Whitemoor Academy

EYFS Curriculum

Our Philosophies and Aims

We follow the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Curriculum, using the DfE Development Matters document to inform weekly planning.

This document sets out the standards that all Early Years providers must meet to ensure that children learn and develop well and are kept healthy and safe. It promotes teaching and learning to ensure children’s ‘school readiness’ and gives children the broad range of knowledge and skills that provide the right foundation for good future progress through school and life.

The Early Years Foundation Stage Seeks to provide:

Quality and consistency in all early years settings, so that every child makes good progress and no child gets left behind.
A secure foundation through learning and development opportunities which are planned around the needs and interests of each individual child and are assessed and reviewed regularly.
A partnership working between practitioners and with parents and carers.
Equality of opportunity and anti-discriminatory practice, ensuring that every child is included and supported.

At Whitemoor Academy our philosophy "Learning for Life" is introduced right at the start of the school journey during Nursery and the Reception years. We embed a shared vision for our pupils to develop a love of learning that will carry them through the rest of their lives.

We have developed a carefully planned, sequential and challenging Early Years curriculum, which allows all of our pupils to become independent and confident learners. We balance a child initiated approach through our Continuous Provision and discrete adult taught sessions to ensure that children learn the knowledge and skills needed in preparation for Key Stage 1. Each half termly topic begins with an enquiry based question and we start by gathering the children's prior knowledge and initial thoughts for starting points.

EYFS staff use the ShREC Approach to engage with children during child-led learning to help develop communication and language skills and support children's personal, social and emotional development.

We believe that children should be involved in making decisions about their own learning and so we bring their fascinations and interests into our planning, which promotes high levels of engagement and wellbeing.

Scroll the photos below to see the children in Whitemoor's Nursery and Reception class enjoying their learning.

Children creating in the mud kitchen cafe.

Nursery and reception children enjoying squiggle whilst you wiggle early writing skills.

The children in nursery and reception enjoying a senses walk in the school grounds.

Nursery children baking flapjacks as part of the early maths curriculum.

Nursery and reception children making the most of the wet weather to find puddles on a welly walk.

The nursery children enjoying messy play exploration as part of the whole-school art day.

Nursery and reception children play together regularly.

Nursery and reception children working together to create a water track.

Continuous Provision

Our Continuous Provision is carefully planned to ensure that we provide an environment that allows children time, space and opportunity to embed and refine their learning. We use a high quality core set of resources which are built up throughout the year as children develop their skills. We include enhancements for a hook into our current enquiry question for our new topics of learning. You can find our more about our curriculum in the Class 1 Curriculum map linked below.

The Areas of Learning and Development

The Early Years Foundation Stage consists of seven areas of learning and development that shape our EYFS curriculum, they are all important and inter-connected:

There are 3 Prime areas that underpin everything in the Early Years:

Communication and Language
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
Physical Development

There are 4 Specific areas which help to strengthen and apply the prime areas:

Literacy
Mathematics
Understanding the World
Expressive Arts and Design

All of the areas are connected together and the Characteristics of Effective Teaching and Learning weave through them all.

The 3 Characteristics of Effective Teaching and Learning are:

Playing and Exploring - Children investigate and experience things, and 'have a go'
Active Learning - Children concentrate keep on trying and enjoy achievements
Creating and Thinking Critically - Children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas and develop strategies for doing things