EYFS Curriculum Design

Intent

At Hugo Meynell we aim to give each child the best possible start to school life. We want children to be happy and feel safe and secure so they can develop into confident, positive and capable individuals.

We want children to be curious and have their own ideas. We want them to feel secure to take risks, challenge themselves and persist with things even when it is difficult.

We want each child to form great relationships with both adults and their peers. Our aim is to give all children the tools to understand their feelings and express themselves in a safe and nurturing environment. Our high quality provision promotes a love of learning and will give children the best start to school life.

Implementation

At Hugo Meynell we provide a broad, balanced and inclusive curriculum. Our curriculum is based on the EYFS Development Matters. Our curriculum is child centred and can be adapted to each child and cohort. We start by building on what the children already know and follow their interests and fascinations. Practitioners will support, challenge and scaffold each child as they play, learn and take their next steps.

Our curriculum aims to provide many opportunities for teachable moments through child initiated play in the continuous provision. This is mixed with adult led activities when practitioners are teaching skills, knowledge and understanding.

At Hugo Meynell, we believe we provide an exceptional Early Years environment that enables all children to learn. All seven areas of learning and development weave through our indoor and outdoor environment.

Communication and language development is extremely important in our EYFS. Children’s learning and competence in communicating, speaking, listening and understanding will be supported and extended in a language rich environment. This will start in Nursery with lots of stories, songs and rhymes. We will give children time to talk. Practitioners will provide a wide range of experiences to extend children’s vocabulary and thinking. Phase 1 phonics listening games in Nursery will prepare children in Reception to be formally introduced to phonics using The Teach Hub Letters and Sounds scheme.

Impact

We want our children to leave the EYFS as confident, socially able children with many of the basic skills that they will build upon in KS1.  We know that we are successful because of positive feedback from parents and receiving staff and our EYFS outcomes.

"Children in early years get a great start to their education because the area is led effectively.  Teachers work closely together to ensure that they and their respective teams adapt the curriculum to suit the needs of individuals and groups of children. The proportion of children who attained a good level of development at the end of their time in Reception has remained above the national average." OFSTED 2017