EYFS

At Ormiston Meadows, our Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum is designed to promote and encourage all children to be confident, inquisitive and independent happy learners.

We aim to ensure that we provide all children with the best start to their education that enables them to fulfil their full potential and achieve future success regardless of their various starting points and backgrounds by creating a holistic and inclusive curriculum. We ensure that all children’s individual needs are met through careful planning and assessment, identifying and addressing any issues and implementing early intervention or additional support if required.

At Ormiston Meadows we recognise every child as a unique individual, and we acknowledge and promote children’s interests to provide them with the opportunities to follow their imagination and creativity. We celebrate the differences in our school community, and always strive to promote and instil a love for learning.

Curriculum Implementation

At Ormiston Meadows, we ensure that all children experience the seven areas of learning set out in the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework through a balance of adult lead teaching and through our continuous provision.

There are seven areas of learning and development. The prime areas are: –

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

Physical Development

Communication and Language

The specific areas are: –

Mathematics

Literacy

Understanding the World

Expressive Arts & Design

We place a great emphasis on learning through play and direct practical experiences led by the interests of our children and through carefully sequenced learning plans. Learning is organised so that the curriculum is delivered through a combination of adult led activities and continuous provision opportunities, encouraging children to develop their learning independently through discovery, exploration, curiosity and challenge.

Whilst the children’s interests are at the heart of our curriculum, we ensure that we provide all pupils with a broad range of experiences and opportunities covering a variety of festivals and celebrations giving them the cultural capital they need for future success.

At Ormiston Meadows, we believe all children learn best when they feel secure, safe and happy. Our teaching and practice is led by the four guiding principles.

The Principles are;

  1. That every child is unique
  2. That every child can learn to be strong and independent through positive relationships
  3. That children learn and develop best in enabling environments
  4. That children develop and learn in different ways

The Characteristics of Effective Learning are threaded through, and central, to all learning in the EYFS curriculum. Emphasis is placed upon playing and learning, active learning and thinking critically.

Children are provided with plenty of time to engage in ‘exploration’ throughout the variety of experiences, which is carefully planned to engage and challenge them in the provision. The curriculum is planned for the inside and outside classrooms and is planned in a cross-curricular way to enable all aspects of the children’s development

Curriculum Impact

At Ormiston Meadows, we aim to ensure that all children across the EYFS achieve their full potential by providing a broad and balanced curriculum. Our creative and balanced provision of learning experiences enables our children to develop as happy, motivated, and independent learners. We strive to ensure each child makes a very good level of progress through to the Early Learning Goals at the end of Reception from their individual starting points. All children get the best possible start to their school life and develop the knowledge and skills needed to succeed as they continue their learning journey into Key Stage One.

To ensure that we are providing all children with a high quality early education, we use the Seven Key Features of Effective Practice.

The Seven Key Features of Effective Practice are;

  • The best for every child
  • High quality care
  • The curriculum: What we want the children to learn
  • Pedagogy: Helping children to learn
  • Assessment: Checking what children have learnt
  • Self-regulation and executive function
  • Partnership with Parents