Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)

In Early Years at Valley Invicta Primary School Leybourne Chase, we want parents and carers to feel secure in the knowledge that their child is well cared for and happy at school. 

We are incredibly proud of our Early Years Foundation Stage and we work hard to ensure the children make excellent progress through rich and challenging play based learning experiences. We want the children to have an unforgettable experience, in which they learn lifelong skills and gain an amazing, positive start to their education.  

Our Curriculum  

In the EYFS at Valley Invicta Primary School at Leybourne Chase, we offer a curriculum that is rich in wonder and language. Every child is recognised as a unique individual and we celebrate and welcome differences within our school community. 

The ability to learn is underpinned by the teaching of basic skills, knowledge, concepts and values. We provide a well balanced mix of adult directed and uninterrupted child initiated play to ensure the best outcomes for pupils, enabling us to develop a lifelong love of learning.  

Our EYFS curriculum is largely based upon rich core texts linking to the whole school overarching key themes. This allows the children to fully immerse themselves into each book to develop a richer introduction and understanding to developing language and early literacy skills.  

Our whole school themes are:

• Sustainable Development; 
• Tolerance and Social Justice; 
• Interdependence and Globalisation;  
• Conflict; 
• Equality and Diversity;  
• Inspiration and Aspiration. 

In the document below it states our termly themes across the year, In this document we have also listed key dates to remember linked to the curriculum. This document will be updated regularly to show any changes:  

Curriculum Overview

Alongside this we have a termly curriculum overview which includes the skills we will be learning across the term. It is great to keep up to date with our termly overview as you may continue to practise these skills at home with your child. You will find these uploaded termly on the homework tab in the Panda Class, Class page section. 

About Early Years Foundation Stage  

The EYFS is a very important stage in a child’s life as it helps prepare for school ‘readiness’ as well as preparing them for their future learning and successes. Children’s EYFS experience should be happy, active, exciting, fun and secure; and support their development, care and learning needs.  Children develop quickly; experiences before the age of five will have a major impact on their future life chances. 

The EYFS framework explains how and what children will be learning to support their healthy development and provide the foundation children need to make the most of their abilities and talents as they grow up. 

The EYFS specifies requirements for learning and development and for safeguarding children and promoting their welfare.  

Children will learn skills, acquire new knowledge and demonstrate their understanding through 7 areas of learning and development. 

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 a child’s healthy development and underpin a child’s future learning. 

As children grow, the prime areas will help them to develop skills in four specific areas. These are: 

• Literacy; 
• Mathematics; 
• Understanding the World; 
• Expressive Arts and Design. 

All 7 areas of learning are used to plan children’s learning and activities. The professionals teaching and supporting your child at school will make sure that the activities are suited to your child’s unique needs.  

Children in the EYFS learn by playing and exploring, being active, and through creative and critical thinking which takes place both indoors and outside. It is very important that they develop social skills, such as turn-taking, sharing and independence, which help them greatly in the next stages of their learning.  

The guiding principles that shape our practice in the Early Years are that children are born ready, able and eager to learn. They actively reach out to interact with other people, and in the world around them. Development is not an automatic process, however. It depends on each unique child having opportunities to interact in positive relationships and enabling environments. 

Phonics teaching and learning are a key part of the Foundation Stage and help to develop early reading and writing skills. We use a proven, systematic phonics programme called Read Write Inc. You can find about more about how we teach phonics here: 

https://www.leybournechase.viat.org.uk/3223/phonics-early-reading-and-rwi 

The Early Learning Goals

The EYFS curriculum consists of 17 aspects of learning and final Early Learning goals. 

Children are assessed at the end of the of Reception year against these Early Learning goals. From September 2021 onwards, each child’s level of development will be assessed against the Early Learning Goals. Practitioners will indicate whether children are meeting expected levels of development: 

• Emerging = not yet reaching expected levels of development for age; 
• Expected = reached expected levels of development for age. 

At Valley Invicta Primary School at Leybourne Chase, we provide our pupils with the opportunities to meet the Early Learning Goals in all these aspects. 

Assessment plays an important part in helping parents, carers and practitioners to recognise children’s progress, understand their needs and to plan activities and support. Ongoing assessment is an integral part of the learning and development process.  It involves practitioners observing children to understand their level of achievement, interests and learning styles. Then using this to shape learning experiences for each child reflecting observations made. 

To this end, we make systematic observations and assessments of each child's achievements, interests and learning styles.  We then use these observations and assessments to identify learning priorities and plan relevant and motivating learning experiences for each child. 

At Valley Invicta Primary School at Leybourne Chase, we use Tapestry to capture assessment detail and track progress towards the Early Learning Goals. We further strengthen this with detailed Maths, Literacy and Topic commentary and recordings of children’s work within their books. 

Year 1 teachers will communicate closely with Reception practitioners about each child’s skills and abilities in relation to the three key characteristics of effective learning. These will inform transition meetings to plan for learning needs and ensure all children can continue to flourish as they move into KS1. 

Please follow these links for a list of the Early Learning Goals and how you can help your child at home:

Early learning guide for parents

Activities to support early learning goals at home

To find out more about the EYFS framework please visit: 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/changes-to-the-early-years-foundation-stage-eyfs-framework/changes-to-the-early-years-foundation-stage-eyfs-framework 

You can also read our EYFS Intent, Implementation and Impact Statement