EYFS

Early Years Foundation Stage

About EYFS

Staff Lead: Mrs Jessica Clarke (.4) and Mrs Rebecca Carnwell (.6)

Link Governor: Kate Bynoe

Nursery Lead: Mrs Elizabeth Carlyon

Welcome to Early Years at Doveridge Primary School

“Thank you so much for all you have done this term. You turn in every day with a huge smile and warm welcome even when times are tough. You're a fantastic role model for our daughter and we feel very lucky she has such a support team of teachers and TAs.”

"Lovely to meet the teachers and see how they interact with the children, and to get a feel for the environment they are in, and ask questions"

At Doveridge Primary School, our curriculum is designed to lay a secure foundation for our children so that they leave Reception happy, confident and skilful learners who are curious about the world around them. Our staff work hard as a team to create a positive, calm, caring and welcoming environment where the children feel safe, secure and happy.

Our indoor and outdoor classroom is set out to reflect and support the 7 areas of the EYFS curriculum and to encourage the children to become independent creative learners. Our open shelving, deconstructed role-play and self service areas provide high quality continuous provision opportunities during ‘play to learn’ time. We also ensure a good balance of enhanced provision through ‘Magic Moments’, class challenges and teacher led/guided activities. Providing this balance of child led and adult enhanced learning opportunities means the children’s first experiences of school are happy, fun and positive and they leave us with a real love for learning.

We deliver the Early Years curriculum through topics that either interest the children or are chosen specifically by the children, e.g. ‘Amazing Animals’ and ‘On the Farm’. High quality texts are also selected to enhance these topics. Each new topic is planned by the teachers, taking into account what the children already know, what they would like to learn, what their interests are and how they can support the children’s next steps. We work together and plan as a team and with the children. Mrs Carlyon teaches our Nursery children whilst Mrs Carnwell or Mrs Clarke teach the Reception children. At times, where appropriate we may come together as a Class and share Nursery Rhymes or read a story together. We assess both Nursery and Reception children using the Development Matters Curriculum Guidance.

 A ‘Parent Overview’ of our Curriculum plan, showing what the children will be learning during the half term, can be found on your child’s class page.

EYFS Long Term Plan

Reading in Early Years

Reading is taught in a wide variety of ways in Early Years.  Initially phonics is a very important part of the process, where we teach the children how to read (and write) the basic letter sounds which enable word building. At Doveridge we use the ELS Phonics Scheme to deliver our phonics sessions.

In Nursery, Phonics is less about teaching specific letter sounds and more about preparing children to tune into the sounds around them, laying down the foundations for later phonics. The primary goal of Phase 1 is to sharpen children's listening, attention, and speaking skills, preparing them for more formal phonics instruction where they will begin learning specific letter-sound correspondences.

In Reception, we start our Phonics Teaching on Phase 2. ELS Phase 2 provides a foundational understanding of phonics, helping children gain confidence in recognising sounds, blending them, and starting to read simple words.

Once the children have begun their phonics journey, the children in Reception will come home with an individual reading book that is closely matched to their phonic ability and a phonics wallet that will contain all the sounds and tricky word flashcards they have learnt that week.  They will read individually with an adult in school each week but we really encourage that they read at least 3 times per week at home too. Phonic assessments are completed at different stages of the year to ensure children are being taught at an appropriate level and that their reading books also match this.

In Reception, we also have a whole class guided reading lesson each week, where the children get to develop their listening, vocabulary and understanding skills by delving a little deeper into a text.

Children in Class 1 are able to enjoy at least two story times a day, one of which is chosen by the children themselves using our voting station. We also encourage the children to bring in and share their favourite stories from home and we give them a chance each week to choose a ‘book for pleasure’ from our school library to take home to share with an adult.

Reading is interspersed into all our teaching and is encouraged across our whole learning environment, with a text generally being the starting point for our topic based learning.

Finally, either on a Tuesday or Friday we have a visit from a ‘Secret Reader’.  At the end of the day the children wait eagerly to discover who’s parent/grandparent/teacher/carer will be the ‘Secret Reader’ and will read one of their favourite children’s stories to the whole class.

Please attend our Phonics Workshop in the Autumn Term to learn more about how we teach phonics and how you can support your child at home. 

Click Here for a link to the workshop if you would like to refer back to it.

Policies:

Our EYFS Policy can be found on our Policies Page

Medium Term Plans:

Parent Overviews can be found here.