In Early Years at Linwood, Springwood and Littlewood Campus, we follow the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum and Birth to Five matters guidance.
The EYFS curriculum allows us to have fun with the children, enjoy spontaneity and follow the individual children’s interests and specific needs. We are able to work closely with families through home/school link books or emails, parent meetings and through our online assessment tool Evidence for learning which the parents can access from home.
Many of the children follow Speech and Language Therapy, Occupational Therapy and sensory programmes which all tie in nicely into the curriculum.
As Early Years Practitioners we look at what we are teaching the children and how they learn. We use a topic based approach which allows us to follow the children’s interests and this changes termly. Some examples of the topics we have covered have been My Favourite Things, Going on a Journey and The Great Outdoors.
Prime Areas
The Early Years Curriculum is made up of three prime areas where it is deemed that children need to master the skills from these areas in order to tackle the next more specific areas of learning. These areas are as follows;
Personal, social and emotional development
- Making relationships
- Self-confidence and self-awareness
- Understanding feelings
Communication and language
- Listening and attention
- Understanding
- Speaking
Physical development
- Moving and handling
- Health and self-care
Specific Areas
There are four specific areas which enable the child to use their knowledge from the prime areas to practice and explore new skills built in an environment which is set up and suited to their needs.
Literacy
- Reading
- Writing
Mathematics
- Mathematics
Understanding the world
- People and communities
- The world
- Technology
Expressive arts and design
- Creating with materials
- Being imaginative
The Characteristics of Effective Learning
The characteristics of effective learning and the prime and specific areas of learning are all interconnected.
The characteristics describe how a child learns.
It’s about the route the child takes in their learning and is less about the end product.
When children are left to explore a stimulating environment on their own, they will learn through exploration.
Playing and exploring
- Finding out and exploring
- Playing with what they know
- Being willing to ‘have a go’
Active learning
- Being involved and concentrating
- Keeping trying
- Enjoying achieving what they set out to do
Creating and thinking critically
- Having their own ideas
- Making links
- Working with others
Children in the Early Years are able to succeed in all areas of the curriculum. We offer all of our children a range of learning opportunities and experiences through following their individual interests, planning in the moment and topic-based approaches. It is important that they have fun and enjoy learning in a variety of different ways following a broad and balanced curriculum that is entirely catered for their own individual needs therefore children’s individual targets are recorded on their personalised learning plans which are shared with parents.
