WELCOME TO EYFS!

At Junction Farm Primary School, we believe that every child deserves the very best. We offer a stimulating, exciting and challenging curriculum, which promotes independent learning and curiosity to develop skills to explore the wider world.  Children become confident and capable learners, who, by the end of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) are ready for Year 1 and the next stage of their education. Our priority is that children are happy, healthy, safe and successful.

Our Provision

At Junction Farm Primary School we have a Nursery provision and two Reception classes.

Nursery runs as a 39 place provision on a morning and 26 place provision on an afternoon. Parents are given opportunity to choose which session their child attends. We also offer a 30 hour provision for Nursery children. We endeavour to ensure all preferences are secured.

Reception classes are able to take 30 children each.

The Learning Environment

Both Nursery and Reception environments are designed to ensure all areas of the EYFS curriculum can be nurtured and developed. Children are given the freedom to explore their surroundings and engage in play and investigation based on our termly themes. The environment is attractive, welcoming and stimulating, which encourages children to explore, investigate and learn through ‘hands on’ experiences. Children have access to indoor and outdoor provision, as well as weekly trips to our ‘Forest School’. Children are encouraged to ask questions, find answers and feed their natural curiosity. Staff plan indoor and outdoor activities which are based on the seven areas of the EYFS curriculum.

Our learning environments in both Nursery and Reception are divided into book corners, writing areas, Mathematics opportunities, role play, construction, creative, loose parts and curiosity corners. Nursery also has sand and water provision, as well as a stage where children are encouraged to sing and perform for their peers! Our indoor provision is enhanced with changing tuff trays and interest tables based around our theme or focus story. In Reception, children are encouraged to help design the learning environment by voicing their ideas as to how provision can be enhanced based on the text of the week. Junction Farm children are encouraged to become independent, confident learners who gradually initiate their own lines of enquiry and investigation.

Our outdoor provision is designed to develop the children’s physical skills, especially their gross motor movements, as well as helping them to learn about the world around them. We have a large sand box, mud kitchen, climbing frames, slide, chatty bench, stage, water area, construction site, woodwork opportunities, outdoor reading area, growing and mini beast area. There are also opportunities for a changing continuous provision based on children’s interests and input.

EYFS Curriculum

The Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum is divided into seven areas of learning. These areas are subdivided into Prime and Specific areas. At the end of the EYFS children will be ‘graded’ against the Early Learning Goals in the seven areas of learning. Overall there are 17 Early Learning Goals. Children will either be ‘emerging’ or ‘expected’.

The Nursery curriculum focusses on the Prime areas of learning initially. These are:

  • Communication and language;
  • Physical development;
  • Personal, social and emotional development.

The Prime areas are those most essential for your child’s healthy development and future learning. As children grow, the Prime areas will help them to develop skills in 4 Specific areas:

  • Literacy;
  • Mathematics;
  • Understanding the world;
  • Expressive arts and design.

In Reception, the curriculum is designed to focus more on the Specific areas of learning whilst continuing to nurture the children in the Prime areas too. The seven areas are used to plan your child’s learning and activities. We will make sure that the activities are suited to your child’s unique needs.

Children in the EYFS learn by playing and exploring, being active, and through creative and critical thinking which takes place both indoors and outside. Staff support children to develop learning behaviours through encouragement and praise. Using our ‘Characteristics of Effective Learning’ animals as a reference, children develop an understanding about how they learn.

In Reception, children take part in daily phonics and mathematics lessons. These sessions take place each morning. Afternoon provision is based on other areas of the curriculum and opportunity for children to extend their knowledge, skills and understanding through our ‘Rainbow of Possibilities’. Storytime is one of our favourite times of the day, where children have opportunity to hear stories they have voted for being read by staff from around the setting. Nursery sessions have daily focussed time and teachers will provide activities based on Phonics, Mathematics, Physical development and Personal, Social and Emotional Development. As in Reception, story time is an important part of our day!

For those children who need additional support and time to develop their skills, boost sessions and interventions are put in place to ensure they succeed and achieve. In our EYFS, we support children through BLAST, NELI, additional fine motor skill classes, as well as phonic and number groups. Teachers provide additional support ‘in the moment’, using opportunity throughout the day to further develop understanding and skills.

Supporting your Child

All activities you do with your child at home are important in supporting their learning and development. Making time to do some of the following things with your child will help them become confident and happy learners.

  • Sing and tell nursery rhymes
  • Share a book
  • Cook/bake together
  • Spend time talking
  • Play together – indoors and outdoors
  • Play memory games e.g. I went to the shop and I bought…
  • Count together, sort colours, talk about numbers in the environment e.g. door numbers, phone numbers

Children in Nursery will be encouraged to take story books home to share with an adult. This is an opportunity to share some quality time with your child, talk about pictures, characters, the setting of the story and what might happen next.

In Reception, children are given a half termly homework grid. This provides opportunity to investigate, extend and embed knowledge in line with teaching in school. Parents are encouraged to support their child to complete the activities and return any completed tasks to school before the end of the half term. However completion of homework is completely optional. Reading books matching children’s phonic knowledge are sent home once a week, parents are asked to read with their child at least ten minutes a day. Advice for families in how to support their child in reading is given at various meetings across the academic year. Parents are also encouraged to use phoneme frames to support their child’s phonological development. Phonics sheets are sent home weekly based on phonemes taught in school to provide further opportunity for practise.

Your Child’s Development

Parents and family are a child’s first educator and at Junction Farm, we value the input from the ‘team around the child’. It is important families and school work together to ensure all children are given the best start in life. Staff in school regularly update ‘See Saw’, an online learning journey to share with families, activities their child has completed in school, providing discussion points at home. The online journey also acts as an informal assessment tool and parents can upload pictures and videos for school staff to view, allowing an insight into children in their own environment out of school.
In Nursery, each child is allocated a Key Worker. A Key Worker is:

  • Is your main point of contact within the setting
  • Helps your child to become settled, happy and safe
  • Is responsible for your child’s care, development and learning
  • Takes a careful note of your child’s progress, sharing this with you and giving ideas as to how to help your child at home.

Parents Evenings/ Workshops and support for parents

Throughout the EYFS, you will be invited to attend various events which are designed to inform you about your child’s progress and next steps in learning.

Stay and Play events take place across the year. Families are encouraged to come into school to play and learn alongside their child. The stay and play events are usually based around a theme such as Halloween or a season for example Easter. Dates are usually sent out at the beginning of each half term.

At Junction Farm Primary School, we have a formal parents’ evening where parents and carers are provided with an opportunity to talk with their child’s teacher, discuss their development, any concerns and learn about their child in the classroom. A written report is sent home towards the end of the spring term where parents are provided with information on their child’s approach to learning (Characteristics of Effective Learning) and their development as a growing individual.

In EYFS, Reception parents are invited to a Phonics and Reading workshop in October, a Mathematics session in January and a Writing workshop in March. A transition meeting for parents of Nursery children entering Reception is held in June or July before the child enters school.

Parents are encouraged to email school with any concerns or requests for further support. Teachers send messages on Marvellous Me at least twice a week, informing families of the focus for the week and updating them on any activities children will be taking part in.

Safeguarding and Welfare

The safety and welfare of our children is at the heart of our provision. It is important to us that all children in school are safe. Children learn best when they are healthy, safe and secure, when their individual needs are met and when they have positive relationships with the adults caring for them. We educate children on the importance of boundaries, rules and limits and we encourage them to become responsible for their own behaviour by supporting them to make the right choices. We have robust policies and procedures in place to ensure their safety and comply with the welfare requirements set out in the Statutory Framework for Early Years Foundation Stage and understand that we must:

  • Promote the welfare of all children.
  • Promote good health including oral health.
  • Manage behaviour effectively and appropriately.
  • Ensure all adults working with children are suitable to do so.
  • Ensure that the environment is safe, and all equipment and furniture is fit for purpose
  • Ensure all children have a challenging and enjoyable learning experience.

We promote the good health of the children in our care in numerous ways, including the provision of nutritious fruit snacks, access to water throughout the day, allocating significant time for physical development and following set procedures when children become ill or have an accident.

Oral health is promoted through teaching and daily toothbrushing in classes.

Inclusion

We value all our children as individuals, irrespective of their ethnicity, culture, religion, home language, background, ability or gender. We plan a curriculum that meet the needs of the individual child and support them at their own pace so that most of our children achieve the Early Learning Goals. We work closely with the parents/carers of our high achieving children to ensure that their individual needs are met and their talents fostered. We ensure that these children are challenged appropriately to reach their full potential. We strongly believe that early identification of children with additional needs is crucial in enabling us to give the child the support that they need and in doing so, work closely with parents/carers and outside agencies. Our SENDCO in school (Miss Sarah Bligh) supports us with any additional needs they may have.

The end of the EYFS

At the end of the EYFS (in the summer term of the reception year in school), teachers complete a document which is known as the EYFS Profile. Children are ‘graded’ against the seventeen Early Learning Goals, by their child’s teacher based on what they, and other staff caring for your child, have observed over a period of time. Staff will look at all evidence they have for children from See Saw, to work in their class books to observations they have made. Parents are provided with an end of Reception report which provides them with a clear picture of their child’s achievements.

 

EARY YEARS LONG TERM PLAN