Intent

At Bishop Ridley, our aim is for all children to develop a love of learning. Throughout the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), children’s knowledge, skills and understanding are developed to prepare them for the future stages of their education. We believe that all children have the capacity to achieve, regardless of their background or starting point. 

In both Nursery and Reception, our goal is to prioritise pupils’ personal, social and emotional development and promote confidence and independence. Opportunities are created for pupils to develop morally and spiritually, in line with our Christian values and school vision. Our experienced and skilled staff provide numerous opportunities to support and guide the children, enhance and invite their curiosity and create a sense of awe and wonder.

Our EYFS curriculum is broad and balanced and is planned to recognise children’s prior learning and experiences, build upon their interests and consolidate and deepen their knowledge.Staff support the children in making cross curricular links and transferring skills across the subject areas.  Through our growth mindset approach, we teach children the importance of resilience and understand how we can learn from our mistakes. 

A number of our children enter the EYFS with low starting points in communication and language and, as such, opportunities are provided for children to develop their vocabulary through continuous provision child-initiated and adult-led activities. We seek to instil a love of reading for all children and this begins in the EYFS, where pupils are exposed to a wide range of high-quality texts, as well as a cohesive and consistent phonics programme. This supports our children to achieve a Good Level of Development at the end of Reception and ensures that each child makes at least good progress from their inv  

Throughout their time in EYFS, the children develop a sense of belonging to our school and the wider community, enabling them to transition confidently into Year 1 at the end of Reception. 

Implementation 

The teaching and implementation at Bishop Ridley are based on the Early Years Statutory Framework for the Early years Foundation Stage, Development Matters 2022 and the non statutory guidance Birth to 5 Matters . These documents specify the requirements for learning and development throughout the EYFS. 

Cornerstones is used to introduce themes on a termly basis which provide a starting point for exciting and inspiring learning whilst allowing flexibility for children to follow their own interests and ideas. 

Teachers provide high quality teaching and pedagogy is constantly reviewed in order to ensure that classroom practice is scrutinised, adapted and developed to allow children to make the best progress possible.

Our starting point is always the children and builds on prior learning and experiences in order to ensure that they reach a good level of development in all seven areas of the EYFS curriculum by the end of Reception. The timetable is carefully structured and adapts and evolves throughout the year as the children’s needs change. The children have a balance of directed teaching time, small group focus activities, adult led play and child-initiated activities to enable the staff to embed new learning and concepts, stretch and challenge the children, and constantly check for misconceptions whilst giving feedback and support to move learning forward.

Learning through play is carefully planned for both inside and outside in order to allow children the freedom to learn in the way that they prefer and provides opportunities for children to be active, engaged and challenged whilst underpinning the understanding of skills and concepts, develop critical thinking skills, and learn how to be resilient, persistent and independent.

Through formative and summative assessment, the staff are able to plan next steps for the children and scaffold their understanding. This is collected as photographic observations, evidence in learning journey books, incidental observations which are communicated to parents and carers during daily interactions, parent consultations and open mornings. Assessment is shared and moderated with the EYFS staff, through local cluster school meetings, and with parents in order to ensure that judgements are secure and take full account of what the children know and understand in different contexts.

We aim to provide a language rich environment which enables children to develop a wide vocabulary, broaden their understanding and become good communicators. This is promoted through the sharing of good quality texts, retelling stories, songs and rhymes, introduction and discussion of topics, use of new vocabulary, circle time, dedicated book sharing time, role play, small world play and interactions with adults.

All staff in the EYFS team work to make the children’s experience in early years a happy one and embrace them as they begin their learning journey as part of Bishop Ridley’s ‘One community, working and growing together, sharing the Love of God’

We do this by creating a safe, caring environment in which the children can grow in confidence morally and spiritually and develop a ‘Can do’ attitude where they are not afraid to make mistakes and by the end of the Reception year they can work with increasing independence to prepare them for the transition to key stage one.  

Impact 

Early Years Foundation Stage staff understand that every child is a unique child and support the children by drawing on their previous experiences and starting points. Positive relationships are built between staff, children and parents which helps to develop the children’s self-confidence, trust and resilience and ensure that they enjoy being in school.

The curriculum is designed to be progressive, inclusive and challenging and introduce new topics and concepts whilst also being led by the children’s interests. This ensures learning is an enjoyable experience and promotes sustained engagement and learning.

All staff who work in EYFS have a good knowledge of progress and achievement to enable them to accurately track the children’s attainments and contributing to planning and supporting next steps. Provision maps are used to support children with unique needs and these are evaluated and updated on a termly basis with all staff contributing to them and being aware of the children’s needs.

The impact of the curriculum on children’s progress is measured in the following ways:

• Observations of purposeful play in an active learning environment
• Intervening in play to gauge and scaffold understanding
• Written incidental observations of significant moments in the child’s progress
• Documenting and giving verbal feedback of ‘Wow’ moments when children gain confidence whilst trying something new  
• Inviting pupil voice when using circle time or a floor book to recap learning
• Displays that enable children to see the ‘full picture’ of the things they have learnt
• Summative and formative assessment and feedback that enables children, staff      and parents to understand how to progress further.

Staff regularly review and monitor the progress in EYFS by meeting to discuss the children’s progress through informal meetings, pupil progress and phase meetings. In addition, staff attend internal cluster and borough moderations to share practice and ensure that judgements made are clear and accurate.

At the end of the foundation stage in line with statutory guidelines an Early Years Foundation Stage Profile (EYFSP) is completed for all children summarising their attainment. This enables judgement on whether children have reached a good level of development (GLD) and are achieving age related expectations.