At The Staffordshire Schools Multi Academy Trust we believe that the Early Years are critical in children’s development and that the EYFS builds a firm basis for future learning, development and independence.
What is our intent?
The children at The Howard Primary School, who become part of the Early Years foundation Stage family, will learn through engaging, high quality, fun, inspiring, play based experiences, learning opportunities and enrichments, regardless of their starting point. We provide high quality, nurturing interactions in order to develop and deepen the children’s learning opportunities and characteristics of effective learning. We will deliver our curriculum through a balance of adult-led, child-led and child-initiated experiences, activities and provision based on themes, stories, celebrations, events and interests. We treat our children as individuals and our curriculum aims to enrich the whole child.
Our children will grow up in a school underpinned by our core values of love, friendship and respect. These values, coupled with an environment where each child is cherished and valued as an individual, enable our children to flourish, be the best that they can be and to ‘Believe and Achieve’.
How will we implement this?
Here at The Howard we believe it is extremely important to develop the whole child. Our priority is to ensure each child grows as a happy, well rounded individual who is prepared for adult life.
We love to learn through real experiences, we love to learn outside, we love to go into the community. We are a warm, strong, nurturing school family who cares about every single child and supports each individual to follow their dreams and to become the best they can be.
Our half termly overview shares with you the possible learning experiences and the opportunities that may arise. These experiences will be planned to support the children to make developmentally appropriate steps through their learning journey and are supported by the Non Statutory EYFS development matters guidance.
Alongside this the children will have daily access to a well planned and resourced continuous indoor and outdoor provision that will be regularly enhanced to suit the developmental needs, interests of the children and themes for learning.
Enrichment opportunities and community links will play an important part in helping the children to build memorial learning and understanding.
All these opportunities will develop the whole child. Staff build nurturing, warm, strong relationships with each individual pupil. No one is left behind and children will be given the opportunities and support needed to achieve their potential. Children at risk of falling behind are quickly identified and are supported through interactions, experiences, play, time and interventions to help them to continue to achieve.
We prioritise communication and language and create a ‘language rich’ environment through the use of songs, nursery rhymes, stories, vocabulary building, sentence stems and starters, partner talk, no hands up and providing constant opportunities for quality interactions between adults and between peers throughout the day. Interactions are positive and progressive, allowing children to flourish and gather words at pace in order to become confident communicators.
No pupil is left behind. Staff strive to support those at risk of falling behind through positive interactions, play, interventions, partner partnership and through everything we do.
As part of the learning and teaching process, children are assessed in relation to their progress towards the Early Learning Goals. These judgements are made on the basis of accumulative observations and in depth knowledge of the children acquired through ongoing assessment. Assessments will be ongoing and recorded on the assessment format at baseline, end of Autumn 2, end of Spring 2 and the Summer 2 half term. Teachers will constantly reflect on, plan and adapt the classroom provision, teaching opportunities and interventions needed to continue to support the pupils on their individual learning journeys. The EYFS team across the MAT will work in partnership to share assessments and regularly meet to discuss progress models, share best practice and plan the next steps to support the pupils. We will moderate as a team and also in local clusters. Reception will undertake the government baseline with the class teacher. Wow moments will be recorded in our ‘Believe and Achieve’ books to record a journey of the physical pieces of evidence the children create.
We understand the importance of parental engagement and believe that our parents have a crucial role to play in their children's education. Parents are lifelong educators of their children. The partnership between the our team and parents at The Howard is vital and strong. Learning is shared through class dojo, blogs, consultations and ongoing conversations. We work together to support each child to be the best they can be.
What will our children achieve in the EYFS?
Our aim is that all children by the end of Reception will achieve the following outcomes.
Be a well rounded, nurturing, individual who understands and implements the school values of love, respect and friendship through their behaviour and attitude.
Speak confidently in a range of situations using complete sentences and new vocabulary.
Be able to socialise and communicate effectively with their peers and adults as they play, to solve problems and to communicate their needs.
Have strong fine motor and gross motor skills through a range of opportunities offered through our school environment.
Love reading and be able to use effective decoding skills to read words in sentences.
Be able to confidently write a simple sentence using segmenting skills to spell.
Be a confident mathematician who can subitise and talk about ‘what they see and how they see it’ to support their problem solving, to show, prove and explain their maths understanding effectively.
Enjoy learning about themselves and others in their school, community and further afield, building a respectful attitude towards others, their beliefs and ways of life.
What will the impact be?
Our curriculum and its delivery ensure that children, from their own starting points make good progress. During their time with us children make rapid progress towards the national expectation for a good level of development at the end of the year. Pupils also make good progress toward their age related expectations both academically and socially, developing a sense of themselves before transitioning into Year One. Children develop their characteristics of learning and are able to apply their knowledge to a range of situations making links and explaining their ideas and understanding. Children are confident to take risks and discuss their successes and failures with peers and adults drawing on their experiences to improve or adjust what they are doing. We believe our high standards are due to our carefully planned environment, enriched play-based curriculum, quality first teaching and the rigour of assessment.
We will know each individual child holistically through all of these experiences. We will learn more about their strengths, areas for development and plan how we will continue to support each child on their learning journey to achieve their potential.
Because of our EYFS curriculum, The Howard children are: