Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)

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Respect

Always striving, no matter what the obstacles

It doesn't matter how slowly you go as long as you don't give up

A little love and support can take you a long way

If you can dream it, you can do it!

Strength lies in differences, not in similarities

Make the most of each moment - have fun!

Treat others the way you would like to be treated

Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)

Welcome to William Bellamy Primary

Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)

Please read on to find out about what is happening in Early Years Foundation Stage and learn more about the EYFS curriculum and practice. You can also see more information of class events on our Nursery and Reception year group pages (go to the main menu, select Children / Year Groups / Nursery or Reception)

Welcome WBP families! It has been fabulous meeting and getting to know our Nursery and Reception families this half term. Your support has been wonderful and the children have settled amazingly well. Well done and thank you!! :) :) :)

Nursery Together Thursdays

7th November - Communication and Language Focus

21st November - Physical Development Focus

5th December - Personal, Social and Emotional Development Focus

23rd January - Understanding the World Focus

30th January - Maths Focus

13th Feb - English Focus

Come and find out more about our Early Years curriculum! :)

TOGETHER THURSDAYS in Nursery

TOGETHER TUESDAYS in Reception

Everyone plays, learns and has lots of FUN. :)

Come and join us!

Please attend your child's focus week session...

This is when you can speak to the class teacher

about your child's learning and development. :)

Nursery 10:20-11:20am or 12:30-1:30pm

Reception 8:45-9:20am

(Check updates for fortnightly dates each term)

Nursery - Curriculum / Home Learning Workshops 2019-2020

'Next Steps in Nursery'

An early learning course for nursery parents with an child development expert.

9:30am-11:00am

Tuesday 21st and 28th January 2020

The Cabin, KS1 Playground

LIMITED PLACES AVAILABLE so please register as soon as possible. See staff for more details and creche availability.

Early Years Foundation Stage Teaching and Learning Policy

EYFS Policy 2018-2019.pdf

We have a list of useful EYFS documents attached below.

Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum (EYFS) - The Curriculum for Birth to Five Year Olds

We are aiming for our EYFS children to meet Early Learning Goals (Expected levels of attainment) or Exceeding descriptors (above Expected attainment) at the end of the Reception year. Please help by reading these descriptors, attending our workshops and supporting at home.

Early Learning Goals and Exceeding Descriptors.docx

Examples of children demonstrating learning and development at Early Learning Goal level

How to help your child at home

Would you like to find out ways to manage your child's behaviour?

Please see this attached document Toddler Tips!

School staff are available to talk about strategies that may work for individual children and situation. Please let us know if you would like more support.

Toddler Tips

Toddler tips.pdf

Early Years Assessment gets an upgrade in the form of 'eyLog'!!

We fully value parents as partners in children's learning. It is so important for our professionals to know about the interests, experiences, relationships and fun that children are having outside school. It helps us build a personalised, relevant curriculum for the child. Parents - please help us by sharing your rich knowledge of your child via 'eyLog'!

Some steps to help set up this system:

Parents to read and sign the eyLog agreement.
Parents to give us their email addresses and signed permissions.
Staff to set up children's files on eyLog.
Staff to gather observational assessments (photos, video, audio recordings, written narratives) of a child or group of children.
Staff to upload observations to eyLog.
Parents are notified when observations are ready to be viewed.
Parents can comment on children's learning and staff can reply.
Parents can upload photos and video showing experiences that children are having outside school.

THANK YOU to parents who have already started uploading their own comments, photos and observations to their child's eyLog page! We are enjoying finding out what your child is doing, talking about and learning at home! :)

We are going to be tagging your observations with assessment statements. Your observations will become an important part of your child's Learning Journey. They will used to build a holistic picture of what your child is achieving at home as well as at school. So THANK YOU for this support! We really appreciate it :)

More about eyLog, our online assessment system.

'eyLog' guide for parents

eyLog for Parents - v5.0.docx

Problems with eyLog? Let us know.

Please speak to your child's class adults if you are having any difficult with registration or other issues. We can check and amend information uploaded in the system. We resend the link as soon as all the information looks correct. Please check your junk mail folder as the registration email may end up in there. We can't wait for you to see your child's learning and development!

No email address? Please come and look at your child's learning journey on our computers at school. Speak to staff as soon as possible to arrange this.

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)

Key Principles

Unique Child

'Every child is a unique child who is constantly learning and can be resilient, capable, confident and self assured'

(Development Matters in the EYFS 2012)

We know that the most effective learning and development takes place when children feel safe and secure and when adults tune into their unique interests, needs and abilities. We love finding out about our children's fascinations! It helps us plan experiences that motivate them to learn.

Celebrating our unique backgrounds!

We are very lucky to have children with many different home languages in our Nursery and Reception classes. We celebrate and promote these languages through 'Language of the Month' activities and dual language story telling.

Positive Relationships

'Children learn to be strong and independent through positive relationships'' (Development Matters in the EYFS 2012)

At William Bellamy Primary positive relationships between adults and children are considered a priority. Carefully planned transition arrangements allow adults to spend time getting to know each child and his or her family. Each child is allocated a key person who helps make sure his or her individual needs are met. Sensitive observation and interaction between adults and children encourage each child to communicate in his or her own way. This communication is a crucial part of all learning and teaching in the EYFS.

Parent Partnership

We value parents as children's first educators. We hope that parents and carers become fully involve in their child's learning. We carry out the following activities to support two way communication:

Home visits
A carefully planned induction period
Time to speak to parents at handover times each day
'Family Friday' sessions each term
Termly parent consultations
eyLog online Learning Journeys
Termly newsletters
Updates on the year group web pages

Enabling Environment

'Children learn and develop well in enabling environments, in which their experiences respond to their individual needs and there is a strong partnership between practitioners and parents and / or carers.'

(Development Matters in the EYFS 2012)

We believe young children learn effectively when engaging with rich resources and a wide range of carefully planned learning opportunities. Stimulating indoor and outdoor provision enables children to move, interact, talk and develop in a way that meets their individual learning needs. Quality adult interactions ensure children develop language and thinking whichs supports and extends their learning.

Learning and Development

'Children develop and learn in different ways and at different rates. The framework covers the education and care of all children in early years provision, including those children with special educational needs and disabilities'. (Development Matters in the EYFS 2012)

Our EYFS children are offered a broad curriculum which includes seven areas of learning and development. These are:

Prime Areas:

Communication and Language
Physical Development
Personal Social and Emotional Development

Specific Areas:

Literacy
Mathematical Development
Understanding the World
Creative Development

The Characteristics of Efective Learning

Playing and Exploring: Interest...

Developing interests and fascinations, making sense of their world through play and 'having a go!'

Active Learning: Motivation...

Keep on trying, pursuing personal goals and being proud of successes

Creating and Thinking Critically: Thinking...

Having own ideas, making links, problem solving, reasoning and many more thinking skills

These are essential learning behaviours that help children develop a love of learning and enable them to become effective learners. These characteristics begin to develop at home with families from birth and they continue to develop though school years and adult life. Encouragement and support from adults enables our children to become resilient, capable learners. Children who become confident to pursue their aspirations and eventually fulfill their dreams!

A Nursery Learning Story

'One afternoon a large group of nursery boys became interested in play with the cars and the new garage. The activity was so popular practitioners had to find more cars and set up an extension to the car play. The children went on to engage in a long episode of play with the car ramp. They thought about and selected best cars for travelling along the ramp, experimented with different levels of force and considered distance the cars needed to move to reach the basket at the bottom. One boy found an amazing car that could travel fast from the top to the bottom of the ramp without stopping. He was so chuffed when he realised what this special vehicle could do! I particularly liked how the children worked together in a cooperative and respectful way. When the ramp broke the children problem solved and worked together to put it back together. In this scenario we can see the children demonstrating personal, social and emotional development, physical development, mathematical thinking and understanding the world. They are also developing important 'characteristics of effective learning'.

The 7 Areas of Learning and Development

Under each heading you will see the Early Learning Goals (Expected attainment for the end of Reception). There is one for each of the 17 Aspects of Learning and Development.

Communication and Language

ELG1.Children listen attentively in a range of situations. They listen to stories, accurately anticipating key events and respond to what they hear with relevant comments, questions or actions. They give their attention to what others say and respond appropriately, while engaged in another activity.

ELG2.Children follow instructions involving several ideas or actions. They answer ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions about their experiences and in response to stories or events.

ELG3.Children express themselves effectively, showing awareness of listeners’ needs. They use past, present and future forms accurately when talking about events that have happened or are to happen in the future. They develop their own narratives and explanations by connecting ideas or events.

Physical Development

ELG4.Children show good control and co-ordination in large and small movements. They move confidently in a range of ways, safely negotiating space. They handle equipment and tools effectively, including pencils for writing.

ELG5.Children know the importance for good health of physical exercise, and a healthy diet, and talk about ways to keep healthy and safe. They manage their own basic hygiene and personal needs successfully, including dressing and going to the toilet independently.

Personal Social and Emotional Development

ELG6.Children are confident to try new activities, and say why they like some activities more than others. They are confident to speak in a familiar group, will talk about their ideas, and will choose the resources they need for their chosen activities. They say when they do or don’t need help.

ELG7.Children talk about how they and others show feelings, talk about their own and others’ behaviour, and its consequences, and know that some behaviour is unacceptable. They work as part of a group or class, and understand and follow the rules. They adjust their behaviour to different situations, and take changes of routine in their stride.

ELG8.Children play co-operatively, taking turns with others. They take account of one another’s ideas about how to organise their activity. They show sensitivity to others’ needs and feelings, and form positive relationships with adults and other children.

We play together and learn together! A great example of interacting, sharing and turn taking independently. Well done boys! :)

Caring and sharing

Literacy

ELG9.Children read and understand simple sentences. They use phonic knowledge to decode regular words and read them aloud accurately. They also read some common irregular words. They demonstrate understanding when talking with others about what they have read.

EG10.Children use their phonic knowledge to write words in ways which match their spoken sounds. They also write some irregular common words. They write simple sentences which can be read by themselves and others. Some words are spelt correctly and others are phonetically plausible.

Mathematical Development

ELG11.Children count reliably with numbers from one to 20, place them in order and say which number is one more or one less than a given number. Using quantities and objects, they add and subtract two single-digit numbers and count on or back to find the answer. They solve problems, including doubling, halving and sharing.

ELG12.Children use everyday language to talk about size, weight, capacity, position, distance, time and money to compare quantities and objects and to solve problems. They recognise, create and describe patterns. They explore characteristics of everyday objects and shapes and use mathematical language to describe them.