Curriculum - Little Wonders Nursery School

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) states that:

'Every child deserves the best possible start in life and support to fulfill their potential. A child's experience in the early years has a major impact on their future life chances. A secure, safe and happy childhood is important in its own right, and it provides the foundation for children to make the most of their abilities and talents as they grow up.'

The EYFS builds on significant developments in early years curriculum and standards. It is a statutory framework that sets out the legal requirements relating to learning and development and child welfare.

The overarching aim of the Early Years Foundation Stage is to help young children achieve the five Every Child Matters outcomes of:

Staying safe

Being Healthy

Enjoying and Achieving

Making a Positive contributions

Achieving economic well-being

At Little Wonders, we believe we can help the children achieve the purpose set out in the Early Years Foundation Stage, by providing a well planned and resourced curriculum, a qualified, experienced and highly motivated team of practitioners and by giving children the opportunity to succeed in an atmosphere where they feel cared for and valued.

We believe that children are individuals and must be treated as such from the moment they join us. They must acquire skills and attitudes to provide them with a solid foundation for learning. They must be given the opportunities to progress at their own unique pace, with in a supported and 'safe' environment.

We recognize the need to work with 'parents as partners'. The home influence remains important throughout their school years and it is crucial to build and work together to promote children's development. This partnership helps to make school learning part of children's lives rather than something separate and artificial.

The Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum, covers children from birth to five years of age.
The Early Years Foundation Stage covers the six areas of learning:

	Personal, Social and Emotional Development
	Communication, Language and Literacy
	Problem Solving, Reasoning and Numeracy
	Knowledge and Understanding of the World
	Creative Development
	Physical Development

Each area of learning has 'early learning goals', which establish expectations for most children to reach. By the end of the Foundation Stage some children will have exceeded the goals.

1.PERSONAL, SOCIAL & EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT (PSED)
PSED is split into 6 sections: Dispositions and Attitudes, Self-confidence and Self-esteem,
Making Relationships, Behavior and Self-control, Self-care and Sense of Community.
The curriculum is planned by our teachers to allow for:

Activities that promote emotional, moral, spiritual and social development alongside
intellectual development;

Experiences that help children develop autonomy and the disposition to learn;

Opportunities to give positive encouragement to children with practitioners acting as
positive role models;

Positive images in, for example, books and displays that challenge children's thinking;

Opportunities for children to work alone and in small and large groups;

Activities which are imaginative and enjoyable;

The development of independence skills in those children who are highly dependent
upon adult support for personal care.

Early Learning Goals

By the end of Foundation Stage, children should:

a. Continue to be interested, excited and motivated to learn
b. Be confident to try new activities, initiate ideas and speak in a familiar group;
c. Maintain attention, concentrate, and sit quietly when appropriate;
d. Respond to significant experiences, showing a range of feelings when appropriate;
e. Have a developing awareness of their own needs, views and feelings and be sensitive
to the needs, views and feelings of others;
f. Have a developing respect for their own cultures and beliefs and those of other people;
g. Form good relationships with adults and peers;
h. Work as part of a group or class, taking turns and sharing fairly, understanding that
there need to be agreed values and codes of behavior for groups of people, including
adults and children, to work together harmoniously;
i. Understand what is right, what is wrong, and why;
j. Consider the consequences of their words and actions for themselves and others;
k. Dress and undress independently and manage their own personal hygiene;
l. Select and use activities and resources independently;
m. Understand that people have different needs, views, cultures and beliefs, which need
to be treated with respect;
n. Understand that they can expect others to treat their needs, views, cultures and beliefs
with respect.

2. COMMUNICATION, LANGUAGE & LITERACY (CLL)

CLL is split into 6 sections: Language for Communication, Language for Thinking, Linking
Sounds and Letters, Reading, Writing and Handwriting.
Children will be given the opportunity to:

Take part in conversations (with adults and their peers);

Communicate with others in imaginative play;

Listen to stories, poems, songs and learn some of them by heart;

Handle and look at books, share reading and if appropriate to begin reading
themselves;

Write, draw and paint. They are encouraged to write their own name and dictate and
write simple sentences.

We have adapted the Letters and Sounds framework to suit the needs of our children
and continue to use the Jolly Phonics scheme to teach phoneme/ grapheme correspondence.

Take part in a guided reading session once every fortnight

Early Learning Goals

By the end of Foundation Stage children should be able to:

a. Interact with others, negotiating plans and activities and taking turns in conversation;
b. Enjoy listening to and using spoken and written language, and readily turn to it in their
play and learning;
c. Sustain attentive listening, responding to what they have heard by relevant comments,
questions or actions;
d. Listen with enjoyment and respond to stories, songs and other music, rhymes and
poems and make up their own stories, songs, rhymes and poems;
e. Extend their vocabulary, exploring the meanings and sounds of new words;
f. Speak clearly and audibly with confidence and control and show awareness of the
listener, for example by their use of conventions such as greetings, 'please' and 'thank
you';
g. Use language to imagine and recreate roles and experiences;
h. Use talk to organise, sequence and clarify thinking, ideas, feelings and events;
i. Hear and say sounds in words in the order in which they occur.
j. Link sounds to letters, naming and sounding the letters of the alphabet;
k. Use their phonic knowledge to write simple regular words and make phonetically
plausible attempts at more complex words;
l. Explore and experiment with sounds, words and texts;
m. Retell narratives in the correct sequence, drawing on the language patterns of stories;
n. Read a range of familiar and common words and simple sentences independently;
o. Know that print carries meaning and, in English, is read from left to right and top to
bottom;
p. Show an understanding of the elements of stories, such as main character, sequence
of events, and openings, and how information can be found in non-fiction texts to
answer questions about where, who, why and how;
q. Attempt writing for various purposes, using features of different forms such as lists,
stories and instructions;
r. Write their own names and other things such as labels and captions and begin to form
simple sentences, sometimes using punctuation;
s. Use a pencil and hold it effectively to form recognisable letters, most of which are
correctly formed.

PROBLEM SOLVING, REASONING AND NUMERACY (PSRN)

PSRN is split into 3 sections: Numbers as Labels for Counting, Calculating and Shape,
Space and Measures.
Children are given the opportunity to:

Sort, match and count objects;

Develop mathematical language, e.g. short/long, colour;

Sing and recite number songs and rhymes;

Play number games;

Move and handle objects to develop spacial awareness;

Look at, extend and form sequences and patterns.

Early Learning Goals

By the end of Foundation Stage, children should be able to:

a. Say and use number names in order in familiar contexts;
b. Count reliably up to 10 everyday objects;
c. Recognise numerals 1 to 9;
d. Use developing mathematical ideas and methods to solve practical problems.
e. In practical activities and discussion begin to use the vocabulary involved in
adding add subtracting;
f. Use language such as 'more' or 'less', 'greater' or 'smaller', 'heavier' or 'lighter', to
compare tow numbers or quantities;
g. Find one more or one less than a number from 1 to 10;
h. Begin to relate addition to combining two groups of objects, and subtraction to 'taking
away';
i. Talk about, recognise and recreate simple patterns;
j. Use language such as 'circle' or 'bigger' to describe the shape and size of solids and
flat shapes;
k. Use everyday words to describe position

4. KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING OF THE WORLD (KUW)

KUW is split into 6 sections: Exploration and Investigation, Designing and Making, ICT,
Time, Place and Communities)
The children take part in activities which encourage them to look closely at the similarities
and differences in things from the natural and man-made worlds.

They are encouraged to ask questions, suggest explanations and to understand cause and effect by trying things out.

They design and make models using construction toys and paper, card etc.

Each Foundation Stage class is timetabled for one hour per week in the computer suite.

The topics outlined in our school policies would encourage the children to begin to develop historical and geographical, personal and social skills.;

They go for walks, talk to visitors from the community and listen to historical stories in order to explore the meaning and practice the language of time and place and to understand the wider world and their relationship to it.

Early Learning Goals

By the end of Foundation Stage, children should be able to:

a. Investigate objects and materials by using all of their senses as appropriate;
b. Find out about, and identify some features of, living things, objects and events they
observe;
c. Look closely at similarities, differences, patterns and change;
d. Ask questions about why things happen and how things work;
e. Build and construct with a wide range of objects, selecting appropriate resources, and
adapting their work where necessary;
f. Select the tools and techniques they need to shape, assemble and join the materials
they are using;
g. Find out about and identify the uses of everyday technology and use information and
communication technology and programmable toys to support their learning;
h. Find out about past and present events in their own lives, and in those of their families
and other people they know;
i. Observe, find out about, and identify features in the place they live and the natural
world;
j. Find out about their environment, and talk about those features they like and dislike.
k. Begin to know about their own cultures and beliefs and those of other people;

5. PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT (PD)

PD is split into 4 sections: Movement and Space, Health and Bodily Awareness and Using
Equipment and Materials)

Children have daily access to the outdoor area.

We use the Write Dance scheme to help develop gross motor skills.

We focus on improving fine manipulative and co-ordination skills through handling a range of equipment, materials and tools.

Children are given the opportunity to practice and improve skills in running, jumping, climbing, balancing and using large and small apparatus with confidence and control.

They go for walks, talk to visitors from the community and listen to historical stories in order to explore the meaning and practice the language of time and place and to understand the wider world and their relationship to it.

Early Learning Goals

By the end of Foundation Stage, children should be able to:

a. Move with confidence, imagination and in safety;
b. Move with control and co-ordination;
c. Travel around, under, over and through balancing and climbing equipment;
d. Show awareness of space, of themselves and of others;
e. Recognise the importance of keeping healthy and those things which contribute to this;
f. Recognise the changes that happen to their bodies when they are active;
g. Use a range of small and large equipment;
h. Handle tools, objects, construction and malleable materials safely and with increasing
control.

6. CREATIVE DEVELOPMENT (CD)

CD is split into 5 sections: Being Creative – Responding to Experiences, Expressing and
Communicating Ideas, Exploring Media and Materials, Creating Music and Dance and
Developing Imagination and Imaginative Play.
Children are encouraged to represent their ideas by drawing, painting, using malleable
materials, dancing and music making.

They are taught the knowledge, skills and techniques they need to give greater control over the materials with which they are working.

They are timetabled for one session of singing every other week plus one music session per week.

One PE session a week is planned for dance.

Early Learning Goals

By the end of Foundation Stage, children should be able to:

a. Explore colour, texture, shape, form and space in two and three dimensions;
b. Recognise and explore how sounds can be changed, sing simple songs from memory,
recognise repeated sounds and sound patterns and match movements to music;
c. Use their imagination in art and design, music, dance, imaginative and role play and
stories;
d. Respond in a variety of ways to what they see, hear, smell, touch and feel;
e. Express and communicate their ideas, thoughts and feelings by using a widening
range of materials, suitable tools, imaginative and role play, movement, designing and
making, and a variety of songs and musical instruments.

The goals are broken down into age bands: Birth-11 months, 8-20months, 16-26 months, 22-36months, 30-50months, 40-60+ months. Teachers will use the age bands to identify developing knowledge, skills, understanding and attitudes that children need if they are to achieve the early learning goals by the end of Foundation Stage. Children are continually observed and assessed in line with these goals, to ensure that appropriate individual learning experiences are provided for individual children.

The EYFS states that:

'It is crucial to their future success that children's earliest experiences help to build a secure foundation for learning throughout their school years and beyond. Practitioners must be sensitive to the individual development of each child to ensure that the activities they undertake are suitable for the stage that they have reached. Children need to be stretched, but not pushed beyond their capabilities, so that they can continue to enjoy learning. '

The keys to achieving this are:

On-going observational assessment to inform planning for each child's continuing development, through play-based activities

A flexible approach that responds quickly to children's learning and development needs

Coherence of learning and development, related to the child's experience at home

At Little Wonders, each child has an evidence folder – Early Learning Journey Folder, which contains the following to allow practitioners to track each child's progress, throughout their time with us. This folder contains:

written observations and photographs - observation can be both formal and informal and are carried out on a regular basis.

an evidence book snapshot observations and photographs are taken to record achievements and progress at every available opportunity

samples of work

In addition to The EYFS, we also use the Letters and Sounds program, when it is age and stage appropriate to do so. Letters and Sounds is a phonics resource program published by the Department for Education and Skills in 2007. It aims to build children's speaking and listening skills in their own right as well as to prepare children for learning to read by developing their phonic knowledge and skills.