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Early Years Foundation Stage - Reception and Nursery

In the EYFS at Raleigh Infant and Admirals Academies we are committed to ensuring that all children receive the best possible foundations to which the rest of their academic career is built. We aim for all children to develop a love of learning, with aspirations to succeed in anything they choose to do. We strive to ensure that all children feel happy, included and valued, within our safe and stimulating learning environments. We value all children as unique and individual, and believe in recognising every form of learning, progress and success.

EYFS CURRICULUM

In Reception and Nursery, we follow the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum. The EYFS curriculum is divided up into seven areas or learning and development. These are all equally important and inter-connected. Prime areas of learning:

  • Personal, Social and Emotional Development
  • Physical Development
  • Communication and Language

Specific areas:

  • Literacy
  • Mathematics
  • Understanding the World
  • Expressive Arts and Design

The EYFS curriculum also contains four guiding principles, which shapes the practice in our setting. These are:

  • Every child is a unique child, who is constantly learning and can be resilient, capable, confident and self-assured.
  • Children learn to be strong and independent through positive relationships.
  • Children learn and develop well in enabling environments with teaching and support from adults, who respond to their individual interests and needs and help them to build their learning over time. Children benefit from a strong partnership between practitioners and parents and/or carers.
  • Importance of learning and development. Children develop and learn at different rates. The framework covers the education and care of all children in early years provision, including children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

Our curriculum is broad and balanced, with a blend of independent play-based provision and adult-directed quality-first teaching. Our curriculum focuses on the importance of communication and language across all areas of learning – teaching ambitious vocabulary and the use of full sentences. We adopt whole-school approaches in order for children to smoothly transition across their educational journey at Raleigh Infant Academy and Admirals Academies. We have high expectations and challenge the children to reach their fullest potential.

EYFS ENVIRONMENTS

Our environments are designed to be stimulating and purposeful. We build upon the needs and interests of the children, and embed current learning themes, through a range of play opportunities. We ensure we have a range of high-quality resources that inspire creativity and wonder. Our environments are designed to be inclusive and accessible to all, allowing children to safely and confidently learn with increasing independence.

Both our Nursery and Reception settings have spacious classrooms organised into learning areas for the children to access during continuous provision, which we refer to as “challenge time”. Both our Nursery and Reception settings also have their own outdoor areas. We value the importance of children accessing outdoor learning freely, independently and frequently in order to gain opportunities to explore, use their senses and be physically active, in ways that are different from the classroom.

EYFS STAFF

At Raleigh Infant and Admirals Academies we value having skilled professionals working across Nursery and Reception. It is the adult’s role to teach, support, inspire and extend children’s learning through initiating and extending experiences and interacting skilfully and sensitively with children. Fostering strong relationships and effective communication and language are key to adult and child interactions, in order to engage in a purposeful way. Each child is assigned a key person who helps to ensure that their learning and care is tailored to meet their needs.