Our Early Years Curriculum
Intent
Our Earlham Early Years curriculum is designed to provide our pupils with the foundations of a love of lifelong learning, to give them ‘powerful’ knowledge which enables them to engage with and communicate about the world beyond their lived experience, and to think analytically and critically about the world around them. We aim for our children to be confident and independent, to believe in themselves and interact positively with others. We understand that play is an integral part of learning and this is at the heart of our Early Years curriculum.
Our ethos in Early Years is to support children’s personal, social and emotional development so that they feel safe and secure and are ready to learn. We believe that the correct mix of adult directed and uninterrupted child-initiated play ensures the best outcomes for pupils. Warm and positive relationships between staff and children, consistent routines and strong relationships with parents are key. We recognise the crucial role that Early Years education has to play in providing firm foundations upon which the rest of a child’s education is successfully based.
We know that early years education is the foundation of a person’s lifelong learning journey and research suggests that young children’s learning and understanding are not limited by their cognitive development but by their inexperience - like Gopnik, we believe that young children have an exceptional capacity to learn and can be ‘the most powerful learning machine in the universe’, so our early years curriculum seeks to help children recognise, name, understand and talk about the world around them. 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. We support them to develop effective learning habits through the Characteristics of Effective Learning – Play and Exploration, Active Learning and Creative and Critical Thinking.
Most of our pupils arrive well below national expectations for their age and a high proportion come from disadvantaged backgrounds and with complex needs. We have to teach them how to listen, speak and meet the high expectations for behaviour by working together and being kind. As such, we prioritise personal, social and emotional development and communication and language in the Nursery curriculum. We plan carefully for children to have progressively richer experiences beyond the school gate, including regular trips to the local park and community gardens for outdoor learning- ‘Forest School’. This is essential for Earlham pupils, many of whom live in cramped and temporary housing with no access to outside space.
We believe that speaking and listening are key skills for all future learning - if a child can’t say what they know or think, they won’t be able to read it or write it. We know that our children arrive at school word poor - their vocabulary and speaking and listening skills are significantly below age-expected levels. Our curriculum and pedagogy creates opportunities for children to build and use a growing vocabulary and we engage with excellent professional support through an on site speech therapist who provides assessments, training and and monitoring for our language development programmes as well as working closely with parents.
Our intent for teaching early reading is rigorous, building on our tried and tested synthetic phonics lessons (RWI) we work closely with families to ensure that children are being supported to read and being read to at home as well as in school. In Reception the children are immersed in a vocab-rich learning environment, focused around our daily shared writing, and the children read and re-read their writing every day, and also start their lifelong journey of independent reading for pleasure.
By the end of the Reception year, our intent is to ensure that all children make exceptional progress from their starting points and are equipped with the skills and knowledge to have a smooth transition on into Year 1.
Implementation:
We implement our Earlham Early Years curriculum through a high quality, ‘language rich’ environment-through the use of songs, nursery rhymes, stories and providing time for quality interactions between adults and between peers. We ensure that interactions are positive and progressive, allowing children to flourish and gather words at pace in order to become confident communicators.
Children are encouraged to read books and the daily systematic teaching of phonics through the ReadWrite Inc programme through differentiated phonics groups. There are additional 1:1 phonics sessions in the afternoons to ensure rapid progress for all learners. Phonic sounds are introduced in a systematic manner and progress is monitored closely. The sessions are delivered in an engaging way and activities are revisited to embed over the year and supported in a range of ways including Hold a Sentence, Fred Talk and rhymes associated with each sound.
Our outdoor school environment is carefully planned and resourced to enable our children to strengthen their core muscles through physical play. Children spend time outdoors in their natural environment in all weathers. They develop through wonderful, exploratory, sensory experiences in our mud kitchen, sandpit and taking part in Forest School sessions.
The children are supported to learn to work together, manage their feelings and ask questions through skilled adult facilitated play. The curriculum is taught through topics which are enriched with classroom enhancements, trips and visitors. Topics are supported by quality key texts. These are chosen carefully to encourage children's speech, language and communication development. All planning however, is flexible and responsive to children’s needs so plans can be changed and adapted depending on children’s interests.
Pupils have opportunities to share their learning with their families through Evidence Me. We understand the importance of family engagement and believe that our families have a crucial role to play in their children's education. What makes Earlham exceptional are our weekly “Family Fridays” sessions to support families which are extremely well attended. Our Families use Evidence Me to engage in their child's learning and share experiences from home. Evidence Me assessments are used to inform planning and next steps in teaching and learning for all children throughout the year.
The English curriculum is taught using Talk for writing in EYFS. Children develop their literacy skills by the imitation of stories that they learn using actions and story mapping techniques. They then move on to innovation of these well-known stories by including their own ideas. Literacy and Phonics opportunities are also promoted in many of the continuous provision activities available to children during the week.
The Maths curriculum is based upon White Rose and is taught through daily dedicated sessions. These sessions are carefully planned using concrete resources and build on prior learning and real life experiences across the theme and year. This starts with mastering numbers 0-5 and then progresses through to 0-10 and 0-20. We want our children to become confident mathematicians who can apply what they have learnt to real life experiences.
Impact:
Our wonderful curriculum and its precise delivery ensure that children, from their own starting points, make exceptional progress. Children in our early years, on average, arrive with much lower starting points than national. During their time in our EYFS, children make rapid progress so that we meet the national expectation for GLD at the end of the year. Our pedagogy is focused on supporting children to access carefully chosen resources, practice their skills, and scaffold and extend learning in a play-based setting.
Assessment is based on next steps - what does each child need to develop their skills, knowledge and understanding? This requires our early years team to really know each child well, so assessment is tailored to the child. Planning then follows assessment, and again follows the child; in practical terms this means we review and assess focus children and plan for their next steps each week. By the end of the Reception year, our children make exceptional progress from their starting points and are equipped with the skills and knowledge to have a smooth transition into Year 1.
Our high standards of progress and achievement are driven by an enriched curriculum, enabling environment, and rigorous assessment processes. Children develop their characteristics of learning and are able to apply their knowledge to a range of situations making links and explaining their ideas and understanding. Children are confident to take risks and discuss their successes and failures with peers and adults drawing on their experiences to improve or adjust what they are doing. We believe our high standards are due to our carefully planned environment, enriched play-based curriculum, quality first teaching and the rigour of assessment.
