St Francis Catholic Primary School a Voluntary Academy

Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)

“Free the child’s potential, and you will transform him into the world.” Maria Montessori

INTENT

At St Francis, we give our children a secure foundation for future learning. We support our children on their learning journeys throughout EYFS as they continue to develop their skills and interests and develop positive dispositions and attitudes to be able to succeed as learners and in life. We promote high expectations for each individual and encourage them to be independent learners. We want all children to leave foundation stage ready for the next stage of their learning and filled with curiosity about the world around them and ready to conquer future challenges. In FS1, we aim to support children’s personal, social and emotional development as a a priority so that they feel safe, secure, confident and ready to learn and be challenged. Additionally, we have a strong focus on developing pupils’ ability to acquire a wide vocabulary, communicate effectively and interact positively. Moving through to FS2, we build on this and focus in particular in ensuring that all have developed a sound base of early reading skills and phonics. We foster a love of learning by ensuring that we capture and learn through the children’s interests as much as possible. At St Francis we are keen to promote the diversity of life, celebrate differences and promote respect for all. Every opportunity is a learning opportunity!

IMPLEMENTATION

We have designed our St Francis Early Years Curriculum to develop the children’s knowledge, skills and vocabulary through a combination of both play-based learning and more focused teacher led sessions. Pupils learn to share, work independently and play with others.

The ‘Characteristics of Effective Learning’ are at the heart of the Early Years Curriculum and explore the different ways in which children learn. This highlights the importance of playing and learning, active learning and thinking critically. All the learning experiences we plan for the children allow them to utilise and develop these skills. We aim to foster excellent attitudes to learning by providing effective and timely adult interactions to ensure that learning is instantly captured and enhanced. All staff have high expectations and the enhancement of skills for learning is achieved through a well-resourced, stimulating environment that allows children to repeat and consolidate their own learning.

We strongly encourage parents' involvement in supporting their child to learn to read through parent workshops, information leaflets and regular 'stay, play and learn sessions' where parents are invited to come in and engage with their child's learning journey.

IMPACT

The majority of our children will leave Foundation Stage ready for their next step of learning in Year 1. They will have reached the early learning goals in all areas of learning and they will possess an excellent attitude for learning; they will be excited to learn and regularly seek out challenge. They will be confident children who ask and answer many questions about the world around them. They will be effective communicators who use their voices and other acquired interpersonal skills to share, work independently and to play with others ensuring that all are safe and happy. They will have obtained a solid grasp of early phonics and reading and will be able to write sentences which can easily be decoded by others. They will be secure in their mathematical development and have developed fluency in early counting, subitising and in their ability to compare groupings and explain how they know which is more or less. They will have developed a love for creativity in so many different ways. They will love to sing and perform for others. They will show imagination in their play with others. They will be artists in the making, packed with confidence in their skills and a real perseverance to try and try again, producing work that they want to showcase for others.

Our FS1 learners will leave us ready for the challenges that full time school brings. They will be keen to get started and, like our older children, they will be continuing to develop a real thirst and fascination for learning. They will be good talkers and have much that they want to ask! They will have matured considerably during their time spent with us and most will be ready to build stronger friendships based on mutual respect. They will be independent in their abilities to manage their own personal needs. They will have acquired a love of physical challenges, large and small, and they won’t hold back!