"Children learn as they play; most importantly, in play, children learn how to learn." - Fred Donaldson 

At Firs Primary School, we have a single form entry EYFS with one Reception class called Saplings.

In June, before the start of the academic year that your child will join us, we begin a thoughtfully planned and personalised transition into EYFS. This includes stay-and-play sessions, home visits, nursery visits, and parent workshops covering important topics like phonics and maths which support children's learning at home and their transition into school. Families receive a home learning pack to help them prepare for the September start. We encourage parents to focus on key skills, such as separating from parents, dressing, feeding, toileting and sharing.

At Firs, we follow a carefully structured curriculum that aligns with other EYFS settings across our trust. We design our curriculum by drawing upon our understanding of the local area and the children, while also taking inspiration from Cornerstones. Our planning is driven by topics and current trends, which are influenced by the children's interests, to ensure their learning and skill development is engaging and meaningful.

Our topics are:

• Autumn 1: All About Me
• Autumn 2: People Who Help Us
• Spring: Tell Me a Story
• Summer: Animals of the World

Key experiences for our children include educational visits, woodwork, cooking, and observing eggs hatch in the classroom as part of our learning about life cycles.

We encourage children to engage with our progressive curriculum through a balance of adult-led and child-initiated investigative learning. Our mornings include phonics, reading, and English, along with free-flow learning. In the afternoons, we adopt a free-flow philosophy throughout the setting, with maths starting the afternoon and stories bringing the day to a close. Children have access to both indoor and outdoor learning opportunities throughout the day.

Our staff focus on nurturing the Characteristics of Effective Learning in children, providing appropriate support and challenge to help them take the next steps in their learning. The curriculum is centred around the children's interests and developmental needs. The Early Years Foundation Stage provides a strong foundation of knowledge and skills that children build upon as they transition into Key Stage One.

We base our curriculum on the Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework 2021, which guides the opportunities and provision for children in their first year of school. Early on, we place a strong emphasis on learning through play, building relationships, and embedding personal, social, and emotional development so that children feel happy at school and can make friends. Phonics and number mastery begin in the first few weeks, alongside modelling how to use the resources we provide, both indoors and outdoors. 

At Firs Primary School, we strive to foster a resilient, can-do attitude by encouraging safe risk-taking, and modelling is essential in this process. Throughout the year, we build on what each child already knows and can do.

We use an objective-led planning approach, where learning is taught through formal teaching and children’s play. This approach is based on rigorous tracking, daily observations, and small group work that introduces new skills and extends learning. The curriculum is delivered through purposeful, planned teaching, play opportunities, and enhancements of provision, with adults observing, engaging, and intervening using higher-order questioning to extend learning.

Our curriculum is tailored to meet the needs of the current cohort of children and is adapted throughout the year as their development progresses.

Our curriculum focuses on seven broad areas of learning. Each child’s progress and development is reported to the Department for Education at the end of the Reception year against the set Early Learning Goals. These areas of learning include:

The Prime Areas:

• Personal, Social, and Emotional Development: Helping children develop confidence, self-awareness, the ability to manage their feelings and behaviour, and build effective relationships with others.
• Communication and Language: Fostering skills in listening, attention, understanding, and speaking.
• Physical Development: Developing both gross and fine motor skills.

The Specific Areas:

• Literacy: Early reading and writing skills, including daily phonics teaching, recognizing common and irregular words, reading and understanding simple sentences, and constructing sentences.  At Firs, we use Ready Steady Write, which includes daily sentence writing and a book-led approach.
• Mathematics: We deepen children's knowledge and understanding of number and numerical patterns, following the Maths Mastery programme to ensure high-quality maths provision across all areas.
• Understanding the World: Enabling children to build their learning based on their understanding of the world around them, with strands in:

          *  Past and Present: Discussing events in the world and within their own families.

          *  People, Culture, and Community: Becoming aware of differences and similarities between others,                           families, communities, and traditions.

          *  The Natural World: Observing changes in the environment, learning about plants and animals, and                         discussing these changes.

• Expressive Arts and Design: Encouraging children to sing, create music, and dance. They explore a variety of materials, tools, and techniques to experiment with colours, design, and texture in their artwork, and engage in imaginative play through art, music, role play, and stories.