Early Years at St.John's

Early Years

At St John’s C of E Primary, it is our intent that we implement our vision of John 10:10 through all areas of school life, including the curriculum.

“I came that they may have life, life in all its fullness.” John 10:10

“The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) sets the standards that all early years providers must meet to ensure that children learn and develop well and are kept healthy and safe. It promotes teaching and learning to ensure children’s ‘school readiness’ and gives children the broad range of knowledge and skills that provide the right foundation for good future progress through school and life.” National Curriculum

Intent:

At St John’s, our intent is to develop a love of learning by providing children with a safe, stimulating learning environment that builds on each individual’s needs and interests. We believe learning should be fun, engaging and suitably challenging.

We strive to ensure our children are happy, enthusiastic and confident learners by providing them with opportunities to take part in our Church service and celebration assemblies.

We have built stimulating learning environments, both inside and outside to provide children with a variety of resources to help them discover and explore through child-initiated play. We teach our children how to access the resources to make them independent learners. The immersive learning environments are stimulating and provide opportunities to develop crucial social, emotional and communication skills. We value the importance of outdoor learning and believe that it should provide children with opportunities to develop their thinking and problem solving skills. We aim to replicate real-life learning experiences and provide practical, first hand learning opportunities to enhance children’s knowledge and understanding of the world around them.

Implementation:

At St John’s our EYFS provides children with a broad and balanced curriculum centred on a selection of topics, play-based activities alongside aspects of adult-directed teaching and learning opportunities Through our stimulating and immersive activities our children learn focus, resilience and confidence to achieve the knowledge and skills to make them ready for KS1.

Impact

The impact of our Early Years is that we guide children to become independent learners. They build positive relationships with adults, which in turn allows our children to access the resources to extend their own learning.

Early Learning Goals

The Foundation Stage curriculum is based on three Prime Areas and four Specific Areas of learning. The curriculum is taught through Characteristics of Effective learning which shows how the children take on different challenges and incorporate what they already know. At St John’s we provide opportunities for adult led learning as a whole class and in small groups alongside child initiated learning.

Prime Areas

Communication and Language

Personal Social and Emotional Development

Physical Development

Specific Areas

Literacy

Mathematics

Understanding of the world

Expressive Arts and Design

Tapestry

Within our Early Years we strive to create a strong link between home and school. With our online learning journal Tapestry you will have access to your child’s learning journal and we encourage our Parents to add home experiences.