At Willow Nursery School, we deliver the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Framework as set out by the Department for Education. It sets out:
The EYFS Framework explains how and what your child will be learning to support their healthy development. Your child will be learning skills, acquiring new knowledge and demonstrating their understanding through 7 areas of learning and development.
For children under 3 years of age the focus is mostly on the 3 prime areas. These are:
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. These are:
These 7 areas are used to plan your child’s learning and activities. This is a little bit like a curriculum in primary and secondary schools, but it’s suitable for very young children, and it’s designed to be really flexible so that we can follow your child’s unique needs and interests, which is when children learn and develop best. Each strand is further separated out into more specific areas.
For the first few weeks, our main focus is Personal, Social and Emotional Development. Children need to feel happy, secure and settled in nursery for future learning to take place and it is paramount to us that the children feel this way.
Children in the early years learn by playing and exploring, being active, and through creative and critical thinking which takes place both indoors and out. So, when you come into nursery, you may think your children are just ‘playing’. Our skilled and experienced practitioners set the rooms out thoughtfully and sensitively to encourage the very best learning opportunities to happen. A large part of the teaching is when the adults then very sensitively intervene in the children’s play to extend their language, concentration, understanding, enjoyment and knowledge.
This is done by introducing new vocabulary, adding in new resources or challenges, asking questions and making suggestions. Staff get to know the children extremely well and seek to utilise the children’s interests wherever possible. They also use their in-depth knowledge of each child to learn when to step in, when to challenge to stretch the children on further and when to offer support. Research shows that children learn best when engaged in well thought out activities that stem from their interests. So, for example, children that enjoy role-play being builders will be given lots of clipboards and pencils to experiment with mark making, large blocks to extend their co-ordination and physical development, with language being developed all the time, and personal, social and emotional development, through the encouragement of collaborative play.
Most of the time at nursery is spent learning through play with the adults alongside the children exploring the activities. The children have a set group time every day in their keyworker groups of 20 children. This is an opportunity to develop concentration, extend language, develop listening skills and learn to be part of a group.
At Willow, we have a programme of group time activities that offer them different experiences throughout the year. These include:
In addition to this, children are offered weekly sessions which promote early literacy skills through activities set out in the DFES Letters and Sounds Document.
Children are offered a ten week ‘basic skills’ group in the term that they turn four. These sessions are 20-25 minutes long and children work in groups of 6-8 with a member of staff in a quiet room. The children have a ‘mini lesson’ which focuses of either maths or literacy and helps build upon their previous knowledge and skills.
In terms of understanding how well your children are learning, we:
For children with additional needs we offer 1:1 and small group development opportunities to help children develop in specific areas as identified by parents and staff.
We produce a weekly newsletter that should keep you updated on what your child is learning about and how you can help your child to learn at home.
The next page shows the seven areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum and the strands that each area covers. :
Prime areas
Communication & Language:
Physical Development
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
Specific Areas
Literacy
Maths
Understanding the World
Expressive Arts & Design