Children require long, interrupted periods of play and exploration… Play is the work of children

Jean Piaget (Psychologist)

Welcome to the Early Years Foundation Stage

Our Early Years is an exciting place to be!

Our dedicated and passionate staff strive to provide a high quality, calm and inviting environment to ensure all children feel safe and ready to learn.

We are passionate about enabling children to have a strong sense of identity and belonging We know that building relationships are crucial and this begins with knowing our families best…

New Families to EYFS

To ensure our children and families are well prepared for the transition to start school, communications between home and school start the term prior to the child’s first term. Correspondence is made through emails, phone calls and a welcome meeting. Parents are requested to complete a family time line to share key events in their child’s life. This develops an understanding of the child in depth and allows school to work collaboratively with home to provide for every child’s personal needs. This process also highlights where a child has been born prematurely.

North Fawdon Primary School is a Prem Aware School and have been awarded the Prem Aware Ward. We know that ‘premature born children may need more time to make progress from their starting points’

Our Early Years Offer

All our Nursery children are entitled to a 15 hour placement from 8.45am until 11.45am daily. Working families are able to apply for a 30 hour code to request a full time placement in school from 8.45am until 3.25pm (Friday is 8.45am until 2.10pm) Please use the link below to see if you are eligible. Apply for free childcare if you're working - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Reception children attend school from 8.45am until 3.25pm daily (Friday is 8.45am until 2.10pm) Reception children are also offered to attend a free breakfast club on a daily basis. Breakfast Club opens at 8.30pm where children are signed in by school staff. Breakfast Club provides the children with a healthy start each day and promotes their connections to the wider school environment

Our Curriculum

Reading and Rhyme are at the heart of what we do in EYFS! We love a good book!

We are very proud to be a ‘Talk for Writing’ school where we believe every child is a natural story teller. Through the Talk for Writing approach we develop the prime areas of Communication and Language and Physical Fine Motor Development. The specific areas of the EYFS Framework for Literacy is also enhanced through the use of story maps, my turn your turn drawings and the sequencing of stories.  Stories are brought to life through role play, small world play, sensory exploration and vocabulary investigations. Nursery Rhymes are also key to the enjoyment and the children love learning a new one each week and performing it on stage.  

Reading is at the heart of the curriculum and our home corners are a welcoming area to enjoy. Our readers look at characters, settings, main plot and endings. We look at an author or genre spotlight to widen the children’s interests. Weekly we provide a Pleasure for Reading book for home so the children can enjoy a quality read with their family. A family shared ‘Friday evenings are always cuddle and read time- such a good idea for the children’

We develop Communication and Language by using the ‘Launchpad for Literacy’ Framework and the ShREC (Share, respond, expand and conversation) approach in both Nursery and Reception.

We teach phonics through ‘Read, Write Inc’ which is a systematic approach to learning sounds. The children in Reception have a daily phonics session from 9.20am until 10.20am. We enhance reading in our daily practice of high frequency words in our session of  ‘Whizz Bang Word Walls’ where we encourage the children to remember key words on sight.

The curriculum for the prime are of Personal, Social and Emotional development  is exceptional. We are a SCARF school where progress in Safety, Caring, Resilience and Friendship is evident from Nursery to Year 6. SCARF promotes a healthy lifestyle, diet, sleep, oral hygiene and physical wellness. North Fawdon has the Healthy Schools Status. We encourage the children to eat healthy everyday and a snack of fruit, vegetables and milk are available every morning to independently chose from.

To enhance SCARF we are also the Zones of Regulation approach where Nursery and Reception children are provided with  a calm space to help regulate their own emotions and develop a sense of self management skills, Nursery explore the zones through Emotion Ninja Books and music. Reception have a restorative circle 2x per week and enhance their understanding through music, songs and books. A Reception child said ‘I am feeling in the red so I know I need to rainbow breathe then I will be in the green zone again and be happy and calm’ And it worked!

In EYFS we have excellent systems in place to provide a solid structure to our day and to manage behaviours. We use a Recognition Board and a Star Jar where we pinpoint behaviours to be Kind, Safe and Respectful as well as our ‘Give me Five, Listening, Looking, Sitting, Speaking, Hands ready’ When the Jar is full of stars we shout a team chant! If we continually make the right choices, individual children may receive a ‘positive slip’ where parents are informed of their child’s great work. One child per week is also chosen to be ‘Star of the Week’ and are presented with a certificate in front of the whole school.

This year we are also very excited to begin our own Restorative Practice called ‘Pillars of Play- referred to as POP’ The children engage in circle games to promote gentle touch and trust, games such as ring-o-rosies or fun with feathers /sensory materials. We also play games such as Snap, Mr Pop, and Kerplunk. Our laughter fills the room on POP afternoons!

For our ‘Physical Development’ and in particular ‘Fine Motor’ we strengthen our hands and improve our posture daily through ‘Dough Gym’ sessions in Nursery and ‘Dance Write’ in Reception. We practice these skills in all areas but especially outside where we use spray bottles, spades, large paint brushes, rollers, sponges, ribbons, pom poms to strengthen mark making muscles.  In Nursery we also have a daily ‘Tummy Time’ session to strengthen our core ready for writing. We learn to write using the Nelson Handwriting scheme in Reception, where we learn to write the letter sounds linked to our phonics, as well as word walls, our names and numbers.

We are mega active in EYFS! We are constantly developing our ‘Gross Motor’ skills inside and out of the class. We incorporate movements into everything we do, using the Active Start with RISE. We even move during reading by adding actions! We start each morning with a ‘Wake and Shake’ to ensure we are ready to learn and to ‘Give me Five’. Reception also have a weekly PE session taught by our school sports coach. We learn to balance, coordinate our bodies and gain stamina. Our outside classroom enables the children to use bigger muscle groups, we have a construction area where the children can use wheelbarrows, crates, wood and tires to build. We have bikes, trikes, scooters, skateboards and body boards to use on our EYS road! We also have a park area where we safely learn to climb and take risks to be off the ground. Our favourite is the pole!

In specific areas of teaching, Maths is taught through the Maths Mastery Approach. The children love learning math’s using the ‘Numberblocks’ and by having manipulatives to understand concepts. The children also love our math’s puppet ‘Matty Math’s’, he is always getting questions muddled! We enhance the math’s mastery approach with problem solving, NCTEM, Whiterose and NRich in the Nursery.

For Understanding the World we follow the whole school curriculum concept projects. In EYFS are main concepts are to be Kind, Safe and Respectful driven through sub projects such as: Farm to Fork, Kings and Queens, In my Garden, Growing Up, Nature all around us. Our sub projects are enhanced through trips, visitors and loan boxes. For example the Police visit us during Call 999 sub project,  and we loan an old toy box from the discovery museum for the Toys- past and present sub project. 

Expressive Arts and Design are explored daily with a designated creative area indoor and out. The children use different medias, materials and textures to draw, paint, print and collage. We use Access Art to develop skills and ensure progression. We look at famous artists, Van Gogh and Guiseppe as well as using the natural world to observe and represent. For Design and Technology, we focus on key skills every term to ensure progression. Our focus is cutting, sticking, folding, bending, attaching, and fastening. In Reception we think about design as adapting as well as reflecting and altering/improving ideas. Outside we have  an Invention Shed, where the children can make models using the skills from the classroom.

Music is delivered through Charanga sessions where the children hear, listen, respond and use rhythm, beats, sound and repetition. Children independently play with instruments, junk materials to be curious about sounds.  Music is used throughout the day to ‘Wake and Shake or calm and reflect. Children link music to the ‘Zones of Regulation’ Continuous Provision- documents from Trust,

Continuous Provision in the indoor and outdoor classrooms, aim to provide opportunities for the children to become independent learners as well as promote their key skills across the curriculum. The provision allows the child children to be critical thinkers, decision makers and a leader of their own processing skills.

We highly value our relationships with our  families. Working in close partnership allows the children to form excellent connections and develop a strong sense of belonging. We make an effort to communicate and interact with all our families during drop off and pick up times. We also use a digital platform app Seesaw to celebrate the children’s learning journey in school and for parents to share independent weekly learning from home. We also love to hear family news and exciting things that have happened. The children love to see themselves on the app which we look at together via our large screen in class. As part of our Sub projects, we always have a family event to showcase our learning and for the children to feel their family is valued in school. The children always rise to show off their best qualities when we are hosting parent events. We have events such a royal tea party, stay and play, rhyme time join ins, and class assemblies. Parents comment that ‘the children are so proud to have us (parents) in school- they show they are kind, safe and respectful all the time’

At North Fawdon, as team we feel every child is a different kind of flower, and all together, they make this world a beautiful garden