fosters children’s relationship and communication. High-quality interaction enable the children to develop their language and ideas, to think critically, problem-solve and reflect. We ensure children have ‘in-depth’ learning experiences where they can be deeply involved and immersed in their activities and their learning is then extended further by adding new resources or through stories, songs or information books. Our children are engaged with the natural world, for example being gardeners in their own playground and working closely with our school gardener to improve and look after our school gardens, and also local ecological charities such as The Paper Garden and Lavender Ponds Ecological Park – places that the children go to visit to enrich key learning in these areas, as well as visiting the local woodlands weekly for their Forest School sessions.
Continuous Provision
Continuous provision describes all of the different provision areas which are available for the children to use every day. Within each of these areas of provision there are a core range of resources that children use all of the time, throughout the whole year. This is planned for and involves considering the classroom layout and resources that enable staff to offer a breadth of learning possibilities.
Carefully planned continuous provision enables children to learn skills, will challenge their thinking and help them to embed concepts. It also provides the context for a variety of learning conversations between children and adults with rich opportunities for modelling and extending speech and vocabulary, resulting in a range of high quality interactions. It is within this learning environment that the children will also develop key learning attributes. The environment impacts the children’s engagement, independence, collaboration, self-confidence and resilience and curiosity.
Enhancements are then added to the provision throughout the year to help develop learning over time or in line with particular themes and topics. This enables children to make connections and as a result develop a deeper understanding.
Our Community
Parental engagement is important to us, parents are kept up to date with their child’s learning through Tapestry and our weekly EYFS newsletter. Parents are invited in throughout the year for ‘stay and play’ events, these are linked to the curriculum and allow parents to come in and engage with their children for the first hour of the school day, learning about how their children learn, looking at their learning and taking part in a variety of activities. In addition, parents are invited in to read to the children at story times and come in and support the children’s learning by coming in to talk about their jobs or any cultural or religious celebrations with the class.