EYFS Curriculum

Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is the stage in your child's from from birth to the age of 5. This is usually by the end of their Reception year.

At St Anne's we believe children's early years experiences should be happy, active, exciting and fun. The experiences should support their development, care and learning needs. This learning takes place both indoors and outdoors and is developed through play, practical and creative activities. We believe that through our carefully designed EYFS curriculum, there is a broad and balanced curriculum with a focus on skills, stories, songs and rhymes and is filled with rich learning experiences which help young children become independent, resilient and successful learners. We aim to ensure that children are given experiences to develop their basic skills, effective characteristics and learning attitudes needed for future learning. Partnerships with parents are encouraged in a variety of ways and key to ensure children develop well.

At St Anne's, all children will experience a weekly visit to our Woodlands School where they will play in the natural world, learn to take age appropriate risks, investigate our world in the changing seasons and most importantly get muddy!

At St Anne's, all staff will be 'Language Role Models' & 'Active Play Role Models' to support children's development.

In line with the statutory framework, every child at St Anne's has a 'Key Worker'. This will be the child's class teacher..

Children are continually encouraged to foster a love of reading. Stories form a clear part of the curriculum. Good quality stories and topic books are regularly changed in class reading corners. The children in EYFS get to choose and take home a daily story book within the 1000 Stories initiative to help foster a love of books and support their language development. Inside this book is a ‘Wow Word’ which parents are encouraged to discuss this word with their child and listen out for it in the story. The children enjoy bringing back their collector card and receiving a certificate for reading 30 stories at home. Special Friends from Year 6 regularly come to Reception to share stories with the children, and Year 5 come to Nursery to read stories including on World Book Day. Parents of Early Years children are invited to attend Parents & Children Reading Together sessions where parents bring books to share with a variety of children. Reception children also get to share phonics games with their parents. Teacher’s and Year 6 have recorded Bedtime Stories which have been uploaded to the school’s Video Resource Centre. Children in EYFS visit Streetly Library every other week where Librarians read stories to the class. Children in Reception are heard read their individual home reading book daily in school and encouraged to do so at home.

Daily Phonics sessions take place from Nursery following the DfE approved scheme Twinkl Phonics. Children through Nursery focus on Level 1 where they are taught to listen carefully to and name a variety of everyday sounds before moving on to rhyming words, words that start with the same letter sound and oral segmenting and blending skills. If ready, the children are then introduced to the first set of sounds in Level 2. Moving to Reception, sees the children reviewing Level 1 initially and moving through Level 2, Level 3 and Level 4. Individual reading books are sent home with children in Reception. Children read daily with adults in school. Teachers are continually observing and assessing children’s progress and interventions put into place for those children who are falling behind or not making expected progress. Parents are supported by being invited to a workshop in Reception where staff explain the importance of stories and nursery rhymes at home, speaking clearly with their children and teach the parents simple phonics skills so they can support their children at home. There are Parent Support Sheets and videos for parents to access on the class website

The Prime areas of learning are a key focus throughout the EYFS. The SMILE initiative is used to support children’s Personal,Social & Emotional Development and Communication & Language skills. With adults being’ Language Role Models’ children hear good quality language, vocabulary and grammar. Nursery children take part in regular Dough Disco and Finger Gym activities to strengthen their finger muscles which strengthens their fine motor control. The children in Reception follow the White Rose Maths scheme to ensure they are ready for the mathematical challenges of Year One. Additional weekly music lessons by our school’s music teacher take place along with PE coaching for gymnastics and dance skills from an external provider. As a Catholic school, we follow the Birmingham Diocese Curriculum ‘Learning & Growing as People of God”. We also use the Ten Ten Life to the Full Curriculum for the teaching of RSE.

Computing skills are encouraged throughout the curriculum. Phonics Play is an important game website to support children’s phonics skills and the school’s login codes are shared with parents. Children are given their personal MiniMash login cards and are encouraged to use these at home. MiniMash is also used in school to support curriculum areas of learning. Digital Leaders come to Reception to support children in school. Walsall’s Computing Team come to school to teach children early programming skills using Bee-Bots which then form part of our Continuous Provision. Programming skills are also encouraged using remote control cars and phones. Children in Reception are taught to use drawing programs using iPads and the class interactive whiteboard. Online Safety is taught from Nursery.

Children’s transitions are carefully planned for, from home to Nursery, Nursery to Reception and Reception to Year One. New Parent Meetings, home visits, parent meetings, Stay and Play sessions for Nursery and class visits to Reception help the children settle quickly. For those children who move from Nursery to another school for Reception, staff liaise with their new setting and complete a transfer report. For those children new to Reception, the class teacher makes an initial phone call to the child’s Nursery and a visit where necessary. In July, the Reception teacher has a transition meeting with the Year One teacher and the children visit for story sessions and a transition visit.

For children identified as having SEND, class teachers work closely with the school’s SENCO and external agencies to support their learning in school.