What is the Early Years Foundation Stage?

The Early Year Foundation Stage is split into seven areas of learning, this foundation and skills learnt are built upon through the National Curriculum taught in Key Stage One and Two.

Each area of learning is important and each connects with other areas. Alongside these areas we provide many practical experiences for children to enable them to learn and develop key skills and concepts.  We teach regular Phonics sessions, maths and reading through a combination of teacher and child-led activities. 

The seven areas of learning are split into three prime areas and four specific areas. The three prime areas are those the children develop first and are considered essential for the development and future learning of our children. They need these skills to be able to actively and independently access the specific areas. 

The three prime areas are: 

• Personal, Social and Emotional Development – we provide opportunities for children to work together as part of a group, sharing, taking turns and managing their feelings. We aim to develop their self-confidence and self-esteem. 
• Communication and Language – we offer opportunities to experience a rich language environment, to develop their confidence and skills in expressing themselves and to speak and listen in a range of situations. We provide opportunities to look at fiction and nonfiction books, photos and artifacts to stimulate and develop vocabulary. 
• Physical Development – we offer opportunities for children to develop their gross and fine motor skills both inside and outside, this includes a daily ‘busy fingers’ session. We encourage them to become independent dressing themselves and developing basic hygiene skills. We discuss healthy foods and provide opportunities to grow and eat them. We teach the children how to use and move equipment safely and mange risks. 

As children make progress in these areas they can then develop skills in the four specific areas. 

• Literacy – the teaching of early literacy involves encouraging children to link sounds and letters and begin to read and write. Children are given a wide range of books and other written materials  to ignite their interest in all areas of learning. There are ample opportunities to foster a love of reading through choosing to look at books with their peers or independently in the book corner, opportunities to share books with adults in small and whole class groups, opportunities for shared reading with older children in the school. Children will also be given the opportunity to take a book home to share. 

All children will have a daily phonics lesson. The Nursery age children will focus initially on phase 1 which concentrates on developing speaking and listening skills and lays the foundation for the phonics work in phase 2. The children will take part in activities involving environmental sounds, instrumental sounds, songs, rhymes and alliteration. The emphasis of phase 1 is to get children attuned to the sounds around them and ready to begin developing oral blending and segmenting skills. During Autumn term 2 the nursery age children will be introduced to one phase 2 sound a week so by the time they enter the next academic year they will have been exposed to all phase 2 sounds. This year we have devised our own curriculum based on the ELS scheme but from next year will follow the new published scheme from EYFS. This will ensure children in our Nursery will be familiar with the routines and resources from ELS. 

The Reception age children follow the Essential Letters and sounds scheme which continues into Year 1. Children are introduced to phase 2, 3 and 4 where they will develop GPC (grapheme phoneme correspondence) and segmenting and blending skills to decode words. Children are encouraged to read at home and are listened to regularly in school. They have a book that matches their phonics knowledge in order for them to apply their learning to become fluent, successful, confident readers.  

• Maths – We follow the HFL Essential maths programmes for both the Nursery and Reception age children. The children will have specific adult led sessions directed at either the Nursery or Reception scheme, but will then have opportunities to apply skills and knowledge through planned resources and activities during child initiated learning together. Both age groups will therefore cover the same topics at the same time to allow for this. We provide the children with opportunities to develop and improve their skills in counting, understanding and using number, calculating simple addition and subtraction problems and describing shapes, patterns and measure through high quality interactions with adults, games and tasks using concrete manipulatives and pictoral representations. 

• Understanding of the World – The children are given opportunities to explore the world around them through a variety of tasks and activities inside and out. We provide the children opportunities to explore, question and develop vocabulary relating to natural and man made materials, changes in seasons, changes in state, lifecycles of plants and animals, habitats, contrasting locations, journeys, changes over time, healthy diets and food etc. The context of these topics will come from the children’s  interests and questions. We will investigate and celebrate festivals from around the world using books, artifacts and the internet to enhance these.  

• Expressive Arts and Design – The children have lots of opportunities to explore different materials to design and make. The children will be taught how to use equipment safely and how to create different effects, joining techniques and how to solve problems to improve their pictures and models. The children will be given opportunities to explore a variety of construction kits both inside and out. We follow the Charanga Music Scheme at Harwood Hill. It focuses on Nursery rhymes and action songs, listening to and responding to different types of music and adding instruments to songs and rhymes. It also allows the children to share and perform to others. Instruments are available for children to use inside and outside and they can then apply and develop skills learnt from the scheme. Children are also given opportunities to take part in role play. This can be related to their own experiences from home, stories and books read in class and also festivals from around the world.