EYFS

Meet The Team.

        Mrs A Bowman                         Mrs Hulton                            Mrs Spencer-Peck                               Mrs Hoolickin                              

  EYFS Leader/Class Teacher   Full Time TA / Link TA      Management Cover Teacher             Subject Link Governor                                   

Intent

Our key aim, right from day one at St Saviour’s, is that children build strong trusting relationships with staff and feel happy, safe and secure in their learning environment.  We believe that once this has been established children can flourish and be supported to develop their independence, enquiring minds, openness to new ideas and ability to explore the natural world around them with excitement, wonder and curiosity.

We aim to develop the ability to work together with peers, build supportive, long lasting friendships and understand the importance of celebrating the fact that everyone is unique, special and has an important role to play within their school and wider community.

We have a passion for enabling children to develop their communication and language skills so that they are not only able to express themselves effectively and make themselves understood but also so that they can demonstrate their understanding, explore new language, communicate well with others and be able to show respect by having the ability to listen and respond to other people’s views, ideas and thoughts.

We want imagination to be celebrated and supported and this is done through the resources made available to the children and by the use of books. A love of reading and the benefits that books can provide is instilled from the very start of Reception.

For further details see the 'Intent Statement' included within this webpage.

Implementation

All EYFS programmes of study are carefully planned for and delivered. We use Development Matters to support with the progression and next steps in learning and to help guide children towards achieving all the EYFS outcomes. Daily observations, and interactions with the children and families, contribute to the planning process within EYFS. There is a yearly curriculum map in place to ensure progression, including a plan for themes and texts to be used through the year. Planning and overviews are reviewed through the year in order to ensure they meet the needs and interests of the cohort and to link to what is currently happening within the world around us.

We strongly recognise the importance of the prime areas of learning and these are high on our priorities when delivering the curriculum within EYFS, especially in the early months. Without a strong foundation in these areas we believe learning, understanding and retention of skills within other areas of learning can be shallow, short term and unreliable. We want to set children up effectively for the rest of their learning journey through our school and then future education and life and believe these skills, within the prime areas, are crucial to starting off that journey confidently and well equipped.

Our curriculum is both skills and knowledge based. We have a wide intake of children from a large number of settings and children arrive with a range of differing skills, experiences and needs. Therefore, we quickly identify these needs through our close relationships and careful observations and adapt the curriculum accordingly each year to meet these needs.

Alongside the rest of the school, Reception uses the following schemes to support with the delivery of certain areas of learning:

Phonics - Essential Letters and Sounds.

Mathematics - White Rose Maths.

RE - Manchester Diocese RE Scheme - Launched Spring 2024.

PSHE/RSE - SCARF.

For further details see the additional documents included within the webpage, such as the EYFS Policy, Curriculum Map and Knowledge and Skills Progressions documents.

Impact

Children settle quickly into routines at school and are included in lots of key stage and whole school activities. Strong links are fostered between home and school. This enables the pupils and their families to be supported through their first year at school and be prepared for the next stage of their journey.

Where necessary, links are made with outside agencies to support individual children where additional needs have been identified.

Each year our GLD has been historically broadly inline or slightly above the Bolton average.

The EYFS lead works closely with subject leaders in school and with the Year 1 teacher to ensure there is a smooth transition through school and that their learning fits within the long term planning across school.

The comments below have been taken from end of year report slips that parents completed. We feel the words from the parents and the children themselves are the real measure of the impact of our EYFS provision:

"Thank you so much to each and everyone of you for taking time to look after my little boy. He has come on so much since starting in September and that is thanks to you all."

"Thank you to all the staff for the immense support. Keep up the exceptional work you do because it matters so much to all of us, more than you realise."

"Thank you to mrs Bowman and Mrs Hulton for supporting *****in her first year of school. We couldn't have wished for more. Your dedication to children shines through all you do. We will miss you both."

"We are really pleased with ****report and are so proud of how much he has achieved in Reception!"

Key Documents

The file list below contains links to key subject documents.

*The Knowledge and Skill provision sheets are available 'per area of learning' via the EYFS lead. These are saved individually on the school network. 

*The year group expectations are taken from Development Matters but the actual educational programmes for each area can be found within the Statutory Framework document.

Additional Information

Further Overviews Including Termly Coverage and Activity Overviews 

In addition to the yearly curriculum map which has already been outlined on this page there are some additional overviews which can be accessed by clicking on the links below. The first relates to an overview of important texts and the second links to the White Rose Maths yearly overview which we follow as a whole school.

EYFS Literature Spine 2023 2024

EYFS White Rose Maths Overview 2023 2024.

The downloadable documents in the file list below outline which 'Development Matters' statements plan to be covered each term. There is also a document per term which then illustrates example activities that will be carried out to help achieve the targeted objectives. These are flexible depending on the cohorts needs at a particular time and their interests.

Phonics

We deliver 'Essential Letters and Sounds'. 

Essential Letters and Sounds is a Systematic Synthetic Phonics (SSP) programme which has been validated by the Department of Education

There are two links below which lead you to videos which help demonstrate how to pronounce each sound (phoneme) correctly. This is then followed by a PowerPoint which introduces the 'Essential letters and Sounds' scheme and gives parents an overview to the scheme.

Phase 2 ELS Sounds (phonemes) - How to Pronounce Each Grapheme. Click on the following link: https://vimeo.com/641445921

Phase 3 ELS Sounds (phonemes/digraphs/trigraphs) - How to Pronounce Each Grapheme. Click on the following link: https://vimeo.com/642342878/59d233684c

Reading

The reading scheme/books that we use are produced by Oxford University Press and are linked to the programme mentioned above.

Children are assigned physical books and eBooks from Oxford Owl weekly. www.oxfordowl.co.uk 

Children have their own individual logins to enable them to access books that have been specifically assigned to them in correspondence with their phonics learning in school. The decodable books provide opportunities to practice the letters and sounds taught that week and/or revise previously taught sounds. 

Below are some examples of the range of books available:

Little Blending Books     Words Sparks    Project X Phonics     Hero Academy     Hero Academy Non-fiction     Alien Adventures              Traditional Tales             Story Sparks and inFact 

Pupil Voice

We asked the children a number of questions about Reception and school and asked them to run and collect a smiley face or a sad face to reflect their answer. We then asked them specifically about what they loved about Reception and then what they thought could make it even better. Interestingly, some children who said they didn't like school came up with lots a great reasons why they love school!

Parental Views

We value the opinions of parents and recognise the importance of strong, supportive working relationships between home and school. We aim to make ourselves as accessible as possible to parents through our class e mail system, being accessible in the morning on the Reception gate and in an evening when we dismiss the children. We update a class and school Twitter and Facebook pages regularly along with the class website page and parents have opportunities through the year to come into school to see what their child is doing and experience their learning environment.

Click this link to download a document containing parental comments from during Lockdown and Remote Home learning - Reception 2020-2021

Click this link to download the 'Reception Parent Induction Questionnaire Analysis - October 2022'.

EYFS Research and Blogs

 The links below are for educational blogs and research blogs linking to aspects of EYFS, and early childhood development and education. They are ones that we have found useful when considering the provision and opportunities we provide for our children.

https://cornerstoneseducation.co.uk/news/how-to-provide-excellent-opportunities-for-early-reading/

The importance of providing excellent reading opportunities in EYFS

https://earlyyears.blog.gov.uk/2022/11/04/giving-children-the-best-start-in-life/

Ofsted – Early Years. Giving children the best start.

http://juliangrenier.blogspot.com/2021/12/creating-safe-happy-space-where.html

Creating the safe, happy space where children are inspired to talk, listen, play and learn: By Emma Davis. (Taken from a Julien Grenier link.)

http://juliangrenier.blogspot.com/2022/02/worries-and-anxieties-of-fussy-eaters.html

Worries, Anxieties and Fuss Eaters – Sarah Scotland (Taken from a Julien Grenier link.)

https://www.famly.co/blog/eyfs-development-matters-2020-julian-grenier

Development Matters 2020: Author Julian Grenier Explains All.

https://earlyexcellence.com/latest-news/press-articles/early-mathematical-experiences-2/

Early Mathematical Experiences: Playing games together. EEx Blo

EYFS In Action Around School

The Twitter feed below gives you in insight in to the learning that has been taking place within the EYFS at school and at home.