Intent
At Whinstone, the EYFS forms the underpinning and overarching framework for learning and development for all children in our care. We intend to enable our children to learn holistically through a combination of access to quality first teaching and through play, experimentation, and exploration while making friends, developing social skills and cultural capital. We aim to ensure that every child has an excellent start to school life, achieving and making progress across each aspect of the EYFS Profile.
Implementation
In order to implement this we have created an environment that fosters personal, social and emotional development, reflects British values and the development of self-esteem and self-efficacy to take forward into school and beyond.
Through the use and implementation of our curriculum and continuous provision plans and documents, we ensure that our curriculum offers challenge for all and is able to support children with additional needs, those who are disadvantaged or in a minority group ensuring inclusion for all. Staff value diversity and understand how to apply the EYFS to reflect this, focusing on providing additional and focused support where identified.
Our team plan focusing on all areas of the curriculum and areas identified through the SIP and action plans that need developing and reinforcing. We deliver this through topics that have been fed back by parents and carers as being ‘child interests’ in order to engage children as much as possible. By following our programme of ‘Whinstone Workers’, we are able to ensure that each child receives a differentiated learning experience with ‘next steps’ occurring spontaneously. With our established assessment system running alongside this, we can identify individual attainment, progress, gaps in learning and next steps. We foster positive relationships with parents and carers, with regular feedback to and from the home environment where our parent and child voice is highly valued. We believe that our approach in conjunction with the EYFSP, provides an optimal learning environment that perfectly suits the way our young children learn, play and therefore thrive.
All staff work collaboratively with a shared vision for the continuous provision, documentation and how we care for our children at Whinstone School which is reflected on daily in order to adapt to all eventualities.
Impact
The impact of this will be measured by children achieving expected and beyond expected levels of development and making measured progress from their entry point to leaving Reception. Alongside academic success, we aim for all children to be keen, enthusiastic, inquisitive learners who are capable of developing, fostering and maintaining positive relationships with both adults and children.
