Early Years and Foundation Stage (EYFS)

Curriculum Intent

At Perrymount Primary School, we want all of our Early Years children to be happy, confident, well-rounded individuals who have a love of learning and exploring. We believe in providing all children with a safe, secure and stimulating environment, both inside and out, that builds on individual wants, needs and interests.

We strive for all children to succeed and become confident and independent learners. We build on children’s prior learning and starting points as well as their experiences at home. Working together with parents and carers throughout their time in our Foundation Stage, we aim to provide the best possible start to their learning journey.

Our curriculum is built around high quality fiction and non-fiction texts, which link to a variety of themes and help children to learn and develop the skills and knowledge, set out in the EYFS Framework. We are passionate about developing a love of reading from the very start of our children’s education; reading opens the door to the world of adventure, increasing imagination and curiosity.

Curriculum Implementation

Children learn through a balance of both adult led and child initiated learning opportunities. Our timetable is structured carefully to provide a rich and varied creative curriculum, and changes throughout the year to take into consideration the changing needs of our children. We want the children to find love and enjoyment in everything that they do at Perrymount. 

At Perrymount, we acknowledge the value that children learn best by playing and exploring, being active, and through creative and critical thinking which takes place both indoors and outside. Our outdoor areas are used all year round and in most weather conditions. We ensure activities support the Characteristics of Effective Learning to ensure learning takes place, and that the children are challenged at the same time.

We aim to recognise children’s prior learning, both from previous settings and from their experiences at home. We work in partnership with parents, carers and other settings to provide the best possible start at Perrymount Primary School, ensuring each individual reaches their full potential from their various starting points. We do this by placing a strong emphasis in the first term on the Prime Areas of learning, which include, Personal, Social and Emotional Development, Communication and Language and Physical Development.

We strive upon building a language rich environment.  This includes using every opportunity to use language, to interact, to share a focus, to talk, to take turns. Building a language rich environment is also about building a nurturing environment, giving the children love and affection and building their self-confidence. We provide a nurturing learning space, which is purposefully designed to provide the necessary stimulus to develop children’s language skills effectively. Our Practitioners seize every opportunity to use language, interact and encourage turn taking.  We also emerge our children in helping us develop key vocabulary that might be used that week, based upon our topic / story.  Along with extending vocabulary to ensure children within our setting have a diverse and language rich experience. 

Reading is at the heart of our curriculum. Fiction and non-fiction texts are chosen carefully to fit in with our themes. We aim to expose children to quality texts, which not only inspire a love of reading but will also spark their interests and develop their vocabulary, language, imagination and communication skills. These texts are reflected in our provision and the activities provided for children. Writing activities are planned around the texts to enable children to apply their phonics. Children have a daily literacy and phonics lesson as well as a time to read with their teachers throughout the week. 

We follow the Read, Write Inc. scheme for phonics.  In the summer term in Nursery, children focus on developing the key speaking and listening skills they will need to begin to develop oral blending and segmenting skills later; which begins in the autumn term of Reception. Phonics lessons take place daily in Reception class, in differentiated groups. Children take home books to help them practise the speed sounds and once they can blend, books, which help them practise blending these sounds. They are listened to regularly in school.

In Mathematics in Nursery, children develop a love of maths through songs, games, rhymes and play using concrete and pictorial representations. There is a focus on essential skills such as matching, ordering, noticing, comparing and sequencing as well as on understanding key vocabulary.

In Reception, we build upon the foundational skills they have previously learnt in Nursery.  Children learn through using concrete and pictorial representations, taking part in activities using them and playing games. There is a strong emphasis on mastering skills and developing a deep understanding of number. As such, children are taught to subitise quickly and explore how numbers are constructed.

We have designed our curriculum to be inclusive. All children learn together, but we use targeted support and intervention for children who may not be reaching their full potential or need further challenge. This includes sessions to develop Speech and Language skills; fine motor skills; mathematics; phonics or social skills. Children with an EHCP or IEP have bespoke targets and may identify that their learning needs to take place away from the classroom due to their sensory or other individual needs at times.