At All Saints, our aim is to provide an EYFS curriculum that will give children the skills to create a strong foundation for learning. We aim to enhance, support, and invite curiosity, self-confidence and individual ability to thrive regardless of backgrounds, circumstances or needs by creating a learning environment and building meaningful relationships with children and their families. We seek to work collaboratively with parents and carers to support happy, independent and enthusiastic learners who flourish in our setting. It is our intent that children who enter our EYFS develop a love of learning and begin their lifelong learning journey by developing cognitively, emotionally, physically, and verbally alongside developing spiritually and embedding the Gospel Values that shine through our school. 

To ensure children make outstanding progress in All Saints EYFS, it is our intent to take into consideration their starting points and needs of our pupils as they begin their learning journey. Every child has access to a broad, balanced curriculum that is adapted to their needs and can prepare them for future opportunities and experiences. Getting to know our children and families helps us to identify personal interests and individual needs and allows us to plan and provide opportunities throughout our EYFS curriculum to support learning and development and achieve their next steps. We work closely with Anfield Children’s Centre and get to know our families in a warm, inviting and supportive community. 

Our EYFS curriculum aims to enable our children to be:

Communicators – Connecting with others through language and play, ensuring that they play in a vocab rich environment. Confident to speak, listen, ask questions and try new things. 

Gentle and Honest– Treat others with kindness and gentility. Able to share with others and work together as a team.

Faith-filled – Beginning to form a relationship with God and grow spiritually.

Peaceful – Thoughtful about other people and respectful of differences

Knowledgeable and curious – Wondering about the world they live in and how to care for it and the people around them.

Prepared – Equipped with the necessary skills and vocabulary to help them access the National Curriculum and build on their existing learning.

Independent – A role model to others who enjoys coming to school can identify and regulate their own emotions, take care of themselves and eager to keep trying.

It is our intent to ensure that all children will receive the teaching of early reading through systematic, synthetic phonics to learn to read words and simple sentences accurately by the end of Reception. We also aim for children to develop the fine motor skills needed to write effectively and communicate in the written form.

Implement

At All Saints we follow the Early Years Foundation Stage framework. This is made up of four principles which our early year’s education is based upon:

• Unique Child – Every child is unique child who is constantly learning and can be resilient, capable, confident and self-assured.
• Positive Relationships – Children learn to be strong and independent through positive relationships.
• Enabling Environments – Children learn and develop well in enabling environments, in which their experiences respond to their individual needs and there is a strong partnership between practitioners and parents and carers.
• Learning and Development – Children develop and learn in different ways. The framework covers the education and care of all children in early year’s provision, including children with special educational needs and disabilities.

The Early Years Foundation Stage sets the standards for learning and care of children aged 0-5. The curriculum provides a play-based and experiential learning environment, combined with focussed teaching and basic skills, to ensure children make rapid progress before moving onto Year 1. Children are taught through a blend of whole class learning, adult-led key learning experiences as well as free exploration and play through indoor and outdoor continuous provision. 

The EYFS statutory framework has been set by the Government and provides the standards by which all Early Years settings much abide to ensure that children learn and develop well, are healthy and safe, and have the knowledge and skills that they need to start school.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-foundation-stage-framework–2

To support practitioners in implementing the statutory requirements of the EYFS, our practitioners and teachers use the document Development Matters. The use of this document gives our staff the guidance needed to ensure that they are providing the appropriate provision for our children to succeed, develop and grow.

Development Matters – Non-statutory curriculum guidance for the early years foundation stage (publishing.service.gov.uk)

Characteristics of Effective Learning 

The early years of a child’s development are crucial to their success throughout school and later life. Characteristics of effective learning (CoEL) is a term that offers a critical structure for practitioners to support children and helps them to make sense of how the children in their provision are learning. Children benefit from meaningful learning across the curriculum and staff plan resourcefully for opportunities for communication, sustained shared thinking and physical challenge to build on existing skills taking into account the Characteristics of Effective Learning.

A characteristic of effective teaching and learning is an understanding of how children learn and grow. It is incredibly important for practitioners to think about how learning in the early years is taking place. We believe that rich first hand experiences (inside, outdoors, visitors and school trips) are important to widen experiences, awe and wonderment. We ensure exploratory learning and creative thinking including problem solving across is evident across all areas of learning. We plan carefully for new vocabulary and concepts through reading and we hope these will excite and engage all learners which includes staff modelling standard English and asking high quality questions.

There are three characteristics of effective learning in the development matters document;

• playing and exploring – children investigate and experience things and ‘have a go.’
• active learning – children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties and enjoy achievements
• creating and thinking critically – children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things.

Observations and Reporting

We often refer to the characteristics of effective learning when making observations about children. We observe our children regularly to understand their stage of development and current learning progressions and consider next steps. As practitioners we are always reflecting and the CoEL help us to notice what a child is doing and what characteristics support a child’s learning. 

At All Saints we use OPAL to support us with observations of children. OPAL stands for Observation of Play and Learning and was developed by Barnet Early Years Alliance. The focus of observation should be on the child and what they need from their learning environment. Each child is different and developing at different rates and this needs to be recognised. OPAL celebrates individuality and values the fact that Children do not develop at a ‘typical rate’. Each child is different and OPAL takes this into consideration. It works based on having simple, six-monthly developmental milestones, which are used to track a children’s developmental progress. The simplicity of the platform allows for more time being spent with children. We believe this is the best way to get to know them and allows teachers and practitioners to plan activities and experiences that support and inspire their children. An important element of OPAL is the collaborative approach with parents. By working with parents, nursery practitioners and Reception staff can build their knowledge of the child and their families into the classroom environment and provision to support a child’s interests and to maximise their engagement.

BEYA | OP&L

Curriculum

The EYFS is a time when children can engage with the world around them and begin to make sense of their new learning and put skills into practice in a fun and non-threatening environment. Our provision has been carefully and thoughtfully planned by the practitioners and is designed with a blend of adult led inputs or key learning experiences alongside child initiated interactions in both indoor and outdoor provisions. The children have the opportunity to encounter new and varied vocabulary, be exposed to new ideas and opportunities and develop interpersonal skills on a day to day basis. They also place a great importance on practicing basic skills that they will need to access the National Curriculum such as scissor skills, writing/fine motor skills, and phonics. Practitioners have an in-depth knowledge of these skills and follow the child’s developmental progression in order to support and nurture their skills and improve their accuracy.

Curriculum promotes and supports children’s emotional security and development of their character allowing children to take risks in a safe and secure environment. Supporting children to be active and to develop physically including giving clear messages to children why it is important to eat, drink and exercise as well as to treat others with respect and kindness. 

We also ensure that in designing our curriculum that we keep the cultural capital of children at the forefront and is carefully considered and woven through out provision, themes, books, resources and interaction. Please visit our Curriculum page for more information about what makes our All Saints EYFS curriculum shine!

Our All Saints EYFS Curriculum 

Learning is brought to life and made relevant for our youngest children through half-termly topics presented alongside high-quality children’s literature and supported by a progression of skills and knowledge-based objectives reinforced by the EYFS Educational Programs. Our curriculum is delivered through a blend of adult-led key learning experiences and child-initiated activities including daily free exploration time in our indoor and outdoor provision.

Here are our Long-Term Plans:

Two Year Room Long Term Plan

Three to Four Year Room Long Term Plan

The learning experiences within our Early Years Curriculum are linked to the seven areas of learning and development within the EYFS. These areas are split into three prime areas and four specific areas. The three prime areas are those which the children should develop first and are considered most essential for the healthy development and future learning of our children. These include:

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

As children develop and make progress in the prime areas, this will help them to naturally develop skills within the four specific areas. These are:

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

Communication and Language

Communication and Language is a huge part of our curriculum and is prioritised throughout our adult-led and child-initiated learning.

In Reception, we have adopted “The Poetry Basket” as a program to allow our children to learn a new poem each week alongside accompanying actions, intonations, expression and basic oracy skills.

Check out some videos of our staff and children reciting some of our favourites!

In Nursery we use Jane Considine’s FANTASTICS to help children begin to organise vocabulary that they are encountering. The FANTASTICS are a wonderful way for children to explore and expand the words that they come across when reading and then apply them later on. 

Physical Development

Children learn by doing! The EYFS is the time where children develop the skills needed to access the National curriculum such as pencil control for writing, cutting, gluing, and painting, as well as life skills such as getting dressed, joining and fastening.

All new skills have to begin somewhere! Click on the links to see skills progression maps that we follow for writing, pencil control and cutting.

Cutting Skills

Pencil Grip

Writing Skills

Dough Disco

Beginning in our Two-Year-Old provision, children access daily dough disco sessions. This benefits children because they need to have strong muscles in their hands to enable them to write effectively as well as use instruments like scissors, glue or small tools. Dough disco exercises the fingers to improve fine motor control and gross motor skills. The simple, fun exercises help children prepare for writing while following instructions and having fun. Dough Disco can be used for children of all ages and is used throughout our EYFS and adapted for older children as well to support them in developing their fine motor skills and hand strength.

Dough Disco ™ – Spread the happiness

Squiggle Whilst You Wiggle

Our Nursery children participate in weekly Squiggle Whist You Wiggle sessions to help them develop the gross and fine motor skills needed to improve the core strength needed for good handwriting. Through a mixture of movement, dance and scribbling. Children have the opportunity to build strength and understand the movements needed to write letters later on.

Shonette Bason, the author of the Squiggle Whilst you Wiggle program and Dough Disco, show us how it’s done in this video for parents. Take a peek and try some moves at home!

Funky Fingers

Our Nursery and Reception children are doing lots of mark-making and writing and that requires more and more strength in their hands. To get quicker and faster, our children have “Funky Fingers” work that is woven through our daily timetable where they can access a variety of activities to help their fingers and hands get stronger. Activities include threading, peg boards, clothespin pegging games, buttoning, and weaving. These funky fingers activities are also programmed as additional interventions for those children who require more specialised work. 

Gros Motor Skills

We provide a range of resources in our outdoor area to support core strength, flexibility, spatial awareness, balance, etc. We have used MOVERS to rate our outdoor areas and resource them accordingly. 

Our staff have been trained in Bikeability for EYFS and we offer a range of balance bikes and helmets to support the learning of bicycle skills and balance.

PSED

An important part of our All Saints EYFS curriculum is centred around our understanding of ourselves, our self-regulation skills, and how we treat others.

Oral Health – This is covered in all years of the EYFS at All Saints through visits from Oral Health and tooth brushing specialists through our children’s centre, termly tooth-brushing discussions and experiences in our provision and day to day informal conversations around oral health predominantly during lunch and snack times. 

Independence – children are encouraged to feed themselves using cutlery, dress themselves, wear appropriate clothing for the weather independently and show resilience and independence in the face of challenge

Zones of Regulation – introduced in Reception to help children identify their emotions and learn strategies to deal with how they are feeling.

Massage – Our Nursery and Reception children participate weekly in the Massage in Schools program. Children are guided through a peaceful and respectful program of child-friendly massage moves with a partner. They learn the value of consent, respecting our bodies, and how it can feel pleasant to connect with others.

Learning to Serve: Rowan Garth – Our Reception children participate in weekly visits to residents of our local care home, Rowan Garth. They visit residents who are living with dementia and do activities surrounding communication and language, storytelling, and arts and crafts. It is a pleasure to be a part of this project and we love the special connection that we share with the residents and staff.

Journey in Love (RE/PSHE) – Our children in Reception learn about relationships and personal health through the Journey in Love program endorsed by the Archdiocese, Information about this has been sent out to all parents so that they are aware of the topics being discussed and the way in which we approach them. Please see our RE page for more details. 

Curriculum – Our bespoke PSHE curriculum at All Saints uses local ward data to address the issues that are prevalent to our children in our own community. We link our learning in NUrsery and Reception to this through our texts and themes throughout the year as well as through discussions and issues that arise through play. 

Literacy

Our literacy curriculum centres around a variety of carefully chosen fiction and non-fiction texts. This literature not only exposes the children to the world around them, but it also introduces them to a wide and enriched vocabulary that they can begin to apply to their imaginative play and daily communication. 

Writing

The writing journey begins in Nursery in our two-year-old provision where children access Scribble Club through key learning experiences. Scribble Club is aimed at our youngest children and is an exploration of the delight of scribbling and shows children the massive joy of mark making within provision. It gives the opportunity to link mark making to invention, magic and story. As children transition to our pre-school setting, they progress to Drawing Club where we open up the magic world story to children whilst at the same time enriching their language skills and develop their fine motor skills through key learning experiences.

 In Reception we have chosen quality thematic texts to meet the interests of the children and follow the flow of our holistic curriculum. We follow the main elements of the Literacy Company’s Ready, Steady, Write framework in order to prepare children for this program when they move into KS1. Our Reception curriculum uses quality literature to immerse the children in their class texts and develop their writing skills. The units of work centre on engaging, vocabulary-rich texts, with a wealth of writing opportunities.   Several of these texts have strong thematic links to Understanding the World and cultural capital is entrenched. During writing sessions, the teacher models writing and talks aloud the process of a writer.  The teacher may model writing skills such as punctuation, letter formation, phonetic spelling, sentence construction and vocabulary. There are lots of opportunities for discussion to talk about the use of language and ambitious vocabulary.

Reading

We put great value and importance on reading at All Saints. We have dedicated daily time for reading and storytelling and children have free access to their classroom library and cosy reading spaces.

Our Reception classes have organised a classroom library project which allows children the opportunity to take books home to share with their families. This has been a huge success and has ramped-up the buzz around reading in their classrooms!

Half-termly “Stay and Read” sessions are another way that we try to enhance the profile of reading in our Early Years classrooms. They are a great way to share a love of books with our friends and families.

Phonics

Phonics lessons are taught daily from EYFS through the systematic synthetic phonics programme, Little Wandle.

The programme, Little Wandle Foundation for Phonics, begins in Nursery in our two-year-old provision where children are provided with child-led and adult-led experiences for all children that meet the curriculum expectations for ‘Communication and language’ and ‘Literacy’. These include sharing high-quality stories and poems, learning a range of nursery rhymes and action rhymes, activities that develop focused listening and attention, including oral blending and attention to high-quality language.

The phonics sessions support children to:

• develop their phonological awareness, including rhyme, alliteration, syllables, initial and voice sounds, and oral blending
• love stories and rhymes, and learn by heart a bank of familiar favourites
• increase their vocabulary and confidence to talk
• improve their listening and ability to take part in back-and-forth conversations

Nursery

Our Nursery children receive daily phonics sessions from as young as 2 years old. In our two-year-old provision, the children encounter the world of sound through a mixture of games and activities linking to environmental sounds, beat, percussion, instruments, rhythm and rhyme. This can be carried out through independent play in sound Treasure baskets, discovery Tuff trays, hidden sounds in sand and water, instrument exploration, etc. Or through adult-initiated games and activities such as sound walks, guessing games, nursery rhymes, movement songs, etc.

From our Three-Year-old provision we begin to introduce the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised progression. This is achieved through large and small groups sessions.

Reception

Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised progression carries on through Reception , which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school. Daily phonics sessions are taught in Reception for 30 minutes. Any child in Reception who needs additional practice has Daily Keep-up support and is taught by a fully trained adult.

In Reception, reading practice sessions take place using books matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge. We also ensure that children have individual reading times with adults in school. This decodable reading practice book is taken home daily to ensure success is shared with the family and reading practice continues. 

Mathematics

We follow the Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework and Development Matters 2021 in Nursery and Reception. We call attention to the mastery of these key early concepts. Children question and examine numbers in a practical way both indoors and outdoors in order to prepare themselves for the transition into Y1.

In Nursery we take a step-by-step approach to achieving fluency in the six key areas of Mathematics:

Cardinality and counting, Comparison, Composition, Pattern, Shape and Space, Measure.

We feel that it is important the revisit all aspects of Mathematics on a regular basis to ensure that learning is embedded. We do this by focusing on one number at a time starting with 0 and exploring this number in great depth. Mathematics is everywhere in our provision, and we refer to the six key areas in all learning experiences, even when baking!

Mastering Number

All Saints is taking part in the National for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM) project to support the teaching of basic maths skills in our school. This project aims to secure firm foundations in the development of good number sense (a deep understanding of number) for all children from Reception through to Year 1 and Year 2.

The aim over time is that if children have a strong foundation in mathematics, they will move into KS1 with increased fluency in calculation and a confidence and flexibility with number. Research shows that children with secure ‘number sense’ early on will make more progress in Maths and across the curriculum.

Over time, through our Mastering Number sessions, our children will:

• Develop fluency in calculation and a flexibility with number that illustrates good number sense. 
• Strive for our children to learn Maths facts to automaticity 
• Be able to communicate their own mathematical ideas. 
• Make good progress towards the Early Learning Goals 
• Demonstrate a willingness to ‘have a go’

Our Mastering Number sessions are inclusive and engaging. They enable children to develop number sense and secure core knowledge and prioritise accessible learning which encourages children to have a firm understanding. We are endeavouring for all of our pupils to develop depth in understanding. We want all of our children to become mathematically observant, look for relationships and explain their thinking.

Principles underpinning Mastering Number at All Saints: 

• Developing fluency makes more pupils better able to access maths all around them. We do this by making connections between Mastering Number sessions and provision in EYFS. 
• Developing our children’s mindset to look for mathematical relationships will aid development and support connections. We do this by drawing pupils’ attention to the relationships so that they can connect with prior learning. 
• Building confidence will enable more pupils to make progress. We do this by focussing on enabling all pupils to really understand a small step in learning.

Shape, Space and Measure

In addition to Mastering Number, we take a specific look each week at Shape, Space and Measure. Although this is no longer an Early Learning Goal, we believe that having a good understanding and knowledge of these elements of Mathematics will help children access Year 1 more effectively and provide important building blocks for their early mathematical skills. We teach children visualising skills and how to understand relationships such as the effects of movement and combining shapes together rather the just knowing the name of a shape. We provide the opportunity for children to engage actively in making comparisons and exploring equivalence of length, volume, capacity and weight in different ways. 

We provide structured experiences for the children to develop spatial skills to explore spatial relations and properties of shapes in order to develop mathematical thinking. Although children have access to equipment such as rulers and scales this is difficult for children to understand therefore we teach children how to measure length and height using non-standard measures for example how many blocks tall is a sunflower? We use balance scales to compare which items are heavier or lighter. 

Parent Partnership

At All Saints’ we believe that partnership with parents is key to educational success. We provide lots of opportunities for parents to be involved in their children’s mathematical learning through our Come and Count sessions in Nursery and Reception. 

Assessment

Children at the expected level of development will be able to do the following by the end of Reception:

Number:

• Have a deep understanding of number to 10, including the composition of each number;
• Subitise (recognise quantities without counting) up to 5;
• Automatically recall (without reference to rhymes, counting or other aids) number bonds up to 5 (including subtraction facts) and some number bonds to 10, including double facts.

Numerical Pattern:

• Verbally count beyond 20, recognising the pattern of the counting system;
• Compare quantities up to 10 in different contexts, recognising when one quantity is greater than, less than or the same as the other quantity;

Understanding the World

Our children are exposed to the world of Science, History, Geography and Technology through this area of learning. We provide a wide array of opportunities and experiences for our children to make the world come to life and encourage them to make discoveries and ask questions.

Expressive Arts and Design

Our children have the opportunity to make their learning come to life through their own creativity in our Indoor and outdoor provisions. They have access to a wide range of resources to make their imaginations shine. Check out some of our most recent work!

In Harmony

Our children participate in weekly lessons in basic musicianship delivered by our partners at the Liverpool Philharmonic.

Two-Year Olds – Are provided with a session called Tuning-In. In this session they are guided through sound to interact with people and instruments. The leaders interact with the children by copying, responding and reacting to their discoveries using instrumental sounds.

Three/Four-Year-Olds and Reception – Weekly lessons delivered through a specialist curriculum written by the Liverpool Philharmonic and supported by members of the Philharmonic. Children learn about pitch, beat and rhythm through a selection of carefully-chosen songs and tunes and perform their learning termly to their parents in a sharing session.

Impact:

The experiences of the children’s learning will be revisited and displayed through being deeply engaged in play. Our children will grow to be confident, capable lifelong learners and good citizens in their local and global communities.

The children at All Saints experience a smooth, careful and efficient transition between Nursery, Reception and beyond. Effective communication and collaboration ensure the children leave the EYFS with a solid foundation of learning of which to build upon. Conversations between Reception and Year One staff surrounding the EYFSP of each child are planned for and timetabled to ensure that all children and their strengths and needs are understood as they move into Key Stage One. 

We use learning journey scrapbooks, OPAL observations and Seesaw journals across the EYFS, supplemented with teacher-led workbooks in Reception and independent portfolios, which evidence the successes of the children throughout their time in Early Years.

As a team, we carry out regular internal moderation sessions and ensure that staff attend external moderation, local area triads and training to ensure that we feel confident with our judgements and that these judgements are consistent with a range of other settings. Assessment starts with careful observations which are then used to inform planning. Learning and teaching is therefore effective when children feel a sense of belonging, curiosity and competence showing resilience and tenacity.

By monitoring assessment regularly, we can demonstrate what learning is taking place and how each child is progressing in all seven areas of the EYFS curriculum. Our GLD exhibits the impact of the learning and teaching in the EYFS at All Saints. The progress amongst the children was notable from their starting point.