Our Curriculum
Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)
EYFS Summary
The Nursery is registered in accordance with OFSTED and the Early Years Foundation Stage.
The first five years of your child's life are important, informative years and it is our aim to provide a caring, stimulating, loving, family atmosphere while they are with us at Playtime.
The nursery uses the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework (EYFS). This is a stage of development that your child will be at during their time at nursery. The framework helps practitioners support the development and learning of every child and support for their families. We strive to fulfil the four principles of the EYFS:
every child is a unique child, who is constantly learning and can be resilient, capable, confident and self-assured
children learn to be strong and independent through positive relationships
children learn and develop well in enabling environments, in which their experiences respond to their individual needs and there is a strong partnership between practitioners and parents and/or carers
children develop and learn in different ways and at different rates. The framework covers the education and care of all children in early years provision, including children with special educational needs and disabilities.
Characteristics of Effective Learning
The emphasis on how children learn has huge potential to transform early years practice and empower children as confident, creative lifelong learners. Research demonstrates these characteristics can be supported or hampered by the experiences children encounter. In the best EYFS provision, children are encouraged to follow their interests, make independent choices about their learning and are supported to develop their thinking skills through skilful adult interactions.
The characteristics are interconnected but each has distinct features. The characteristics are:
Playing and exploring
Children investigate and experience things and are willing to have a go.
Active learning
Children concentrate and keep on trying when they encounter difficulties and enjoy their achievements.
Creating and thinking critically
Children have and develop their own ideas, are able to make links between ideas and develop a range of strategies for doing things.
Areas of Learning
Children should mostly develop the 3 prime areas first.
These are:
Communication and language
Physical development
Personal, social and emotional development
These prime areas are those most essential for your child’s healthy development and future learning. As children grow, the prime areas will help them to develop skills in 4 specific areas.
These are:
Literacy
Mathematics
Understanding the world
Expressive arts and design
These 7 areas are used to plan your child’s learning and activities. The professionals teaching and supporting your child will make sure that the activities are suited to your child’s unique needs. This is a little bit like a curriculum in primary and secondary schools, but it's suitable for very young children, and it's designed to be really flexible so that staff can follow your child's unique needs and interests.
The diagram below gives examples of the areas of learning and development and shows the links between the way in which your child learns and what they learn
Parental Input
We value the parent as the child's first educator and build a partnership to ensure that every child is happy, healthy, safe and successful. The nursery plans experiences tailored to every child's individual, needs, stages and interests. This is done through observations and assessments. At Playtime, we plan activities and create observation sheets directly linked to the EYFS for each child, and give parents the opportunity to see and comment on them, providing their own insights into what they may want us to focus on for their children’s next step.