Curriculum – Early Years Foundation Stage | St Oswalds Catholic Primary School

Curriculum Overview

View our EYFS Policy on our Policies page
View our 30 Hour Nursery Provision Policy on our Policies page
View our Supporting Children and Young People with Medical Conditions Policy on our Policies page

Download: Nursery – Long Term Overview [PDF]
Download: Reception – Long Term Overview [PDF]

Download: Nursery – Autumn 1 Overview [PDF]
Download: Nursery – Autumn 2 Overview [PDF]
Download: Reception – Autumn 2 Overview [PDF]
Download: Reception – Autumn 1 Overview [PDF]

Download: Nursery – Spring 1 Overview [PDF]
Download: Nursery – Spring 2 Overview [PDF]

EYFS – Brief Overview

A big welcome to all of our children and families joining us at the beginning of their academic journey in EYFS, whether that is in Nursery or Reception.

Here at St Oswald’s we understand and value the importance of the early years in setting our children up to have a bright future. This is the beginning of the children’s formal education and we aim to help them to thrive by developing the 7 areas of learning.

We focus a lot on the prime areas of learning first: communication and language, physical development and personal, social and emotional development. These are the foundational skills that children need in order to progress.

We can then focus on developing the specific areas: literacy, mathematics, understanding the world and expressive arts and design.

We deliver learning through a fun and challenging curriculum, drawing objectives from Development Matters and ensuring that they meet the needs of our children. We aim to inspire our children to be curious, independent and enthusiastic learners, giving them a love of learning from a very young age. Our children are assessed at the end of the key stage (by the end of Reception) on whether they have met a Good Level of Development (GLD) in each of the areas of learning. We work together with families to help our children to be the best that they can be and hopefully set them up for future success.

EYFS Curriculum Drivers

Language – In the Early Years, the development of language is at the centre of everything we do. In Nursery and Reception, children are exposed to a language rich environment, linked to their interests and the world around them. Adults are skilled in modelling language and extending vocabulary through their daily interactions with children. These quality interactions support the children’s ability to use a wider vocabulary, extend their sentences, talk about thinking, tell stories, describe a range of emotions and develop the ability to self-regulate. Effective language development is crucial as it impacts on all areas of learning. (Faith in Our Voice)

Diversity and Inclusion – From an early age, we celebrate and talk about the diversity of the St Oswald’s family and the wider community. Children’s are given opportunities to talk about their life stories and families. We support them in talking about the differences they notice and encourage positive discussions about different appearances such as skin colours and hair types. The learning environment is developed to reflect different families and cultures and we enjoy learning about different celebrations including Christmas, Divali and Chinese New Year. We use a range of stories, rhymes and poems to enhance the children’s understanding of our diverse world. Developing positive relationships is key to effective early years provision and we promote a respectful and supportive culture. Practitioners know the children well and ensure that all children, regardless of their needs, are supported in learning and growing at their own pace. Children are provided with the support and opportunities needed to ensure they have an equal chance to thrive. (Faith in Others)

Resilience – Life is full of challenges and in the EYFS we start to develop the skills and habits that will help children to deal with challenges in the here and now and throughout their lives. These early skills help the children to bounce back after challenges: from problem solving in their play and using different tools, to bereavement, moving house, or starting school. We do this by helping children to develop positive relationships with adults and peers, developing independence and self-help skills and through exploring different feeling and learning how to manage these. Adults act as role models, demonstrating that when things go wrong, we can carry on, that we like challenges and display a clear ‘have a go’ attitude. We use the Mr Men and Little Miss characters to help reinforce the characteristics of effective learning, for example talking about how Mr Clever has his own ideas and Mr Bump keeps on trying and never gives up. (Faith in Ourselves)

Enrichment – Enrichment activities are important because they give the children real life, first-hand experience of the wider world. We carefully plan and range of activities, experiences and outside visitors to support and enhance our curriculum. We love to invite special visitors into school as part of our topics. Our visitors include a range of people including: paramedics, dentists, police officers, priests and bakers. As well as arranged and trusted visitors, we take the children out into the local environment, for example, we may go for a walk around the local area, visit the vets, library, shops or church. Visits beyond our local area include farms and the beach. (Faith in our Journey)

Intent – EYFS

At St Oswald’s Catholic Primary School, the EYFS curriculum is designed to encourage independent, inquisitive and happy learners, with the Gospel values at the heart of everything we do. We place a strong emphasis on the religious, spiritual, moral and cultural development of all our pupils. We recognise that all children are unique, celebrating and welcoming differences within our school community.

Our EYFS curriculum is designed to provide motivating first-hand experiences whilst supporting children in building resilience, interpersonal skills and a love of learning. We recognise that children are eager to explore the world around them, seeking new experiences and knowledge, and should be provided with opportunities to engage their inquisitive minds. Through a well organised, stimulating environment, the children are provided with opportunities to organise their own play and demonstrate positive characteristics of effective learning – playing and exploring (engagement), active learning (motivation) and creating and thinking critically (thinking).

We recognise children’s prior learning and various starting points, and aim to build on the wealth of knowledge and skills children already have when they arrive. We work in close partnership with parents and carers throughout the year to support their learning and to encourage children to reach their full potential. The curriculum evolves to provide children with important foundational skills and knowledge that will later be built upon and embedded in KS1.

Implementation – EYFS

Nursery and Reception work closely together to ensure continuity and progression across the Foundation stage. Timetables are organised effectively to ensure a balance of teacher directed and child-initiated activities. We use the environment to ensure the children’s needs are met through continuous provision and enhanced provision both indoors and outside, and by following their interests. The characteristics of effective learning are viewed as an integral part of all areas of learning and are reflected in our observations and assessments of children. The children are introduced to different aspects of learning through Mr Men and Little Miss characters such as Mr Bump who likes to keep trying or Little Miss Curious who likes to investigate.

The curriculum is planned in a cross-curricular way to enable all aspects of the children’s development. Collaborative planning, involving teachers and teaching assistants, takes place on a weekly basis to ensure all adults are involved in evaluating learning opportunities and planning the next steps for learning. Topic themes in the EYFS are based on foundational ideas coming from the EYFS curriculum: from ‘All about me’ as part of PSED, to ‘Our Sensational Seasons’ related to UW.

Time is allocated to allow for the rigorous directed teaching in Literacy, Mathematics and Phonics. These sessions are followed by group work where children work with a member of staff to develop their individual targets. This focused group time enables the teacher to support and challenge children at a level specific to their individual learning needs, systematically checking for understanding and responding to misconceptions quickly. These groups are fluid and flexible according to children’s progress and needs. Immediate verbal feedback is provided which results in a strong impact on the acquisition of new learning.

Throughout all areas of the curriculum, Reading and Writing are prioritised and key vocabulary is prominent. Phonics is taught through the ‘Read Write Inc’ systematic synthetic phonics programme. Children enjoy reading a variety of books through quality shared, guided and individual reading sessions. Reading for pleasure is prioritised through the enjoyment of daily story sessions, accessing a range of books in class reading areas and exploring books in different areas of learning. Starting in Nursery the children are able to choose their own reading for pleasure books to take home and share with their families. As the children’s phonics knowledge and reading ability progresses, they also take home reading books tailored to their individual phonics level.

We follow the ‘White Rose’ Maths Mastery approach in Reception with an emphasis on studying key skills of number, calculation and shape so that pupils develop deep understanding and the acquisition of Mathematical language. Pupils learn through games and tasks using concrete manipulatives which are then rehearsed and applied to their own learning during exploration and in adult directed activities.

Our inclusive approach means that all children learn together, however we also use a range of additional interventions to support, enhance and scaffold children who may not be reaching their potential or to help move on children who are having difficulties making progress. Some examples of this include our ‘Think Yourself Great’ programme aimed at supporting children with low confidence, poor self-esteem or behaviour issues or a range of funky fingers activities to develop fine motor skills. Improving and extending the communication and language skills of our children is a priority at St Oswald’s. Using the WellComm and NELI programmes in Nursery and Reception respectively ensures that children requiring additional support with communication and language skills are identified and catered for through a structured programme.

At St Oswald’s we use both formative and summative assessments to inform medium term and weekly planning for our younger children. We start with a baseline assessment at the beginning of the school year. Ongoing individual observations of children’s learning, play and interests, are used to support teachers in making assessments and inform potential next steps for each child. Assessment information is also used to support the identification of, and planning for, children requiring targeted interventions. These interventions are then planned for by the teacher using SMART targets. They are delivered by teachers and TAs. All interventions are reviewed after an eight-week cycle and the impact recorded.

Observations of learning are shared with families on a regular basis through the Class Dojo app, providing opportunities for parents and carers to share in their children’s successes and comment on their achievements. We also encourage families to share learning from home or ‘wow’ moments by adding these to their individual portfolios.

The progress of individual children is monitored throughout the year and teachers discuss this during termly Pupil Progress meetings, allowing us to assess the impact of our teaching and ensure intervention measures are in place to help children that need it. Moderation sessions are held within year groups and across the EYFS Phase. Staff also attend sessions facilitated by the LA in order to moderate judgements with colleagues from other schools, ensuring judgements are accurate. These judgements feed into the Statutory EYFS Profile, recording each child’s level of development at the end of the EYFS.

Nursery Home Learning – Teddy Bear Club

All children in nursery will bring home a small teddy bear within the first few weeks of starting. This teddy is theirs to keep at home. From time to time the nursery team will send home learning ideas via class dojo. Children are encouraged to take part in these home learning challenges with teddy. Families can then share photos or videos on class dojo for the children to talk about at nursery.

The idea behind this is that teddy doesn’t know how to do these things so the children have a special job to do in showing teddy how to do things. For example, putting on and taking off their own coats, going to bed at bed time and sleeping in their own beds, feeding themselves with a knife and fork and then also looking for numbers at home and finding things beginning with certain sounds etc.

Nursery Reading Bags

Nursery children will bring home a book bag on Wednesdays. Please return them on Tuesdays so that we can change the books with the children. The purpose of these books is to encourage reading for pleasure. The children are not expected to read any words but to enjoy looking at the books, talking about what they can see in the pictures and what is happening in the story with you. This teaches children how to look after books and handle them with care. It also gives the children a good foundation for understanding stories ready for when they do begin to read words in Reception.

Class Dojo in Nursery

You will be invited to join our class dojo page when your child starts in nursery. Here we will share snapshots of learning, photos, videos and updates. You will also be able to share news from home with us by posting photos, videos and notes on your child’s portfolio. We use this news from home during our show and tell sessions. The children also have a large “talk about” scrap book which the photos are glued into for children to talk about throughout the year. This helps the children to recall previous experiences and encourages communication and conversations with their friends.

Homework in Reception

Homework will alternate between phonics and maths, including some activities based on our half termly topics or relevant celebration weeks or events and will be sent home in homework books.

These books will be sent home on Tuesday and should be returned to school each Monday (or before) for marking and for the new homework task to be issued to the children. This is designed to consolidate work that we have been doing in school and should take no longer than 10 minutes. If any writing practise has been given, please allow your child to try on their own with some guidance.

Reading Books

Children will receive a book bag containing a reading record shortly after joining us in Reception.

Each week children will take home a ‘reading for pleasure’ book from our class libraries. These books are chosen by the children and provide families with quality literature based on the children’s interests to share together at home. We do not expect the children to read the reading for pleasure book to you! We encourage you to read the book your child has chosen a couple of times over the week, looking at the pictures, discussing the plot and characters and seeing if your child can recall any of the story, helping to develop comprehension skills.

Reading records should be signed and dated each time your child reads with an added optional comment.

As we work through our phonics scheme, the children will also begin to bring home reading homework linked with their phonics group and level. Children will be reenforcing work that they have done in school during their phonics lessons and bringing it home will be a chance to celebrate their growing confidence in reading with families. Word cards containing ‘red words’ or non-decodable words will be sent home in bookbags for children to practise. These words must be learnt on sight and need constantly reinforcing at school and at home to help children gain confidence when reading captions and sentences.

We encourage regular reading at home to support your child’s progress and love for books.

PE Lessons

Children will be participating in PE lessons every Monday afternoon.

Please ensure that children have the correct PE kit in school on these days – we suggest bringing a kit in a kit bag that can be left in school for the half term and returned to be washed during the half term holiday.

Additional Information for Parents

Here are some useful links:

Class Dojo: https://stoswaldsschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Class-Dojo-at-St-Oswald.pdf [PDF]

Tiny Happy People: https://www.bbc.co.uk/tiny-happy-people/activities –
This website is brilliant giving ideas to help your child develop their communication and language skills.

Toilet Training: https://startingreception.co.uk/potty-training/ – Helping families ensure that their child is school ready for when they join us in Nursery or Reception.

Physical Development: https://www.famly.co/blog/parent-guide-physical-development-early-years – Understanding the importance of physical development as your child grows and guidelines for development milestones.

Wellcomm Assessment: https://www.gl-assessment.co.uk/assessments/products/wellcomm/ – Information about WellComm (used in Nursery).

Read Write Inc Phonics Scheme: https://www.ruthmiskin.com/parents/ – Information, advice and frequently asked questions about our Read, Write, Inc. phonics scheme.

Mastering Number: https://www.ncetm.org.uk/features/mastering-number-building-strong-foundations-in-early-maths/ – Explaining the Mastering Number scheme that we use from Reception into KS1.