Early Years Foundation Stage
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ASPIRE - LEARN - FLOURISH
The Aspire Learning Federation is made up of two schools - Elm Park Primary School and R J Mitchell Primary School in the London Borough of Havering.
In the Early Years Foundation Stage, the curriculum is designed to recognise children’s prior learning and to provide exciting first-hand learning opportunities that inspire an enthusiasm for lifelong learning. Every child is recognised as a unique individual and is given the tools to develop their interpersonal skills, build resilience and become a creative, critical thinker.
Through an enabling and well-planned learning environment and skillful, meaningful interactions with adults, each individual learner is supported to meet their next steps in learning and reach their full potential. Children are supported to become effective and motivated learners who demonstrate high levels of well-being and involvement.
Our EYFS curriculum engages all children and ensures that children make good or better progress from their starting points. A number of key resources are used to support the development of the curriculum including Development Matters, Read Write Inc phonics, The Drawing Club, White Rose Maths, and the Havering and Redbridge SACRE agreed syllabus for Religious Education.
Before children enter our schools, our excellent transition period ensures we understand each child as an individual and learner with their own unique interests. Our curriculum offers engaging enhancements to learning based on children’s interests as well as carefully planned continuous provision activities. Child initiated learning is highly valued and encouraged.
New concepts and knowledge are introduced through adult led learning, and progression of skills across the year is carefully planned for at all levels and starting points to fulfil the seven areas of the EYFS curriculum.
Each half-term topic is enhanced by a variety of engaging and exciting first-hand learning experiences, such as: visits in the local area and visitors to our school (e.g. police officers). We utilise role play and storytelling as valuable tools to develop key language skills. We recognise the vital role that computing plays in our ever-changing society and enable children to develop the skills needed to be confident users and problem solvers of technology.
We strive to ensure that all of our children make good or better progress across the EYFS curriculum from their varied starting points. Children who achieve the expected standard within the Early Learning Goals have the knowledge and skills needed to continue to maintain the good progress they have made in Key Stage 1 and beyond. We understand that when assessing children against the Early Learning Goals, there will be many children who are awarded the same level but may be working at differing levels within this range. Effective communication between EYFS and KS1 staff ensures there is an effective transition for children for the next stage of their learning journey.
All children are given the best possible start to their school life through the exciting learning opportunities that our dedicated staff provide. We nurture children who embody our schools’ values and carry with them the enthusiasm and passion for learning needed for them to be the very best learners and people they can be.
Our curriculum is informed by the EYFS Framework, Development Matters and our assessment system, Arc Pathways. This is further supplemented by the CUSP EYFS non-statutory curriculum. CUSP introduces pupils to vocabulary rich texts and related enrichment activities.
Staff take into account pupil interests and weave these throughout learning and provision. Maths (White Rose Maths), phonics (Read, Write Inc) & handwriting (Bubble Writing) are taught as separate lessons.
The following documentation is useful if you would like more information:
