Early Years Foundation Stage
Welcome to EYFS
"Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn” - Benjamin Franklin
Foundation at Middleton is an exciting, purposeful and stimulating environment in which to learn and we hope that your child has a truly amazing start to their education with us. The above quote encompasses everything that we hope to provide for your child during their first year at school. We endeavour to provide a curriculum that is rich with real-life experiences, involves the children and is carefully planned and sequenced to ensure your child has multiple opportunities to learn more, remember more and do more. We aim to inspire a love of ‘Learning for Life’ to help ensure future success for all children throughout their time at our school and beyond.
At Middleton we pride ourselves on the positive relationships that are formed with the children and their families. Our comprehensive transition programme helps us to get to know children and their families. This supportive partnership helps to ensure that all children have a successful start to their education. We want your children to feel happy, safe and love coming to school. We want parents to know that we want the absolute best quality of education for their children and that they can always come to us with any questions or concerns that they may have.
In our Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) we meet the needs of all of our children through a challenging and exciting environment full of interesting and exciting provision that encourages children to become independent learners. We believe that children are more engaged when they have a choice in their learning and so our timetables includes lots of opportunities for children to ‘free flow’ and engage in play both indoors and outdoors. Through playing children are learning many new skills such as: risk taking; social skills; fine motor skills; problem solving; and communication skills.
EYFS Curriculum at Middleton
We follow the statutory framework for the EYFS which explains how and what children will be learning to support their healthy development and provide the firm foundation that children need to make the most of their abilities and talents as they progress through our school and beyond. Children learn skills, acquire new knowledge and demonstrate their understanding through 7 areas of learning and development, these are split into Prime and Specific areas.
Children start developing in the 3 prime areas first. These are:
- Communication and language;
- Physical development; and
- Personal, social and emotional development.
These prime areas are those most essential for a child’s healthy development and future learning, these weave through our Early Years Curriculum
As children grow, the prime areas will help them to develop skills in 4 specific areas. These are:
- Literacy;
- Mathematics;
- Understanding the world; and
- Expressive arts and design.
The house model below demonstrates how EYFS is the starting point of our curriculum. The firm foundations that our curriculum provides through the prime and specific areas of learning are built upon as the children move through the school. It is vitally important that children in our EYFS have the best possible opportunities to develop as learners and therefore build that firm foundation that they will need for the rest of their education. Our curriculum and the learning opportunities we provide help to begin the children’s love of learning for life.
At the end of reception year, Foundation staff will complete an end of year profile for each child to determine whether they have met the Early Learning Goals in the seven areas of learning and development. More details on this can also be found in the document below:
Development Matters: Non-statutory curriculum guidance for the EYFS
What is a day in Foundation like?
Our Foundation consists of 3 classes; Chicks, Ducklings and Goslings who share and learn together in all our learning environment. Throughout the day there are multiple opportunities for children to choose their learning and engage in a range of independent and adult led activities. The children are able to free flow between our inside and outside areas in order to develop their skills across our curriculum. At various points during the day the children take part in adult led activities on their class carpet base such as phonics, reading groups, maths lessons and literacy activities. We also visit our school library on a weekly basis and have PE, Gymnastics, Music and Commando Joe’s lessons with specialist teachers. At lunchtime we eat our lunch together in our lunch hall. Every day in Foundation is busy and full of fun, smiles and happiness!
Parental Engagement
Parents and carers are encouraged to be active participants in their child’s education and we encourage all parents and carers to be actively involved in their children’s learning in school. As part of our comprehensive transition programme, prospective parents and children are welcomed to visit us on open days and see our current children busy learning. In September each year, staff visit children and families in their home environments to help us to get to know you as a family. Parents and children are invited to attend ‘Stay and learn’ sessions and then throughout the year there are opportunities for parents to come in to school and are to share learning experiences with their children.
In Foundation we use an app called 'Seesaw', which enables us to share photos and videos of some of the learning opportunities that the children have engaged in and their achievements with parents. We recognise that parents are the first educators in children’s lives and value contributions to judgements about children’s development through the use of the Seesaw app. We love to see photos and video examples of learning at home and we use this information to support our assessments and share information about what children need to do next to develop and thrive. Parents are also welcome to volunteer in other classes across the school and there are opportunities to assist us with supervising the children on different trips and visits that we go on through out the year.
Phonics
Early reading is the highest of priorities at Middleton. From their first day in Foundation, pupils are taught to read through our systematic phonics programme, Little Wandle Letters and Sounds.
Information for parents about the scheme can be found on Little Wandle Letters and Sounds' website
Here you will find information and videos to inform you how we teach phonics as well as support with sound pronunciation and letter formation.
Your child will bring home a reading practice book that is matched to their phonic ability and they will read 3 times across the week focusing on different skills:
Decoding - applying their phonics skills to reading
Prosody - reading with expression and intonation
Comprehension - answering different questions about the text e.g. inference, prediction (See more below)
The aim is that your child reads with 95% fluency as the book is fully decodable. This means that the children should not be reading books that include sounds they have not learnt during phonics lessons. Your child should be able to read the book without any significant support. If they are reading fluently, this is the appropriate book and is not too easy for them.
Children will not be changing their reading book multiple times per week as they have previously. Your child's teacher will change their reading book once per week.
To further support children with learning to read, parents are encouraged to use the documents below on a weekly basis to support their child at home to further embed the phonics they have been learning in school:
