In Early Years, children learn through play and direct teaching. Our Nursery and Reception curriculums follow the curriculum guidelines set out in the statutory framework for Early Years Foundation Stage (2023). We also reference the non-statutory Development Matters document (2023) and Birth to Five Matters document (2021) to support us in implementing a curriculum that ignites children’s curiosity about the world around them. Our curriculum in Nursery and Reception is organised into six half-termly topics which cover all areas of the areas of learning described below. Our topics are flexible to ensure we also follow the children’s interests, school themes and local or national events. Please see the Curriculum Organization handout linked below.

The Early Years Foundation Stage framework includes seven areas of learning and development, all of which are seen as important and interconnected. However, three areas are seen as particularly important for developing children’s curiosity and enthusiasm for learning and for building their capacity to learn and form relationships and thrive. These areas support children’s learning in all other areas, they are known as the prime areas.

Prime Areas:

• Personal, Social and Emotional Development
• Communication and Language  
• Physical Development  

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

Children’s personal, social and emotional development (PSED) is crucial for children to lead healthy and happy lives, and is fundamental to their cognitive development. Underpinning their personal development are the important attachments that shape their social world. Strong, warm and supportive relationships with adults enable children to learn how to understand their own feelings and those of others and these bonds are the foundation of our approach in Early Years.

Children are supported to manage emotions, develop a positive sense of self, set themselves simple goals, have confidence in their own abilities, to persist and wait for what they want and direct attention as necessary. Through adult modelling and guidance, children learn how to look after their bodies, including healthy eating, and manage personal needs independently. Through supported interaction with other children, they learn how to make good friendships, co-operate and resolve conflicts peaceably. These attributes provide a secure platform from which children can achieve at school and in later life.

Communication and Language

The development of children’s spoken language underpins all seven areas of learning and development. Children’s back-and-forth interactions from an early age form the foundations for language and cognitive development. The number and quality of the conversations they have with adults and peers throughout the day in a language-rich environment is crucial. Supporting oracy and language development is a strong focus across our whole school and this starts in Early Years.

By commenting on what children are interested in or doing, and echoing back what they say with new vocabulary added, adults build and develop children's language. Reading frequently to children, and engaging them actively in stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems, and then providing them with extensive opportunities to use and embed new words in a range of contexts give children the opportunity to thrive. Through conversation, story-telling and role play, children share their ideas with support and modelling from their teacher. Adults use sensitive questioning that invites them to elaborate so children become comfortable using a rich range of vocabulary and language structures.

Physical Development

Physical activity is vital in children’s all-round development, enabling them to pursue happy, healthy and active lives. Gross and fine motor experiences develop incrementally throughout early childhood, starting with sensory explorations and the development of a child’s strength, coordination and positional awareness through tummy time, crawling and play movement with both objects and adults.

By creating games and providing opportunities for play both indoors and outdoors, adults support children to develop their core strength, stability, balance, spatial awareness, co-ordination and agility. Gross motor skills provide the foundation for developing healthy bodies and social and emotional well-being. Fine motor control and precision helps with hand-eye co-ordination, which is linked to early literacy. Repeated and varied opportunities to explore and play with small world activities, puzzles, arts and crafts and the practice of using small tools, with feedback and support from adults, allow children to develop proficiency, control and confidence.

Specific Areas:

The specific areas include essential skills and knowledge for children to participate successfully in society.

• Literacy
• Mathematics
• Understanding the World
• Expressive Arts and Design

You will find out more details about how the specific areas are taught on our subject specific pages. 

Each day we follow a timetable with strong routines in place. We set aside times each day when the children come together to be taught together on the carpet as a class in adult-led activities. In these slots we focus on our maths, literacy, phonics, topic work and stories. These sessions also help children to develop good learning behaviour. Through planning, teachers ensure that there is a balance of adult-led and child-initiated activities across the day. Each area of learning and development is implemented through planned, purposeful play, and through a mix of adult-led and child-initiated activities. Adults respond to each child’s emerging needs and interests, guiding their development through warm, positive interactions. We work hard to ensure that every child’s care is tailored to meet their individual needs and to help each child achieve meaningful success. 

The ways in which children engage with other people and their environment – playing and exploring, active learning, and creating and thinking critically – underpin learning and development across all areas of the curriculum in Early Years and are known as the ‘Characteristics of Effective Learning’. These characteristics underpin the approach to teaching and learning in our Nursery and Reception classes.

The three characteristics are:

• Playing and Exploring – Finding out and exploring, playing with what they know, being willing to ‘have a go’
• Active Learning – Being involved and concentrating, keeping trying, enjoying achieving what they set out to do
• Creating and Thinking Critically – Having their own ideas, making links, choosing ways to do things.

To provide high quality child-initiated learning we ensure our inside and outside learning environments contain a variety of high quality, stimulating learning resources for children to experience and interact with to support their learning in all seven areas of the curriculum. 

Our classrooms have clearly defined areas with readily available resources for children to explore. Our Nursery and Reception classrooms have distinct areas for writing / mark-making, maths, creative activities, role play, construction, a book corner and a carpeted area for whole class teaching. Each day a variety of activities are planned and set up in the different areas. During each session the teachers and supporting adults direct and support children’s learning through a balance of focus-group activities and child-led activities.  

Children also have access to an outdoor space and the learning environment outside has been designed to form specific zones to support and extend children’s learning in all areas of the curriculum. In our Nursery and Reception outside areas, we have role-play cottages, writing areas, storytelling huts, big construction areas, sandpits, water walls and space for riding bikes. As with our inside areas, each day teachers set out carefully planned activities for children to engage with, covering all areas of the curriculum. 

To ensure we have evidence of each child’s progress throughout the Early Years, we use written observations, photos and videos to capture the key learning milestones each child achieves at school. These milestones are captured in children’s individual online learning journals. We use an online learning platform called tapestry for these learning journals. Parents and guardians are encouraged to login to their child’s tapestry account to view and comment on observations, photographs and videos and can also make their own entries on tapestry, reflecting learning that happens at home.

At the end of Reception year, class teachers complete the EYFS profile for each child. The class teacher assesses each child against the 17 Early Learning Goals (ELGs) indicating whether they are meeting expected levels of development or not yet reaching expected levels (emerging). Where a child starts Early Years below age related expectations, they may not have reached the Early Learning Goal by the end of Reception. In this case, we use the Birth to Five Matters ranges to support our assessments.