Welcome to Reception Rainbows!

Red Class - Mrs Daniells

Orange Class - Mrs Banyard

EYFS Intent, Implementation and Impact

The Early Years Foundation Stage relates to learning, development and welfare of children from birth to the end of Reception year as per the legal requirements set out in the statutory Early Years Foundation Stage Framework.

At Croft Infant School we have two reception classes which form our unit – Reception Rainbows. Our unit has separate entrances for each class, Red and Orange. The children register and have their taught carpet inputs in their own classes. Then throughout the day, the children will work alongside each other in a large, purposeful environment, both inside and out.

At Croft Infant School, we offer a broad and balanced curriculum, rich in awe, wonder and memorable first-hand experiences. We provide a secure, safe, caring and stimulating environment with exciting opportunities, promote challenge, exploration, adventure and a real love of learning. We aim for our children to be confident and independent, to believe in themselves and be able to interact positively with others.

Throughout their time in EYFS, the children at Croft Infant School develop a sense of belonging to our school community, ready for transition into year 1 the following academic year. They have the confidence and skills to make decisions and self-evaluate, make connections and become lifelong learners. We recognise the crucial role that early year education has to play in providing firm foundations upon which the rest of a child’s education is successfully based.

At Croft we are committed to enabling all children to have the very best start to their educational journey in line with our school values: Together, we are a rainbow of possibilities so let’s all SPARKLE and SHINE!

Implementation

At Croft Infant School we meet the requirements of the Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage and actively safeguard and promote the welfare of all of our children.

The principles of the Early Year Foundation Stage underpin our practice at Croft Infant School.

There are seven areas of learning and development, all of which are important and interconnected.

Prime Areas:

• Communication and Language
• Physical Development
• Personal, Social and Emotional Development

Specific Areas:

• Literacy
• Maths
• Understanding the World
• Expressive Arts and Design
•  

During their time in Reception, the children will be supported in building Characteristics of Effective Learning:

• Playing and exploring – children investigate and experience things, and ‘have a go’ 
• Active learning – children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties, and enjoy achievements 
• Creating and thinking critically – children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things 

These characteristics give children the skills needed to become independent learners who are responsible for their own learning and thinking.

Curriculum 

Our curriculum follows the Early Year Statutory Framework and uses the Development Matters 2022 and Birth to 5 documents as a basis. We have used these documents to develop our curriculum to ensure that we deliver a carefully planned and progressive curriculum in line with the rest of the school. Our ambitious curriculum is designed to provide all children with the foundational knowledge and understanding, skills, and learning behaviours that will be built upon when they transition to Year 1.  

Play is an integral part of learning, and we believe it’s the most meaningful way for young children to learn. Through play, children explore and develop learning experiences, which help them make sense of the world. They practise and build up ideas; learn how to control themselves and understand the need for rules thereby developing emotional resilience and self-regulation. Therefore, play is at the very heart of our Early Years curriculum with children having extended periods of uninterrupted play each day.

Our Rainbows Unit is set up with clearly defined areas of Continuous Provision which reflect all areas of the curriculum, using high quality resources that provide a range of open-ended learning opportunities to ensure the children can follow their interests and meet their next steps.

Our learning environments, both indoors and outdoors, promote independence and a love of learning. Children are able to access resources independently, make choices, follow their own interests and extend their own learning. Throughout the day, children have long periods of time in Continuous Provision (Independent Learning Time) allowing them to use, practice and develop the taught skills. This results in the children showing high levels of involvement and allows for deeper learning.

At Croft, we fully recognise the importance of the outdoor environment and ensure children have access to the wide range of opportunities this provides. The children have access to our garden throughout the day and can free flow between the classrooms and outside.

We offer a balance of approaches in order to help our children learn: 

Child-led play: children need time to learn through play without interruptions. It is through child-led play that children demonstrate what they’ve learnt and what they understand about a particular topic. Staff are skilled at extending the children’s learning ‘in the moment’ to ensure that learning is of the highest quality and that children make progress in their individual learning journeys. During the children’s play, staff assess what the children need to learn and how they can learn it in that moment.  

Direct teaching: children take part in short ‘carpet sessions’ that explicitly teach a skill/knowledge e.g. phonics/maths or introduce a new concept 

Adult-led activities: the teacher or teaching assistant will work with small groups of children in provision reinforcing and extending the concept through a practical activity.     

Teacher directed activity: this is an activity that has been set up in preparation to support the concept from the teacher input.​

‘British Values’ are deep rooted in our EYFS curriculum. We promote an environment that enables independence, understanding of our emotions and others, creative thinking, respect and tolerance. In the first few weeks of Reception class, the children are given the responsibility to reflect on our class values and they formulate their own ‘class rules’. Their choices are what drives their development during ‘learning time’. We foster the importance of democracy where each child feels heard and their opinion matters. A prime example, is our daily story session, whereby children can select between two stories they wish to listen to by using a gem voting system.

Our weekly Picture News session is used to inspire and engage the children in real-life learning. It provides them with open questions based on a current news story. The questions encourage the children to discuss, debate and form opinions allowing us opportunities to teach children respect, tolerance and to celebrate differences.

Every child is unique and brings a wealth of knowledge and life experience and we enhance their ‘cultural capital’ and build upon it through widening their experiences further. At Croft we ensure that children experience the awe and wonder of the world in which they live, through the seven areas of learning. We give children opportunities to be curious, explore, try new things, and experiences.

We celebrate, acknowledge, and build on children’s knowledge, experiences, and interests. And, at the same time, provide new opportunities and experiences, to challenge, expand, and increase children’s knowledge, understanding, and skills.

Our weekly ‘Star of the Week bear’ sessions offer all children the opportunity to speak and share their wider experiences outside of school with the class, as well as offering up a forum of discussion, questioning and igniting curiosity among their peers. We have strong links with our wider community, making annual visits to WhitePost Farm and frequent visits to the church to celebrate festivals such as Harvest. We have visits from community figures such as the Police and Fire services, and we learn how the local library works.

Language and Communication  

Many of our children start school well below the national average expectation for their age in Communication and Language, therefore it is a priority here at Croft. Our learning environments are language rich with children and adults engaging in high quality interactions. Adults model speaking in full sentences during back-and-forth conversations with the children and use ambitious vocabulary. This is complimented with the use high quality texts, poems and rhymes.  

Phonics

In EYFS, children begin their reading journey with picture books which support them with basic book skills, such as identifying the title and retelling the story in their own language to develop vocabulary, understanding the story and how to turn the pages. We value the importance of providing children with the opportunity to tell a story verbally and begin to develop their vocabulary. Once children have learnt the first set of sounds in phonics, they will take home a decodable book to build confidence and develop fluency. Children will then continue to follow the sequence of grapheme phoneme correspondence as identified in our DFE validated SSP programme through the direct teaching of daily phonic lessons. Teachers deliver high quality lessons where children are given the time to practise and apply blending and segmenting of new phonemes. Independent take home books continue to be precisely matched to a child’s individual ability to blend and read words at the different phase and set of decodable books. Running alongside their ability to read decodable words, children are taught ‘tricky words.’ Tricky words cannot be ‘sounded out’ as they break the phonetic rules of the English language.

Children are assessed at regular points throughout each phonic phase. This allows adults to quickly identify children who need support through extra intervention opportunities. By the end of Reception children should be working securely within phase 4.

We choose high quality texts to support topic themes as well as creating reading areas, ensuring that the full range of genres are on offer to maximise children’s interest and promote a love for reading.

Maths

The emphasis is for children to develop a deep understanding of number, including subitising, understanding quantities, number patterns, odds and evens and recall of number bonds and double facts up to 5 and 10. At Croft, children develop their understanding of number, measurement, pattern, shape and space, we provide a broad range of contexts in which they can explore, enjoy, learn, practise and talk about numbers and shapes. Maths supports children in understanding what an important role shapes and numbers play in our everyday lives and how they develop our own understanding and help us to solve problems. The Maths session is taught daily and children are always very active in their learning, where the use of songs, visuals and concrete manipulatives are central to the development of their mathematical understanding. Mathematical experiences are continued into the ‘Independent Learning Time’ session, where teaching moments are scaffolded by the adults and activities are provided to consolidate and aid children to master new skills taught.

Topics

In the Early Years, children explore the wider curriculum through both continuous provision activities and direct adult taught sessions. Teaching and learning is based around the topics:

• Celebrating Me!
• Come inside, Lets Get Warm!
• Wheelies and Wheelbarrows
• Ahoy Matey

RE

At Croft Infant School, Religious Education is taught using the Derbyshire Agreed Syllabus 2020 – 2025 which states that children must primarily be taught about Christianity. In Reception, RE is closely linked into learning as part of Personal, Social and Emotion Development, Understanding the World, Communication and Language and Expressive Arts and Design. Children also learn about major festivals and traditions of other religions as appropriate both during RE lessons, topic lessons and during Assemblies throughout the school year.

PE

At Croft, children have access to a range of well-planned and stimulating activities, both indoors and outdoors, that build on their fine motor and gross motor development, which will be a balance of both adult led and child initiated. They have one structured weekly PE session delivered by our Specialist Coach from AVSSP in line with the rest of the school.  

Parent Partnerships 

It is important to us that we build positive relationships with our children’s families so that together, we can provide the children with a strong start to their education. We maintain regular contact with our parents via in person conversations, Class Dojo, Learning Workshops, and Parents’ Evenings.  

Inclusion

All children and their families are valued at Croft Infant School. Children are treated as individuals and have equal access to all provisions available. All children are encouraged to achieve their personal best and planning is adapted to meet the needs of all groups and abilities. Early identification of special needs is crucial to enable staff to support the development of each child. Concerns are always discussed with parents/carers at an early stage and the school’s SENDCO is called upon for further information and advice.

Assessment

Within the first 6 weeks that a child starts reception, staff will administer the Statutory Reception Baseline Assessment (RBA) this is used alongside our own baseline assessments. Formative assessment in Reception is continuous, we assess and move the children on ‘in the moment’, we use this information to ensure future planning reflects individual or group needs. Examples of child-initiated work, samples of dated work from books and photographs are collected as evidence. Floor books are also used to record evidence, these are shared with the children throughout the year to recall previous learning and make links with their new learning. We have twice yearly parents’ meetings to ensure parents/carers are informed of their child’s progress and next steps in their learning.

In the summer term of the Reception year teachers complete an assessment which is known as the EYFS Profile. This assessment is carried out by the Reception teacher and is based on what they, and other staff caring for the children, have observed over a period of time.

 Children are assessed against the 17 early learning goals, indicating whether they are:

• Meeting expected levels of development
• Not yet reaching expected levels (‘emerging’)

This information is shared with parents as part of the annual end of year school report and parents have the opportunity to meet with the teacher and discuss this report. The outcomes of the EYFS profile are shared with the Year 1 staff to aid with smooth transition.

Impact

Our curriculum and its delivery ensure that children, from their own starting points make good progress.

We aim to ensure:-

- the majority of children in Reception achieve a Good Level of Development (GLD) and meet the Early Learning Goals at the end of the Foundation Stage.

- children develop the characteristics of effective learning which helps them through the rest of school;

- children develop the ability to manage risks;

- children enjoy being independent in managing themselves and their learning;

- parents are happy with their child’s progress and feel part of the school community;

- practise is improved year on year;

- everyone is included;

- children have high levels of wellbeing and involvement.

We aim to make the transition from Reception to Year 1 as smooth as possible, by sharing information gathered within the foundation stage and continuing the learning for the children as individuals.

Phonics

Below are some links to some websites that you could use with your child to help them to practice their phonics at home. 

Correct Pencil Grip

Letter formation