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Early Years Foundation Stage

Proud to be...forever Pilgrim

I have come in order that you might have life—life in all its fullness. (John 10:10)

Our Pilgrim vision is the driving force behind our curriculum as we explore together the two fundamental questions of,

'Who are we?' and 'How do we live?'

 Our learning is rooted in Character Education: the philosophy with which to develop essential, powerful and procedural knowledge (skills) alongside attributes in order to enable our children to flourish both in school and in the wider community to become forever Pilgrim. (See our school vision)

 At The Pilgrim School it is our passion to create wow and wonder within the Early Years and to give children a chance to live life in all its fullness. We want children to embark on their journey of becoming learners for life and it is vital for us to enable children to be happy and excited learners who take risks and are not afraid to try new things. We will support children to develop their independence so they are able to take charge of their own learning and feel valued throughout their journey with us.

In the Early Years children experience the 7 areas of learning through a range of opportunities and experiences. We use the Birth to Five Matters guidance to support children’s progress towards all of the statutory EYFS Early Learning Goals.

This can be found at:

Birth to Five Matters guidance

Implementation

At The Pilgrim School we recognise that it is vital for children to learn through play. We use the environment to ensure their needs are met through continuous provision, enhanced provision and by following their interests. By spending quality time playing with the children, we develop positive relationships which enable the children to flourish in a safe and nurturing environment. By embracing a Curiosity Approach inspired setting, we promote a love of learning through natural resources, loose pieces and real life items which help to develop beautiful, magical and wondrous play opportunities.

By creating an enabling environment, we take advantage of naturally occurring teachable moments that happen during the children’s play and will support their next steps to progress them further with their learning there and then. As we follow the children’s interests and enhance the environment, we allow them to practise, repeat and rehearse newly learnt skills which they will be able to apply independently over time.

In order for our children to be engaged, motivated and creative thinkers we use the Characteristics of Effective Learning (found in Birth to Five Guidance) to recognise how children learn. We value the process of how children learn, not just the end product they may create.

We recognise that reading is a key support to all other learning and ensure engaging phonic sessions are being taught by using the whole school approach of Letters and Sounds with children’s reading books matching their phonic ability as well as reading aloud to the children, telling stories and rhymes. We encourage parents to read with their child on a daily basis to help promote an enjoyment of reading. We also provide further opportunities by pairing children up with their own reading buddy, visiting adults share stories and the lunchtime reading café all help to develop the skills and passion to become lifelong readers.

Impact

We record children’s wow moments throughout the day which feeds into our assessments of where the children are working. We also encourage parents to share their child’s achievements from home by sharing these moments on our class padlet boards which we then include with our assessments. Every child has a personal learning story which helps to build up an overall picture of the learning journey that they have been on throughout their time in the Foundation Stage. All of these ways of assessing the children help to inform us of the progress that children have made as well as any gaps that need to be addressed. For the children in Foundation Stage 2 the Early Learning Goals are used to make the end of year judgements. These assessments are fed back to parents in the end of year school reports.

Throughout the year we moderate with schools in our Multi Academy Trust and data meeting with the Senior Leadership Team ensures that all judgements are accurate and that all the needs of the children are met.

In this way it can be seen to be impacting in a very positive way on children’s outcome and prepares them for the next phase in school.