Intent – What do we want our children to achieve during their time in the EYFS? 

During their time in the EYFS at St Helen’s we aim for all children to become confident, creative and curious life-long learners. Our school’s Christian vision “Love to learn, learning to love, all different, all equal” also plays a crucial role in what we do in the EYFS. We want children to have a deep and meaningful love of learning as well as being able to show love, inclusion and tolerance to others in different contexts which include their class, school and wider St Helen’s community.

We strive to support children to achieve their full potential and make excellent progress throughout the year regardless of their background, circumstances or needs. We therefore take into account every child’s individual starting points and needs, through carefully planned transition activities and baseline observations & assessments, whilst recognising that all children are unique and special.

By the end of their year in Reception, our children will be:

• Able to talk articulately, holding conversations with peers and adults, using newly learnt vocabulary correctly and listening to feedback, taking-turns in conversation,
• Listen with careful attention for a suitable period of time, ask questions to clarify their understanding and understand and show acceptance of differing opinions to their own,
• Demonstrate self-regulation, emotional resilience and have the ability to persevere in the face of challenge,
• Confident in their own abilities. They will be able to discuss their strengths; knowing what they do well and what they may still need help with,
• Kind, polite, resilient, confident and curious learners with an understanding of our school’s Christian vision of “love to learn, learning to love, all different, all equal.”

We aim to work collaboratively and closely with parents and carers throughout the year. We have a strong understanding of the importance and impact a positive home-school relationship can have on a child’s attitudes to learning and their education in this vital first year. Some examples of how we foster this home-school relationship include:

• The careful planning of children’s transition into primary school from Nursery or Pre-School;
• Organising home visits at the start of each academic year;
• Having a school-wide ‘open-door’ policy;
• Termly parent’s consultation meetings;
• Use of an online learning journal such as Tapestry;
• Hosting parent workshops to support parent’s knowledge of certain subjects such as Phonics.

Implementation – How do we support children to achieve their potential? How do we meet the aims set out in our Intent statement?

Staff in the EYFS at St Helen’s have a deep understanding of the importance of the Early Years and recognise it as a crucial year; knowing that how children develop and learn with us helps to pave the way for all future learning and success at school.

We plan and deliver an exciting, creative and engaging topic-based curriculum. Our curriculum has been designed with the children at the forefront and using the information we know about life in a small village primary school. We strive to provide opportunities for purposeful learning both in the classroom and our outdoor learning environments.

We work hard to get to understand and really know each cohort of children well; what their interests and needs are and make ‘tweaks’ to previous planning to ensure they have access to a curriculum that works for them and supports their learning. Following on from changes regarding the collecting of evidence and ‘observations’, set out in the revised EYFS curriculum, staff ensure they use children’s play-based learning time to interact with children in a meaningful way and use key opportunities to move learning on in-the-moment through discussion and questioning. These daily interactions, along with regular discussions about children’s learning and progress and other monitoring exercises, enable staff to have a secure understanding of individual children’s progress and next steps which in turn, support progress to be continuous.

We strongly believe that children learn best when playing, Jean Piaget stated that “children require long, uninterrupted periods of play and exploration.” Our EYFS curriculum and timetable gives a great deal of consideration to this and we endeavour for children to have access to and explore different learning through playful opportunities and by providing an enabling and well-resourced environment.

Our EYFS curriculum follows the 2024 updated EYFS framework and focuses on the Prime & Specific Areas and Characteristics of Effective Learning shown below:

All areas of the EYFS curriculum are followed and planned for; ensuring there is a broad, balanced and progressive learning environment and curriculum. The teaching of these areas of learning is practical and playful with support and challenge from adults in class sessions, small group sessions and when working with individuals. We use a combination of adult-led, teacher taught sessions as well as a wealth of stimulating continuous provision opportunities to ensure learning is engaging, challenging and fun. Weekly, topic-themed, enhancements are added through different activities that are set up for children to access that cover different areas of the EYFS curriculum and allow children to further develop their next steps in learning. 

Impact - How do we know if we have achieved our aims? How do we know if what we are doing is working well for everybody?

Our previous data, since the introduction of the revised EYFS curriculum in 2021/22, has shown that we have an overall percentage of children who achieve a Good Level of Development that is either above or very close to the National Average percentage.

Though our statements of Intent and Implementation as well as a thoughtfully-planned, broad and balanced curriculum, we are confident that children will transition into Key Stage One with a well-rounded and solid start. This is due to the strong focus we place on developing all areas of the EYFS curriculum, but most notably the three prime areas, throughout children’s Reception year. We recognise the importance of and strive to provide a robust foundation in which all future learning can be built upon.

Children will possess the necessary skills to succeed, not just throughout Year One but throughout their school journey. During children’s time in EYFS they become confident, caring, kind and curious learners. We value children’s uniqueness, individuality and interests and use these to support children and help them to develop into the best version of themselves.