Our Little Wrens Curriculum

Our Early Years Offer

EYFS Curriculum -- Intent

Our foundations for curriculum at Wrenbury Primary School, which begins in the Early Years, is our belief that our school is a special place, where our staff, governors, parents and children can work closely together to inspire each other and aspire for all to have high expectations, the desire to succeed and the opportunity to achieve their full potential. We strive for our school to be a place where everyone has a sense of self, a sense of place and a sense of belonging both within our rural community and the wider world; where everyone in our school family is valued for their uniqueness and individuality because 'we all matter'.

The Early Years Foundation Stage forms the essential platform onto which all development and learning can take place. All members of the school community at Wrenbury are wholly committed to ensuring that the delivery of all aspects of the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework enables every child to meet their full potential.

The Foundation Stage at Wrenbury aims to:

Provide a safe, nurturing and stimulating environment in which children feel happy and secure;
Encourage the emotional, personal, social, physical, creative and intellectual development of the children;
Encourage positive attitudes to self and others and develop confidence and self-esteem;
Create opportunities for play and learning;
Encourage children to explore the world around them
Provide opportunities to stimulate interest and imagination;
Provide for equality of opportunity and anti-discriminatory practice, ensuring that every child is included;
Extend the children's abilities to communicate ideas and feelings in a variety of ways
Laying a secure foundation for future learning.
Principles:
Children entering our Early Years Foundation Stage do so with a varied range of experiences and knowledge. The principles behind the provision we offer reflect their range in a number of ways;
they value the expression, views and opinions of every child;
reflect the interest and learning styles of every child;
ensure that no child is excluded or disadvantaged;
provide a rich and stimulating environment;
build on what our children already know and can do.

Wellbeing

First and foremost, we understand that children need to feel happy and safe to access their learning. We also understand that our staff's wellbeing is important to ensure that they can be the best that they can be. Through the day-to-day relationships with our youngest children, they develop a sense of belonging at Wrenbury and are within the safe and nurturing environment offered are increasingly able to understand and manage their emotions and develop positive relationship with both their and well-known adults.

Quality Texts
Reading has a high priority and underpins our curriculum at Wrenbury. Our learning is led through high-quality texts, supplemented with lots of other quality literature, including non-fiction and poetry. These quality texts come from the past and the present, from near and far and from other cultures. Children in the EYFS learn to read but are also encouraged to love books and love to read.

Rich Vocabulary
At Wrenbury, and in the EYFS, words matter -- not only words in the books shared but in play and learning and in conversation. New vocabulary is introduced and explored with the children frequently.

Not only do words matter but talk matters. The skills needed by the children to communicate their wants and needs, their feelings and their learning are developed through quality interactions, questioning to support and develop their understanding and deepen their learning and by providing them with a range of opportunities for purposeful talk.

Support for learning
Children in our EYFS are entitled to and receive quality learning opportunities within our indoor and outdoor provision. All children (including those with SEND) are provided with appropriate scaffolds and models in order to succeed independently. Carefully planned learning opportunities and experiences as well as child-initiated play provide all children with the opportunity to achieve. We encourage children to learn in different ways. All children are prepared for the next stage of their learning journey in Reception (Foundations Stage 2).

Key concepts
Our EY curriculum is knowledge rich, creates opportunities for children to learn and apply skills and deepen their understanding of key concepts. The sequence of learning is carefully planned. Making the learning relevant and connected is an essential part of supporting children in learning more and remembering more in the Early Years at Wrenbury.

Implementation
Teaching and Learning:
The EYFS is made up of seven areas, which are sub-divided to make a total of 17 areas of learning. There are three areas known as Prime Areas:

Communication and Language -- Listening, Attention and Understanding and Speaking.
Personal, Social and Emotional Development -- Self Regulation, Managing Self and Building Relationships.
Physical Development -- Gross Motor Skills and Fine Motor Skills.
There are a further four Specific Areas:

Literacy -- Comprehension, Word Reading and Writing.
Mathematics -- Number and Numerical Pattern.
Understanding the World -- Past and Present, People, Culture and Communities and The Natural World.
Expressive Arts and Design -- Creating with Materials and Being Imaginative and Expressive.
Curriculum Planning
In line with the EYFS curriculum guidance from Cheshire East, we have adopted the following planning structure.

Long term Planning
We have long term plans situated in all areas of the classroom, which clearly detail the learning opportunities across all areas of learning relating to that area. These are Continuous Provision Plans.

Medium term planning
At Wrenbury, we consider and plan how the main areas of learning can be linked together under termly, collective, overarching, whole school themes that are then appropriated to the different cohorts, ensuring the curriculum is bespoke to our school's context. In EYFS, we closely observe the children during their play and plan a range of adult focus activities, objective led planning (FS1) and enhancements to the classroom areas to support their learning in relation to the interests they have shared or have been observed following our whole school themes.

Little Wrens — Foundation Stage 1 (FS1)
As part of the Wrenbury Primary School family, FS1 follow the whole school themes to ensure all children have a sense of self, sense of belonging and a sense of community, instilling our mantra 'We all matter'. The focus within FS1 is weighted on child initiated activities with a smaller proportion of the child's time spent on adult directed tasks. The adults within the nursery spend a balanced proportion of time on making observations of child initiated play which feeds into objective led planning to explore their next steps, as well modelling and extending play. Adult focused activities are planned when applicable to further extend learning.

Assessment
In accordance with the EYFS, the assessment within the Foundation Stage is carried out on an individual basis, ensuring that the development and skills of each child are monitored and evaluated properly.

Observations are made and recorded during child initiated activities. At such times, staff focus on development of new skills and understanding previously not observed. Such observations make up the majority of the total assessment for each child, but occasionally assessment occurs during adult led activities. This is in line with the Statutory Framework for the EYFS.

Every child has a Learning Journey book, which include recordings taken from observation, photographs and work produced in child-initiated activities. A secure virtual platform called 'Seesaw' is also used to record 'remarkable' moments and can be accessed by parents. Parents can also add comments to photographs and add any 'remarkable' moments of their own from home. Having Learning Journeys and 'Seesaw' provides an ongoing record of each child's progress and development throughout their time in the Foundation Stage.

Three times a year, the staff in the EYFS work together and make a best-fit judgement to decide whether a child is meeting the expected age-related expectation in every area of learning. Planning and interventions are based on these judgements, as well as knowledge of the individuals and groups.