Brampton Church of England Primary School

Our Early Years Foundation Stage (Reception) Class

Children are aged 4-5 years old

Teacher: Mrs Naomi Bedwell 

Supported by: Mrs Angie Lay

On joining the school your child will be in Reception, the final year of the ‘Early Years Foundation Stage’ (EYFS), which is how the Government and Early Years Professionals describe the time in your child’s life between birth and age 5.

Through play and purposeful activities, the Early Years curriculum is designed to encourage learning which builds on and extends your child’s existing knowledge, experiences and interests in a caring and stimulating environment. Children learn by playing and exploring, being active, and through creative and critical thinking which takes place both indoors and outdoors. We ensure each child is reaching their full potential by observing and extending their play and encouraging them to do their best at every opportunity.

In Reception your child will be learning skills, acquiring new knowledge and demonstrating their understanding through 7 areas of learning and development, as set out by the EYFS Framework.

The three prime areas are:

• Personal, Social and Emotional Development
• Language and Communication
• Physical Development

These prime areas are those most essential for your child’s healthy development and future learning and will help them to develop skills in the four specific areas which are:

• Literacy
• Mathematics
• Understanding of the World
• Expressive Arts and Design

Personal, Social and Emotional development involves helping children to develop a positive sense of themselves, and others; to form positive relationships and develop respect for others; to develop social skills and learn how to manage their feelings; to understand appropriate behaviour in groups; and to have confidence in their own abilities.

Language and Communication development involves giving children opportunities to experience a rich language environment; to develop their confidence and skills in expressing themselves; and to speak and listen in a range of situations.

Physical Development involves providing opportunities for young children to be active and interactive; and to develop their co-ordination, control, and movement. Children must also be helped to understand the importance of pical activity, and to make healthy choices in relation to food.

Literacy development involves encouraging children to link sounds and letters and to begin to read and write. Children are given access to a wide range of reading materials (books, poems, and other written materials) to ignite their interest.

Mathematics involves providing children with opportunities to develop and improve their skills in counting, understanding and using numbers, calculating simple addition and subtraction problems; and to describe shapes, spaces, and measures.

Understanding the world involves guiding children to make sense of their physical world and their community through opportunities to explore, observe and find out about people, places, technology and the environment.

Expressive Arts and Design involves enabling children to explore and play with a wide range of media and materials, as well as providing opportunities and encouragement for sharing their thoughts, ideas and feelings through a variety of activities in art, music, movement, dance, role-play, and design and technology.

Each child in the EYFS has a ‘Learning Journey’ file, which is a record of experiences and learning presented through photographs and observations made of your child at school. All staff working with your child will add to the file and use it to identify the next steps in your child’s learning. At Brampton, we use an online version of the file, called ‘Tapestry’, which allows parents to access their child’s file from home, and add to it with their own comments and photographs etc. At the end of the year, parents are given their child’s learning journey as a PDF file to keep, share and treasure.

Through careful observation 'next steps' are identifeid for each individual and these determine the areas of learning we need to focus on. Seasonal events such as harvest time or Bonfire night are regular topics we cover. However, children’s interests and fascinations need to be responded to quickly to gain the full value of their curiosity and engagement at the time and our approach to planning allows us to do just that. It is the children themselves who dictate the majority of the topics we cover in Reception.   

To facilitate this further, each week we select a ‘focus child’ for the following week. These children are given an opportuntiy to upload 5 photos of interest to them (on Tapestry) and a consultation sheet for parents to fill in. On the return to school on Monday, the children share their photos with the rest of the class and these act as a springboard for ideas of activities the children might like to try. For example, one child had a particular interest in role playing being a 'teacher' so we set the role play area up as a class.   The learning opportunites grow easily out of these activities and the children are even more engaged in the learning because it is meaningful.  

Parents of the focus child are given the opportunity to raise any questions they might have about their child’s learning and development and at the end of the week, we invite these parents to look at the week of observations and activities planned for their child, and if the parent would like to discuss their child’s learning and development then we invite them into talk abut next steps for their childs learning. Our parent partnership is very important in ensuring that each childs needs get met, by working in partnership with the parents we achieved this to the fullest extent.