Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)

Welcome to our Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)

At Oldfield Brow, we aim to "Inspire the Exceptional" within each child as soon as they begin their educational journey with us.

We aim to instil our school values of collaboration, reflection, innovation, aspiration and respect throughout our environment, within our staff and most importantly, within our children. Our practice is underpinned by research-based principles, focussing our attention on the three main areas of EYFS curriculum – your child, the environment and the adults.

HEADLINE NEWS!

We are proud to be named an Early Excellence Partner School in recognition of the school's commitment to providing an "exceptional" EYFS experience for our children. From the leadership to the practice in the classroom, our school is now a centre for excellence that will be used to support the development of excellent EYFS practices across the nation.

early excellence case study oldfield brow .pdf

Your Child (at the centre)

We acknowledge the uniqueness of each child, their interests and their strengths. Communication and language development is at the centre of our curriculum and practice. Our staff understand the unique starting point of each child, and ensure that each child develops their sense of self, emotional literacy, sense of community and confidence.

We prioritise the well-being of each child, enabling them to become active, innovative and reflective learners.

“Children across the EYFS phase were very happy, settled and safe. The routines and expectations have supported good levels of wellbeing for many children.” – Early Excellence Audit (2023)

The Environment

Our high-quality learning environment supports each child to meet their personal goals. We consider our environment as the third adult, with carefully selected resources that have earned their place within our classrooms due to their ability to progress children’s learning.

“The learning environments were welcoming, calm and purposeful. The ethos and vision for the EYFS was threaded through the phase.” – Early Excellence Audit

“All learning resources on offer in both the indoors and outdoors across the phase were to a high quality.” – Early Excellence Audit

“A range of key learning opportunities for outdoor learning were on offer within clear zones – including a mud kitchen, a nature and growing area, digging spaces, water play, loose part construction. Many of these opportunities gave rise to high degrees of concentration and involvement.” – Early Excellence Audit

The Adults

The adults in our classrooms ensure that our environment is vocabulary-rich by engaging in high-quality interactions, introducing new vocabulary and facilitating communication and language development. Adults teach and model new vocabulary, language structures, and social and communication skills through collaborative talk. Our interactions are carefully considered with the intended goal being for the children to gain knowledge, understanding and the confidence to apply new learning independently.

“There was a clear shared vision and aims for the school and the EYFS, and this was articulated well by school leaders, who demonstrated a commitment to understanding and valuing the foundation years.” – Early Excellence Audit

“There was a high degree of consistency in the professional conversations with a range of staff with regards to the vision, aims, provision and children. These dialogues reflected common threads and a shared understanding wove through the leaders and staff involved today.” – Early Excellence Audit

“The rationale was regularly evident during professional discussions. There was often clarity and reflection about ‘the why’ of decisions and learning opportunities” – Early Excellence Audit

“Key leaders have taken time to explore research and approaches and reflect on the school context, considering carefully feeding this into practice for maximum effect” – Early Excellence Audit

“Adults sought opportunities within their interactions to facilitate the children in applying their recently acquired skills / knowledge in meaningful ways.” – Early Excellence Audit

“All staff demonstrated very high commitment levels to the children and were keen to support them as far as possible in their learning and development, and in preparation for their onward journey too” - Early Excellence Audit

Our Classes

At Oldfield Brow Primary School we have one Nursery class and two Reception classes: Reception Oldfield (RO) and Reception Brow (RB). Each class share both indoor spaces as well as a dedicated outdoor space.

RO and RB share a purposeful breakout area which is used for interventions and focused group activities.

Staff are organised to support the children in a balance of adult-led and child-initiated experiences throughout the sessions and the EYFS children have dedicated time to explore inside and outside the classroom. The experienced teams plan a variety of exciting learning opportunities each day as well as responding to unplanned themes or topics that interest the children.

Class	Staff
Nursery	Miss Kelly with Mrs Plimmer
Reception Oldfield (RO)	Mrs Saini and Mrs Cridland with Mrs Wood and Mrs Porter
Reception Brow (RB)	Miss Drabble with Mrs Wood and Mrs Porter

What do we teach in EYFS?

Throughout Nursery and Reception, your children will partake in an ambitious, inclusive and sequential curriculum. Our Early Years curriculum meets all the requirements of the educational programs in the statutory framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage.

Statutory framework for the early years foundation stage (publishing.service.gov.uk)

We have carefully sequenced our curriculum content to clearly show the progression between Nursery and Reception and also feed into the National Curriculum subjects; preparing our children for learning in Year 1 and beyond. We have designed our long-term curriculum plans to be aligned with the whole school's curriculum intent and implementation models to ensure that our EYFS lays the foundations for successful learning for all of our children.

Our Phonics Scheme: Read Write Inc.

The 7 Areas of Learning are:

Your child will be learning skills, acquiring new knowledge and demonstrating their understanding through 7 interconnected areas of learning and development.

Children should mostly develop the 3 prime areas first. These are:

Personal, social and emotional development
Communication and Language development
Physical development

These 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

These 7 areas are used to plan your child’s learning and activities. At Oldfield Brow our EYFS teaching team ensure that tasks and challenges are suited to your child’s unique needs and interests.

In addition, the ‘Characteristics of Effective Learning’ underpin learning and development across all areas and support the child to remain an effective and motivated learner. Children in the EYFS learn by playing and exploring, being active, and through creative and critical thinking.

Our environment indoors and outdoors is continually enhanced with resources designed to scaffold and maximise learning.

The Early Learning Goals (ELGs) are the knowledge, skills and understanding that young children should have acquired by the time they reach the age of five.

Early-Learning-Goals-Parent-and-Carers-Guide.pdf

How do we teach in EYFS?

A typical day in Nursery looks like:

Time	Activity
8:40-8:50am	Doors Open and Independent Learning Time
8:50 – 9:15am	Register, songs and Carpet Time
9:15-10am	OUTSIDE LEARNING
10am-10:10am	Story Time
10:10am-10:25am	Snack Time
10:25 – 11:05am	Free Choice Learning Activities
11:05-11:10am	Tidy Up
11:10-11:30am	Collect afternoon children, toileting and hand washing
11:30 – 11:40am	Take children to hall for lunch and morning children home
11:40-12:30	LUNCH
12:30pm-1pm	Outside Learning
1pm – 1:20pm	Register, songs and Maths Carpet time
1:20pm – 2:00pm	Free Choice Learning Activities
2pm – 2:05pm	Tidy Up
2:05-2:15pm	Story Time
2:15 – 2:30pm	Snack Time
2:30-3:00pm	OUTSIDE LEARNING
3:00-3:15pm	End of day reflections as a class and home time

A typical day in Reception looks like:

Time	Activity
8:40-8:50	Dough Disco
8:50-9:00	Register, Hello Song, Days of The Week Song
9:00-9:20	Hook/ Introduce Story (linked with UTW) Carpet Time
9:20-9:50	Indoor Learning Activities
9:50-10:00	Tidy up
10:00-10:15	Snack Time with Story
10:15-10:50	Outside Learning Activities
10:50-11:20	Read, Write Inc
11:20-11:30	Toilet and Songs
11:30-12:25	Lunchtime
12:30-12:50	Maths – Number Carpet Time
12:50-2.20	Free Flow Indoor/Outdoor Activities
2.20-2:35	Big Tidy up
2:35-2:50	Understanding the World/Expressive Arts and Design Carpet Time
2:50-3.05	Sing Rhymes
3:05-3:20	Home Time Reflection

Our pedagogy is underpinned by carefully selected principles:

Play-based

Hands-on, exciting learning experiences
Creative learning opportunities
Purposeful invitations to play
High-quality enhancements
Engaging learning hooks
WOW days
Equal emphasis on both indoor and outdoor learning
Clear routine and structure for play and learning

Child-led and adult-facilitated

Child-led enhancements
Learning which builds on prior knowledge and experiences
Children’s interests are incorporated into our provision
Clear understanding of each child’s next steps and where they need to go in their learning
Constant focus on the wellbeing of each child
Strong partnership between home and school

Enquiry-based

Thematic approach
Enquiry question as half-termly topic
Question led planning
Open-ended interactions and activities
Investigative provision and enhancements

Vocabulary-rich

Concept cat daily learning
High-quality texts as hooks
Vocabulary-rich conversations and interactions
High-quality texts in the provision
New vocabulary modelled and explained
Print rich classrooms
A wide range of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry books
A wide range of opportunities for developing speech and language skills from stories
Daily songs and nursery rhymes
Daily story times
Exploration of new authors
Exploration of poetry
Culturally diverse books and authors

Outdoor Learning

Nature is a tool to get children to experience not just the wider world, but themselves. – Steven Moss

The best classroom and the richest classroom is roofed only by the sky.” – Margaret McMillan

At Oldfield Brow Primary School, we believe that the whole curriculum can be covered creatively in a well-planned outdoor environment. In EYFS we spend lots of dedicated time investigating and learning outside. Our learning experiences outside are larger, louder and messier!

There are no boundaries to outdoor learning within our EYFS. Outdoor learning is an integral part of our day – the range of activities can be endless. Movement is a vital part of play and learning. Growth and the development of the body, brain and feelings are inseparable. Our children have first to experience the world through all their senses before they can think in the abstract. The children are encouraged to challenge, explore, restore, investigate, trial and question.

Our outside area is planned to provide exciting opportunities for both independent sensory exploration and adult-directed learning opportunities. High-quality interactions between staff and children allow learning to be scaffolded and facilitated, just as it is inside the classroom. The children use this space all year round, in all weathers, further enhancing their learning opportunities by exploring the world around them. There is constant adult supervision and interaction outside.

Our link to the wider school

Subject leaders are invited to see their subject in action, providing them with the knowledge of the foundations of their subject in Nursery and Reception. Subject leaders ensure the clear progression of substantive and disciplinary knowledge throughout their subject, starting with EYFS and continuing into the Key Stage 1 curriculum and further into Key Stage 2.

How can I support my child at home?

We strive to establish a strong partnership between school and home, to ensure the holistic development of each child. We value the contribution that our parents and carers make to their children’s learning and take every opportunity to work in collaboration with them. We provide an opportunity for parents to document WOW moments throughout the year.

We encourage all parents to add observations from home so that we can gain a wider view of their child. In the autumn and spring terms, we hold Parent Consultations and in the summer term we send home detailed reports.

Reading with your Child

Research demonstrates that reading and singing with your child provides a strong starting point for phonological awareness, in turn supporting communication and literacy skills. Children who engage with more stories, songs and rhymes are more likely to go on to become proficient readers. The vast majority of vocabulary used in high-quality texts are words that are less common in spoken language, enabling children to hear new words and understand them within the context of a story or poem. Immersing children in new vocabulary and language has been seen to improve communication, social skills such as empathy, reading and writing. We encourage parents to read stories and nursery rhymes to children as much as possible. Do not worry if your child selects the same book or song again and again, this continues to develop children’s understanding of key concepts, oracy, and fluency.

Tips for reading with your child | BookTrust

Benefits of singing nursery rhymes: Why are nursery rhymes good for babies? - BBC Tiny Happy People

Parental Engagement

We value the contribution that our parents and carers make to their children’s learning and take every opportunity to work in collaboration with them. We provide an opportunity for parents to document WOW moments throughout the year.

The children in Nursery take story books home, while Reception take home reading books in line with their phonics level along with a reading record book which parents/carers are asked to write in every time they read with their child. We also provide ‘Phonics and Reading’ workshops for parents to attend so that they can learn more about how they can support their child at home. Parents are invited into school for a variety of shared experiences, such as ‘Book Start’ meetings and assemblies.