EYFS

Intent
At St John’s we understand that every child is unique and we are committed to developing each and every child, embracing learning that is led by the children themselves. We believe it is important to ignite a passion for learning so that the children are excited, engaged and eager to learn throughout their whole education. We promote positive relationships with parents/carers work and work in close partnership with them to ensure the interests of the children come first. We offer communication through online learning journals and a class email address, as well as offering information via our website. The Early Years Team work very hard to provide an exciting and thriving learning environment both indoors and outdoors. We encourage the children to explore different aspects of learning through a range of continuous provision activities, including mark making and writing, number and shape, role play, physical and sensory. We want the children in our care to flourish and reach the Early Learning Goals by the end of the Early Years Foundation Stage. At the very least, we want them to make good progress from their starting point. During the final term, we prepare and support our children to make a smooth transition into Year One, ensuring that they are ready to take on the new challenges that await them in the following year.

Implementation
Here at St John’s we follow the Early Years Statutory Framework, as laid out by the Department for Education (DfE). This framework requires Early Years settings to focus on Prime areas and Specific areas of learning. The Prime areas being: Personal, Social and Emotional Development, Communication and Language, and Physical Development and the Specific areas being: Literacy, Maths, Understanding the World and Expressive Art and Design. We use these 7 areas to plan activities to develop the children’s learning, however, we are flexible so we can meet the needs of the children. We promote active learning and strive to develop learning characteristics that are vital to support good learning behaviours. These Characteristics of Effective Learning include: Playing and Exploring – Children investigate and experience things, and ‘have a go’. Active Learning – Children concentrate and persevere when they encounter difficulties, and enjoy achievements. Creating and Thinking Critically – Children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things. Children engage in child initiated Learning tasks as well as taking part in adult guided sessions. There are lots of opportunities for them through the day to work independently, with others or with an adult. Through the adult guided sessions we are able track each individual child, and ensure we are implementing the correct next steps to help move their learning on. We want our children to be curious and confident about the world they live in. We support this by asking questions to provoke their thoughts and ideas to help them develop their independence, creativity and problem solving skills. We aspire to lead the children in Early Years to make at least good progress from their individual starting points. We believe it is important to get to know the children for who they are, not only as a learner but their personality as well. We will observe them and record observations on Tapestry (an online learning journal). These observations, along with our knowledge of the individual will provide us with the evidence to make formative assessments and inform future planning to build on the children’s knowledge. We believe in the quality of observations and how we can move a specific child’s learning forward. We will also carry out summative assessments which will look at a child’s age related expectations, as laid out in ‘Development Matters’.

Impact
By ensuring we have implemented all the necessary learning opportunities which allow children to grow and become competent learners, each and every child in our care will be equipped to move onto the next stage of their education, being proud of all they have achieved.