At Mulgrave Primary School we believe that every child deserves the best possible start in life, giving them the support that enables them to fulfil their greatest potential. We will accept nothing less. We know that children develop quickly in the early years and a child’s experiences between birth and age five have a major impact on their future life chances. We provide a secure, safe and happy learning environment, through high-quality teaching and learning experiences to support the development of skills, knowledge and understanding, providing the right foundation for good future progress throughout their time with us at Mulgrave and beyond.
Our EYFS curriculum follows the Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage set by the Department for Education (DfE). It is based on seven areas of learning and development, which are interconnected and essential for children’s growth.
Prime Areas
These areas are fundamental to a child’s development and underpin all learning::
Specific Areas
These areas help children gain essential knowledge and skills for future learning:
The EYFS Curriculum at Mulgrave Primary School:
Overarching Principles
At Mulgrave we embrace the ethos of the Early Years Statutory Framework and believe that:
To see how our overarching principles are implemented at Mulgrave, click on the tabs at the bottom of the page.
Mulgrave provides a personalised curriculum and understands that every child is unique, constantly learning and can be resilient, capable, confident and self-assured.
Getting to Know Each Child - Supporting Smooth Transitions
Most Nursery or Reception age children attend a preschool/Nursery setting, allowing practitioners to get to know them very well. In the Summer Term, the Reception and Nursery teachers at Mulgrave meet with previous pre-school/Nursery practitioners to begin to build a picture of each child before they start school or Nursery. Where appropriate, practitioners will also visit the setting and see particular children operating in an environment which they know, with staff that they familiar to them. We discuss each child with their practitioners before they join Mulgrave to assess their social skills, independence, confidence, language and physical ability.
Children are invited to come and play in Nursery and Reception before starting school/Nursery. They attend a ‘stay and play’ session with their parents which gives each child a chance to explore their new setting and to meet the practitioners. During this session the class teacher and practitioners get to know more about the child and they complete a questioner with the parents. This information tells us about their child's interests and what they like to do, enabling our Early Years Practitioners to plan accordingly. Having met their teacher and having had a positive experience playing with their favourite toys and meeting new friends, each child is then excited to come back to Nursery or Reception.
At the beginning of the Autumn Term, staff carry out home visits. This is a time to exchange information and provide an opportunity to get to know each child in their own environment.
In Nursery, every child receives a home visit.
In Reception, children new to Mulgrave receive a home visit.
As each child settles into school, we continue to get to know them well whilst building on the relationships established during transition into school. Throughout their time in Nursery and Reception, we continue to respond to each child's unique needs in order to meet the requirements outlined in the Statutory Framework.
“Practitioners must consider the individual needs, interests, and development of each child in their care, and must use this information to plan a challenging and enjoyable experience for each child in all areas of learning and development.” (EYFS Statutory Framework).
Each time a practitioner interacts with a child, they are observing, assessing, planning for, and responding to, that individual child. A cycle of observation, assessment and planning is used to support teaching and learning it also helps us to get to know the children really well.
We provide a high quality and highly engaging ‘Enabling Environment’ that plays a key role in supporting and extending each child’s learning and development.
The enabling environment; both indoors and outdoors, is critical. It supports children to be fully engaged in purposeful play of their own choice and interest. The indoor and outdoor areas provide learning opportunities for all seven areas of learning but the two areas do not mirror each other.
Indoors, for example, provides the ideal place for children to be calm and to play quietly pursuing activities which require small equipment and using resources that will not survive the outdoor elements.
Outdoors provides opportunities for more vigorous and active play.
Pupils initiate their own learning and adults join them and support them in their pursuits. In all areas, the resources are available and accessible to the children at all times. The areas are clear, stocked and tidy at the start of the day.
The different areas of learning have additional provision to extend or build upon children’s interests or to consolidate adult led learning. By enriching provision in this way, we can ensure that all pupils are keen to learn, to try new activities and to explore in a meaningful way. Tidy up time is short. All resources are labelled clearly or ‘shadowed’ so that pupils can independently take responsibility for looking after their own environment.
The Indoor Environment - Continuous Provision
The Outdoor Environment - Continuous Provision
Teaching and learning in EYFS should not be taken to imply a ‘top down’ or formal way of working. It is a broad term that covers the many different ways in which adults help young children learn. It includes their interactions with children during planned and child-initiated play and activities: communicating and modelling language, showing, explaining, demonstrating, exploring ideas, encouraging, questioning, recalling, providing a narrative for what they are doing, facilitating and setting challenges. It takes account of the equipment adults provide and the attention given to the physical environment, as well as the structure and routines of the day that establish expectations.
At Mulgrave we plan for play, understanding that children are experiencing and learning in the here and now, not storing up their questions until tomorrow or next week. “It is in that moment of curiosity, puzzlement, effort or interest – the ‘teachable moment’ – that the skilful adult makes a difference.
In practice, we organise the setting- including the time, the resources and the adults to ensure that each child displays deep levels of engagement for the majority of the time. When each child is highly engaged in their learning, we can be confident that they are making good progress. When deeply engaged, their brains will be “lit up”. We notice when support is needed and ensure that obstacles are overcome or that new directions and possibilities are available and learning will be meaningful and fun.
By end of the Reception year, children’s attainment is assessed against the Early Learning Goals.
You can find out about these goals clicking on the attachment below:
The Characteristics of Effective Learning:
The Characteristics of Effective Learning underpin learning and development in the EYFS, these include:
Playing and Exploring – Practitioners support and provide opportunities for all pupils to investigate and experience things, and ‘have a go’
Active Learning – Practitioners support and provide opportunities for all pupils to concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties, and enjoy their own achievements
Creating and Thinking Critically – Practitioners support and provide opportunities for all pupils to have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things
Learning through Play
Play underpins the delivery of all the EYFS at Mulgrave.
Children have opportunities to play indoors and outdoors. Most children play spontaneously, although some may need adult support, and it is through play that children develop intellectually, creatively, physically, socially and emotionally.
Providing well-planned experiences based on each child’s spontaneous play, both indoors and outdoors, is an important way in which we support young children to learn with enjoyment and challenge. In playing, children behave in different ways: sometimes their play will be responsive or boisterous, sometimes they may describe and discuss what they are doing, and sometimes they will be quiet and reflective as they play.
Through play, in a secure but challenging environment with effective adult support, children can:
We use a long-term plan for Nursery and for Reception, developed by the EYFS Leader and EYFS class teachers, based on the EYFS Statutory Framework, Development Matters 2021 and Birth to Five Matters documents and guidance. This long-term plan shows adult led themes and provides skills progression for planning. The skills progression provides Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for each term. Using the KPIs for planning ensures that all children make good progress towards end of year expectations. Medium term, weekly and daily planning are all learning led to enable children to meet the KPIs. Daily Structures support the delivery of a broad and balanced curriculum.
Daily Structures
Structures change to meet the needs of the children as they grow and develop throughout the Nursery and Reception year. For example, at the beginning of the academic year, pupils self-register and then play immediately. The children are supported to explore the environment to see what’s available, to select the resources they would like, to use them appropriately and to tidy the area when they have finished. Children are in control of their own learning and can develop their own interests further, supporting them to be happy and engaged and to have high levels of well-being. When the children are happily settled at school we introduce carpet times where the children learn together. The length of each session increases as the children mature.
At Mulgrave Primary the pupil’s day or session is structured with an excellent balance of child and adult led learning opportunities. All pupils learn in a variety of ways including; whole class learning sessions, small group work and 1:1 work. The biggest majority of the time is spent with each child engaging in play.
In order to support children to build positive relationships with peers and adults and to develop the Characteristics of Effective Learning, we have class rules that are followed in the EYFS.
At the beginning of the academic year, our Nursery and Reception practitioners help the children to learn and adhere to these rules, so that all children can be happy and safe in their learning.
Assessment and Progress
We use ongoing observations and assessments to track each child’s development against the EYFS Early Learning Goals (ELGs). This helps us tailor learning experiences to support and challenge every child appropriately.
At the end of the Reception year, children’s progress is recorded in the EYFS Profile, which provides a summary of their achievements in all areas of learning.
Learning through play observations are captured through the use of a personalised electronic learning platform. ‘Sonar’ is the platform we choose to use to collate each child’s attainment and achievements. Sonar supports us to monitor and track each child’s progress through their next steps rigorously to ensure that all pupils are making at least good progress across all seven areas of learning and development. Pupils share their ideas and thinking using a variety of media, captured in each child’s paper learning journey folder that children are taking home every Friday.
