EYFS

Intent:

At Oakhill Primary Academy our curriculum is built so that every child has the opportunity to develop and grow, both academically and personally through exploration, creativity and discovery. We encourage our children to have high aspirations and strive to believe in, persevere with and achieve their goals. We want our children to be responsible, independent and effective learners by the time they leave us in year 6, ready for the next steps in their academic journey.

The foundations of our curriculum begin in EYFS where skills are fostered and nurtured through a play-based approach to learning. Children will learn skills to equip them for their journey into KS1 through exposure to vocabulary, experiences and hands-on learning opportunities. We have worked hard to develop a curriculum that provides a wide array of experiences and opportunities for our children and therefore our main drivers are:

• Provide exciting real-life opportunities for our pupils, to ensure that they are stimulated and have a context to their learning.
• Use a wide range of cross-curricular links, providing connected learning, to allow children to become fully absorbed in their topic.
• Make relevant and meaningful links between topics and subjects that are fit for purpose and ignite the children’s desire to learn.
• Provide opportunity for topic links to all areas of learning, linked to real life experiences.
• Enriched vocabulary created by immersive topics.
• Create a learning environment where children are passionate, enthusiastic and keen to explore their topic by ensuring teachers are confident and enthusiastic about each topic.

It is our intent that all children develop physically, verbally, cognitively and emotionally in an environment which values all cultures, communities and people. We aim for our children to be confident and independent, to believe in themselves and interact positively with others.

We understand that play is an integral part of learning and this is at the heart of our early year’s curriculum. We believe that the correct mix of adult directed, and uninterrupted child-initiated play ensures the best outcomes for pupils. Warm and positive relationships between staff and children, consistent routines and strong relationships with parents are key.

We recognise the crucial role that early year’s education plays in providing firm foundations upon which the rest of a child’s education is successfully based. Our intention is to provide our children with the knowledge and skills they need to successfully transition into Key Stage One.

Implementation:

At Oakhill Academy we meet the welfare requirements laid down in the Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage and actively safeguard and promote the welfare of all our children. The timetable is carefully structured so that children have rigorous directed teaching in English, maths and phonics every day. These sessions are followed by group work where children work with a member of staff to develop their individual targets. This focused group time means the teacher can systematically check for understanding, identify and respond to misconceptions quickly and provide real-time verbal feedback which results in a strong impact on the acquisition of new learning. Children are provided with plenty of time to engage in ‘exploration’ throughout the variety of experiences carefully planned to engage and challenge them in the provision. The curriculum is planned for the inside and outside classrooms and equal importance is given to learning in both areas. This provides time for quality interactions between adults and between peers in self-selected activities and allows staff to follow children’s interests and use targeted next steps to pinpoint learning opportunities in play. Staff ensure that interactions are positive and progressive, allowing children to flourish and gather words at pace in order to become confident communicators. Our children who are in the lowest 20% are given small group interventions to ensure we have a keep up culture embedded across the setting.

Children are encouraged to become early readers through enjoyment of books and the systematic teaching of phonics via the Rocket Phonics (Systematic Synthetic Phonics) programme. The curriculum is taught through topics which are enriched with classroom enhancements, trips and visitors. Topics are supported by quality key texts and children are encouraged to learn nursery rhymes and develop their mathematical thinking through direct teaching and exploration.

We follow an ambitious block teaching approach to maths, in line with the rest of the school to ensure that children learn via a mastery approach that will enable them to become confident mathematicians who can apply what they have learnt to real life experiences. We have built our school environment to enable our children to strengthen their core muscles through physical play. Children spend time outdoors in their natural environment in all weathers. They develop through wonderful, exploratory, sensory experiences in our outdoor areas and during our woodland sessions. Our learning environment is adaptable in order to reflect children’s interests and progression. The children are supported to learn to work together, manage their feelings and ask questions through skilled adult facilitated play. In early years our environment and all our interactions and routines are intentional and purposeful to support children with their next steps.

We are an accredited ‘Communication Friendly setting’, which ensures that communication and speech is high on our agenda which ensure that children receive quality interactions and interventions to support their development as communicators. We understand the importance of parental engagement and believe that our parents have a crucial role to play in their children’s education. We work hard to create strong partnerships between home and school. Parents are given access to workshops in how we teach their children, in order for them to support their children at home and fully understand our pedagogy and methods of teaching. Parents enjoy using Tapestry to engage in their child’s learning and understand their child’s next steps. We have had stay and play sessions; inviting parents into school in order for them to see teaching first hand and gain an understanding of the work we do in school.

Impact:

Our curriculum and its delivery ensure that children, from their own starting points make good progress; particularly in the prime areas. Children in our early years, on average, arrive with lower starting points than national. During their time with us children make good progress towards the national expectation for a good level of development at the end of the year. Pupils also make good progress toward their age-related expectations both academically and socially, developing a sense of themselves before transitioning into Year One.
Children develop their Characteristics of Effective Learning and are able to apply their knowledge to a range of situations making links and explaining their ideas and understanding. Children are confident to take risks in their learning and play. We believe our high standards are due to our carefully planned environment, enriched play-based curriculum, quality first teaching and the rigour of assessment. Our curriculum is planned to be progressive and is reflected upon to ensure coverage and relevance to the cohort of children. Our curriculum is therefore the cultural capital we know our pupils need so that they can gain the knowledge, skills and understanding they require for success. Practitioners reflect daily on the impact and progress of the children. Weekly phase meetings allow for all children to be tracked and monitored with a clear focus on the bottom 20% and the interventions needed to create a keep up culture. Child development principles are discussed, and provision is then enhanced to allow children to make developmentally appropriate progress in relation to their individual needs.