EYFS

Vision

Intent

Implementation

Impact

At Bleak Hill Primary school, we provide a high-quality EYFS education giving children a secure and confident start to their school life. We are committed to nurturing a lifelong love of learning alongside the aims of the EYFS Statutory Framework. We strive for high standards, consider the development of the whole child and seek to foster resilience and independence. We are inclusive and welcoming to all and Bleak Hill values are embedded in all that we do. We aim to provide the essential knowledge that children need to prepare them for their future success and to give children the best possible start to their early education.

Our curriculum is the cultural capital we know our pupils need so that they can gain the knowledge, skills and understanding they require for success. They can only do that if we embed the right habits for learning through the Characteristics of Effective Teaching and Learning – Play and Exploration, Active Learning and Creative and Critical Thinking. Our enabling environment and warm, skilful adult interactions support the children as they begin to link learning to their play and exploration. In Reception, we invest time and energy into helping pupils set and reflect on their own goals by aiming high and developing a love of reading, writing and number.  This is delivered through a holistic curriculum which maximises opportunities for meaningful cross-curricular links and learning experiences as well as promoting the unique child by offering extended periods of play and sustained thinking following children’s interests and ideas.  We value imagination and creativity and seek to create a sense of enjoyment and fascination in learning through a vibrant continuous indoor and outdoor provision, alongside trips, visits and regular forest school sessions.

Pupils learn through a balance of child-initiated and adult-directed activities. The timetable is carefully structured so that children have rigorous directed teaching in English, maths and phonics with regular circle time sessions to focus on PSED. 

Children are provided with plenty of time to engage in ‘exploration’ throughout the variety of experiences carefully planned to engage and challenge them in the provision. The curriculum is planned for the inside and outside classrooms and equal importance is given to learning in both areas. The curriculum is planned in a cross-curricular way to enable all aspects of the children’s development including understanding the world and expressive art and design as well as to promote sustained thinking and active learning.

Our curriculum will meet the needs of our children, including our disadvantaged pupils and those with AEL and SEND, so we spend time looking at and evaluating how children are learning. ?This is achieved through talking to children, looking at their work, observing their learning experiences and analysing data and progress by class, groups and individuals. We assess children on entry along side the National Baseline Assessment and Nursery transition information to identify children’s starting points.

During each assessment window, three times a year, teachers update the progress children have made which allows us to assess the impact of teaching and identify those children needing intervention.  Evidence of children’s learning including observations, work samples, photographs and contributions from parents are saved on Tapestry which is an online learning journal. Our curriculum and its delivery ensure that children make good progress.  During their time in our EYFS, children make good progress so that we meet the national expectation for GLD at the end of the year.  Pupils also make excellent progress toward their age-related expectations before transitioning into Year One.  We believe our high standards are due to the enriched play-based exploration alongside the rigour of assessment and teaching the children have as they move through the early years – a rich diet of balanced learning experiences is undoubtedly the best way to develop happy, curious children.