All Saints' C of E Primary School

The All Saints’ Way…

Working together as a TEAM

Talking Risks – children who show courageous determination in their learning

Encouraging Learning – children being curious in their learning

Achieving Goals – children having the desire to be the best that they can be

Making Memories – in a school where children are respectful, show kindness and experience joyfulness!

The Lord says "I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you" (Psalm 32 v8). This psalm gives us strength and courage in our convictions as curriculum designer

Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum Intent... 

The personal development of each child as a unique individual is the golden thread that ties our EYFS curriculum together. We aim to provide a fun, safe, challenging and rich educational environment that enables every child to thrive!  

We aspire for our setting to be caring, friendly and nurturing so that children feel comfortable and confident to let’s their gifts from God shine.  With children right at the heart of everything we do, at All Saints’ we have a bespoke, ambitious curriculum with high expectations for all regardless of initial starting points.

Our EYFS team take pride in building relationships based upon kindness with the children and their parents/carer. We collaborate often with families and people in the community to share their knowledge with us, reinforcing our school motto of working as a team to enrich and broaden our children’s learning journey together. Families are provided with the tools to continue learning at home. Strategies to include and inform families include; Tapestry communication, phonics workshops, reading records, class pages on the website, open door policy, mystery reader and ‘be the teacher’ days when family members are invited to come in and share a topic they are knowledgeable about.  We hugely appreciate the power of parents when working together in true partnership.

By supporting the development of the three characteristics of effective learning which are playing and exploring, active learning and creating and thinking critically, we hope to foster inquisitive, active and creative problem solvers of the future.

We are committed to equality and aim for every pupil to fulfil their potential in becoming respectful and mindful citizens.

At All Saints’ Primary we understand and value learning through purposeful play and seek to create an environment that encourages confident and curious learning through a vibrant continuous indoor and outdoor provision.

We strive to develop cultural capital in our setting by planning and creating opportunities such as school trips and visits that offer an academic, social and emotional education to broaden our pupil’s knowledge about the world around them. 

We also aim to promote a smooth transition from EYFS to KS1 by providing children with the knowledge, skills and attitudes they need to succeed throughout their education and beyond.

Implementation

At All Saints’ Primary we follow the guidelines of Development Matters (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/development-matters--2) to underpin the teaching and sequential progression of learning in the early years combined with a curriculum tailored to the needs and interests of each of the children in our school. Our approach is a combination of explicit teaching to introduce new knowledge which is encouraged to be explored and built on through purposeful play. Alongside a balance of skilfully planned, adult led activities and highly valued child initiated learning.

During our supportive transition process, we identify previous knowledge a child has, possible needs to support their learning going forward to start interventions immediately in order for all children to ‘keep up’ and most importantly, learn about their interests to enable us to create a learning environment that every child can access and succeed in.  

At All Saints’ we believe that the three prime areas (communication and language, physical development and personal, social and emotional development) are particularly important for igniting curiosity and courageous determination for learning. We promote vocabulary and oracy with a daily diet of quality literacy planning together with many cross curricular opportunities to explore new language.  In addition, adults model and enhance vocabulary through quality interactions in provision areas with children.  We develop social and emotional learning through Jigsaw and the Think Equal programme and we have recently achieved the award of ‘Physical Development Champions’ for our dedication to supporting children’s physical development as well as the Gold Tooth Safety Award for our commitment to this key area of dental hygiene. 

As recently awarded, ‘Physical Development Champions’ we place vital emphasis on the preparation for writing by developing fine motor and gross motor skills.  Our fantastic daily Dough Disco’s hugely support this key area.  The children have access to the outdoor environment all the year round to encourage free movement with a highlight being our Wednesday Welly Wellbeing Walks. We also receive high quality coaching from a professional PE coach every week.

Reading is at the core of everything we do in our school. We know reading is the key that ignites creativity, sparks curiosity, and stimulates the imagination in young children.  Children follow a highly engaging synthetic systematic phonics programme called ‘Read Write Inc.’  to support them in meeting expected age related outcomes for reading. We ensure to model a passion for reading to encourage children to not only learn the skills to read but to learn to love it as a pleasurable activity also. Stories, storytelling (helicopter stories) rhymes and songs permeate throughout the day in our classroom so the children are immersed in a language rich environment.

In line with the whole school, we implement the ‘White Rose’ Maths Mastery approach. This is an all-inclusive whole class approach. The sequential progression delivered by this scheme ensures that the children gain the mathematical knowledge and vocabulary needed to continue their journey through KS1.

EYFS Curriculum Impact

The impact of our EYFS curriculum is evident in watching joyful, engaged, motivated independent and confident children who are secure in our routines and the All Saints’ Way (rules and values) ready to flourish in Year 1.

We observe and interact with children in daily activities to understand their level of achievement, interests and learning styles. We identify ‘embedded learning’ by assessing what a child can do consistently and independently through ongoing formative and summative assessment in a range of everyday situations. We use Development Matters checkpoints, Tapestry, class floor books, and pupil voice, to inform our decision of where a child is at and how to plan their next steps. Parents are encouraged to share their child’s achievements in home learning so we can build a picture of the whole child. Children’s reading attainment is assessed every half term and gaps are addressed quickly and effectively. At the end of EYFS, staff complete the EYFS profile for each child. Pupils are assessed against the 17 early learning goals.

The EYFS team are committed to raising standards by attending relevant ‘Continuing Professional Development’ (CPD) (e.g. DEAL – Drama Engagement Active Learning, regular visits from the Stockport Early Years Team) and ensuring each child at our school has the best start on their school journey. We meet with SLT and the Year 1 staff regularly to celebrate the achievements of all pupils and to ensure progress is being made for each individual child.

At All Saints’ in the Early Years, we have a true passion, dedication and enthusiasm to build a curriculum with firm foundations so that every child can begin their journey happily and successfully, to shape their future pathway for life and lifelong love of learning!